Warm up - 1. Draw small

For this exercise, I used an Apple Pencil with Adobe Fresco on an iPad. I am blown away with the improvement in drawing tablets since owning a little Wacom back in 2007.

tech. co. uk staff (2007) Wacom graphire 4 review, TechRadar. Available at: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/peripherals/input-devices/graphics-tablets/wacom-graphire-4-51563/review (Accessed: 1 April 2022).

How we did things in the olden days.

The response rate and mark making abilities are truly astounding. I can't quite get over the ability to create tone and shade based on both the pressure used as well as the angle of the nib.

The purpose of this exercise was to bring an element of mindfulness to the physical sensations of drawing rather than purely focusing on the output.

Here is a gallery of my attempts for each scenario:

It was a particular challenge to use my non dominant hand. I felt like a toddler learning how to write the letter 0 for the first time. It was quite a slow process compared with using my dominant hand. The “lean” on the O wanted to go in a different direction to those I drew with my dominant hand, and I found that a lot of my ovals didn't join up. It was also really hard to make the shapes uniform in their curvature and size when using my left hand.

Part of the issue I had with drawing with my left hand, apart from the fact it is weaker and untrained, was the fact I couldn't quite see the nib of my pencil as my hand was in the way. This made it very difficult to draw neatly and to join up the O at the same spot where I commenced the mark making.

I also found that my hand would start to cramp whilst repeating the same tiny motions over and over again. I ended up having to take a little break. I could draw about 5 or 6 Os as I progressed left to right, before I was required to shift my arm position and make the motion from my wrist rather than just using the fingers to create the O motion.