Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Research into facial expressions and the workings of the human brain has offered an interesting theory that not only explains left and right difference in facial expressions, but helps explain how there are two modes of thinking, verbal and nonverbal, represented rather separately in left and right hemispheres

Try this test… What side of the brain do you think the most with?

LEFT BRAIN uses logic detail oriented facts rule words and language present and past math and science can comprehend knowing acknowledges order/pattern perception knows object name reality based forms strategies practical safe RIGHT BRAIN uses feeling "big picture" oriented imagination rules symbols and images present and future philosophy & religion can "get it" (i.e. meaning) believes appreciates spatial perception knows object function fantasy based presents possibilities impetuous risk taking

What does this have to do with drawing? When you were little the left side of your brain needed to organize the world around you and came up with symbols for everything. These are called schemas…

O ver the years some of your schemas have gotten more complex, but they still do not represent exactly what you are seeing. When you are drawing your brain struggles to draw the symbol your left brain has come up with, while the right side wants to draw what it actually sees. This struggle between the two side can often be frustrating.

Learning to draw means learning to make a mental shift from the Left mode to Right mode. That is what a person trained in drawing does, and that is what you can learn. There are some techniques that can help you learn which side of the brain to tune into…

Try the following exercise to see if you can feel the struggle between the right and left side of your brain.

Use your pencil and draw over the lines of the vase, as you go over a part name it out loud. E.g.. Forehead, nose, mouth, chin. Now go to the other side and try to draw in the missing side of the vase.

This Vase/Faces exercise helps each person to experience, in their own minds, the mental "crunch" that can occur in drawing. Let me tell you why this mental conflict happens. First, I asked you to name each feature, thus strongly "plugging in" the verbal system of the brain. Then I asked you to simultaneously complete the second profile and the vase. This can only be done by shifting to the visual, spatial mode of the brain. The difficulty of making that mental shift causes a feeling of conflict and confusion - and perhaps even a momentary mental paralysis. Didn't you feel it? The solution to the conflict, of course, is to draw just what you see without naming the parts.

Step two: Using the image your teacher will give you, draw it upside down. Don’t look at it right side up until you are complete. Use Sighting-where you look at where something is in relation to something else. Look at the shapes and spaces in- between stuff.

Step Three: We will do blind contour drawings of your hands. You will be drawing quite a few of these.