Two Handed Drawing Exercises

Value of Two-Handed Exercises

Skill, speed, and grace are acquired by the rhythmical two-handed exercises, and for this the blackboard is the most effective place. Each pupil should be provided with two pieces of crayon.

In each of the following examples the starting point is indicated by a 1.

If possible two-handed work should be continued until the pupil becomes, in fact, ambidextrous, but each exercise should be about five minutes long. The exercise may be alternated by two-handed pencil work at the desk.

Pupils should be instructed to erase with slow downward strokes. This will prevent the raising of clouds of chalk-dust.

The best movements at first are the quarter circles, reversed; starting at the top in Fig.2.

After continued exercise in the lines at top of Fig. I proceed with the more complex lines below.

In Fig. 2 the lines cause freedom of movement and train the muscles.

Fig. 3 consists of two-handed exercises intended to try the ingenuity of the pupil by adapting them to more intricate designs modeled on these examples. Let him add details to these and also other figures given in earlier examples of simple forms.

For two-handed exercises on the blackboard broad, sweeping lines are to be recommended. The lines should be started at a bout the height of the head, the converging points at about the middle of the chest

Fig. 4 contains suggestions for two-handed exercises, in which the hands work independently.

The lines on the right-hand side of each object are to be; drawn first with the right hand; immediately afterward the opposite half is to be completed with the left hand. Short strokes, as indicated, should be made in the upper figures, and will be found to act as an aid to accuracy. These exercises are adapted for blackboard and pencil.

The pupil need not be discouraged because his drawings look wrong to his own eyes. The time for discouragement will really have arrived (though he won’t know it) when he is quite satisfied with his own work.

On the other hand, dissatisfaction with his own work is evidence that he is not at a standstill, but is striving for improvement. Encourage the pupil to criticize his own work. Having made a drawing, let him put it aside, and, after a period, look at it carefully and see where he can improve a line here, or strengthen or lighten a line there to the betterment of the whole drawing. This sort of practice means real advancement.