Upside Drawing: Home

Upside down drawing is a fascinating study of learning to see the way an artist sees, while not actually identifying what you are depicting or seeing.

This is an excellent exercise in improving your accuracy when drawing from photos. More than this however, it’s also a lesson which will re-frame your ideas about drawing in general, and teach a basic principle that can also dramatically improve your drawing when working from life

One of the most iconic drawing assignments in any art class has to be "Igor Stravinsky" by Pablo Picasso. This sketch was created by Picasso in 1920 and has been used by art teachers as an example of drawing using the right side of your brain. Now Picasso did not sketch this picture upside down, however, when we flip this picture upside down it becomes confusing. As an artist you should be able to draw a picture right side up, upside-down, sideways, backwards, or anyways imaginable. That is because the most important part of the image is not the image itself, but the lines that make it up. Arrange the lines in the correct prder and you can have a masterpiece.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain® was published in 1979 and since then has remained the preeminent book on its subject, used as a standard text in many art schools around the world and on the shelves of artists everywhere. Four million copies have been sold, and it has been translated into many foreign languages.