Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

This book takes me back to when I was 15, studying for Art GCSE. The teacher made us read and study this book from beginning to end. It taught us to draw what we saw, not what we thought we saw - something that transformed our work. I would highly recommend this for anyone who would like to 'learn' how to draw.

"The purpose of this book is not to teach you to express yourself, but instead to provide you with the skills which will release you from stereotypic expression," declares Edwards. Just as Updike taught me to look at a painting and see everything in it, Edwards taught me to look at what I sought to draw. Citing research on differences in right brain and left brain function, Edwards bases her teaching method on the premise "that developing a new way of seeing by tapping the spatial functions of the right hemisphere of your brain can help you learn to draw." The exercises presented are designed to train the student to process visual information through the right brain, the side that sees things as they are, rather than the left brain, show more where human beings store symbols for what they see. The results of working with Edwards's exercises were surprising and satisfying for me. By following the book's instructions, reasonable, realistic representations of people and objects began to emerge from my pencil.

I was working from Edwards's 1979 edition when I learned to draw in 1997. There is a lot of new information in the 1989 edition. She has a greater emphasis on what she calls drawing as a "global skill." Global skills, such as reading, become automatic over time. Thus, by learning the four basic skills Edwards teaches, you will eventually (sooner, rather than later, she claims) draw just as automatically as you read. She has also expanded and improved the skill of sighting and the skill of the perception of lights and shadows. And to aid those who plan on going into painting, she has added a chapter on drawing with color. show less

I’m reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain right now, and I’m finding it fascinating. I’ve always been intrigued by the influence of the right versus the left brain. This method of learning to draw is supposed to help those like me, who are left-brainers, let the right side of the brain take over to do the drawing. I’ve done a few exercises in it already, one of which was drawing one of those profiles that looks like a vase picture. The other was an upside-down drawing (a Picasso, no less!). The purpose of this is to influence your left brain to turn this task down: it won’t like drawing something it can’t name. Once your right brain gets the opportunity to express itself, drawing becomes easier. The chapter I show more thought was very interesting was about how most of us get stuck in the artistic stage of a 10 to 12 year old. Verbal development causes us to name everything and assign symbols to things. Every time we draw, therefore, we use symbols, such as a sun drawn in the corner of the page. It is hard to draw what we really see when we are so used to letting our left brain interpret and express the symbol. I’m looking forward to seeing some artistic development as I work my way through this book. MLM Jan 1/12 show less

Most art books give you instruction to improve your technique, building on what you already know. This book taught me how to draw. Literally. This is the book to read if you don't know the first thing about drawing but would really like to learn.

Excellent (so far); succeeds in leading you to being confident and to draw what you actually see.

Think you can't draw? Think again. You don't have to buy the left brain / right brain stuff to benefit from this. It was amazing fun to find out, in my forties, that I can actually draw reasonably well if I have a model to look at.

So I still don't draw very well, but this really helped me understand how to look at art and drawing.