I took an exercise from Betty Edwards book, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”. These exercises are to help people improve their drawing skills. By drawing an image upside down we can develop perceptual skills to see things as they really are. In this exercise I found I had to look at shapes as I really saw them, and I was less able to impose thoughts or perceptions on the image I was copying. Overall I found this a really useful exercise that I will use again.

The image I chose to copy from was the head of Fra Angelico taken from a larger painting called the “The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament” by Raphael, located in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

The image on the left is the original painting of Fra Angelico by Raphael. The image on the right is my sketchbook drawing (drawn upside down).

Finished drawing. My sketchbook turned the right way up.