Drawing From The Right Side Of My Brain
Where It Started
I bought Drawing On The Right Side Of the Brain sometime in the '90s. Flipped through it a few times. Always meant to read it. Never did.
In 2016, the son of the author came to town to teach it as a week long course. It was expensive, but the web site showed pretty incredible progress for folks who attended. I was half convinced they were just picking the best examples, but I had vacation I needed to burn and figured it was worth a short. I splurged.
It was worth every penny.
After the introduction and some general instruction, everyone draws a self-portrait on the first day. Here's mine:
With the instructions we'd had, everyone's looked about the same quality. Mine was middle of the pack. Not far from either the best or the worst.
The class proceeded as an exhausting 5 days of concentration, learning, and drawing. The results blew my mind.
Everyone draws another self-portrait on the last day of class. A way to measure progress.
It was amazing.
Where It Wound Up
Here's the piece from the end of the class
As before, everyone in the class produced art of roughly the same quality. Mine was again middle of the pack and again not far from the worst or the best.
I never thought I could draw. I convinced myself I couldn't. I thought the ability was magic. Some folks had it. I didn't
I couldn't have been more wrong. There's no magic. It's a skill and skills can be taught. As much as I'd heard that, I didn't realize how true a statement it is. It's truer than I could have imagined.
-a
Endnotes
Please forgive the dower expression. The portrait is done looking in a mirror and we were told to keep a neutral expression so we didn't have to hold a smile. Given that it took four hours, that was good advice.