I'm going through my Jackie Chan, Snake in Eagle Shadow style training regime during the summer, which involves a lot of paper and pencils so to sharpen my practice. To help I've been studying Betty Edwards and found this instructional video. Doing her exercises is what I consider a confidence booster, her philosophy is all about trying to get the mind in a mode that works for the artist. It's all about not drawing symbols and icons with the left side of your brain and instead maintaining a focus on gestural marks and having a pre-visualising mentality.
The most interesting thing I learned from her thus far is that if you close one eye you will see the world in a two dimensional way, makes sense since you need two eyes to watch 3D films at the cinema. I'll remember that if I'm doing close up live studies. Another thing is that it is easy for our mind to process symbols, Edwards makes it clear that we should focus our mind on shapes more in order to draw life like imagery.
