Finally! Back to drawing. Believe it or not, this drawing was done with the idea of sketching the negative shapes. I may have done it a little backwards in that I darkened the positive space rather than the negative shape at the end, but I did draw the negative spaces first. Interesting idea.
One thing that I wonder about with using the drawing plane - is why it has been dived into four squares. I am sort of surprised it is not in a grid of nine squares or three rows across and three columns down. This is the idea of the rule of thirds and is a traditional compositional devise.
Also, I find that using the glass picture plane is a bit complicated. You hold it up and trace the contours of your composition onto the glass. However, if you move in the slightest, it alters the proportions. It makes for a bit of frustration.
I had not meant it to be so long since my last post, but chalk it up to “life happens.” I have not forgotten this process I am involved in, but if you are reading The Transparent Hypnotist, then you know I have been on travel and away from the pencil and sketchbook.
To get us caught up, the turning girl generated even more dialogue on The Transparent Hypnotist. Just do a search on that blog for the turning girl if you are interested.
What I have learned form it all, is that there is much to learn about consciousness and the functioning of the two brain hemispheres. They are individual and have their own traits in how they help us to function.
Oddly, I just came across a marvelous video of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist (see above). It is as interesting as the turning girl, but to be fair, the video takes about 19 minutes to watch. However, I urge you to give it a go. This is not boring science or a lecture on dusty ideas. It is a brain scientist’s experience with the two hemispheres of her brain, as she experienced a stroke. This was taped at the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference.
While my world has moved on, sadly, my progress here has been slow. But we are just about ready to move onto chapter seven of The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I thought it would be good to do at least one more drawing using the picture plane drawing technique and decided that my favorite coffee mug needed to be immortalized.
Also, I have received a lot of response for the turning girl post. Thanks to all of you who took the time to comment. I address it on The Transparent Hypnotist this morning, so I do not want to really repeat it here. However, one commenter mentioned that there were no studies to really prove the idea of right brain/left brain differences when it comes to consciousness. Betty Edwards, Drawing’s author dedicates chapter three to this. Indeed studies have been done, and both brains are involved in high-functioning ways or:
“that both hemispheres are involved in higher cognitive functioning, with each half of the brain specialized in complementary fashion for different modes of thinking…”
There is more too it and if you are interested, you might want to look at chapter three (the quote is from there).
So, I cheated. Sort of. In this last exercise in chapter six, I decided to make it harder than I had too.
It all started with continuing on from our last exercise, which was to make contour (outline) drawings of our hands upon a glass picture plane. I had to do another hand pose because I had already erased the last one I did. This time, the idea was to transfer the hand drawing onto paper and actually draw the hand. Since the examples in the book showed the hand with props, I added my trusty pendulum to the composition. This is where I cheated. I read too much into those drawings and did not follow instructions. I assumed it was okay to add the pendulum (and ultimately it was), but it was after finishing the drawing that she suggested using props in the next one.
As it turns out, I had to more or less do this twice. When I drew the first contour on the picture plan and began, I could not repose my hand in a way that was at all similar to the lines I had drawn. On my second attempt, I did the picture plane drawing and went right on to the paper without movingly hand that was posing.
Using the handy-dandy piece of glass with cross hairs, this experiment was all about seeing the “picture plane.” It is a way of seeing that sort of flattens all that you do see, making the three-dimensional world into a two dimensional one. It is a way of dealing with foreshortening.
Above are the results of my three attempts. The biggest challenge with this exercise was to keep the ink from my dry erase pen on the glass. Also, it was not very satisfying to wipe away the image once it was drawn.
Okay, I admit it. I hated this exercise. I really hated it. And the saddest part of all is that according to Edwards “it is one of the key exercises in learning to draw” (p. 93). In five minutes you are asked to draw the wrinkles of a scrunched up hand - without looking at your paper.
After you have done this, the author asks you to think back upon the experience, comparing how you felt at the beginning of the drawing, and later when you were deeply into it. I am not at all sure five minutes is enough time. Perhaps it is too long. My mind did keep trying to find better ways of doing this exercise. She asks what the later state felt like. Well, I was impatient to move onto the next exercise. I had to keep quieting its protest, and never really got beyond it. I was not aware of losing time. And I was not enamored of what I saw. Maybe I needed to stop using hand lotion for a few days. Maybe I needed another light source. Maybe I needed a source of magnification. I felt nothing.
With that said, I see the point - to help one feel like they have switched between right brain and left brain - to really see and get the nuances of beauty in the everyday. Mmm, sounds like the beginings of a trance to me.
I do not feel like I made a brain shift. I see beauty in the everyday most of the time. I am enthralled with the subtle lines of a cell phone or a chain link fence.
Since I am playing by the rules with this projects, Betty Edwards suggest doing at least one other upside down line drawing. So, I did. This time, I am showing example of the original drawing taken from George Bridgman’s Complete Guide to Drawing from Life (pg. 68). The lighter one next to it is my copy.
The more I think about this exercise, the more I like it. It really does help you to see what is there, not what you think is there.
Also, I just read chapter five. It is more theory about how we learn symbols as children and stop actually seeing what is there. It is a great basis for those of us who are hypnotists because it shows when we learned to perceive a societal influence, rather than really seeing the truth.
It is sort of like drawing jazz or at least what I think jazz would look like if drawn. Today’s exercise was to the opposite of what yesterdays was. Rather than confusing the mind, it sought to make things easier. The author provided an abstract image that we were to copy. One was forced to draw what one saw, not what one’s mind told you was there. It turned concept into line and shape. Though I have to admit it was a little hard at times not to lapse into, “this is a hand” and so forth.
Maybe shut down is not quite the correct phrase, but this chapter’s exercises begins with the idea of creating confusion in the mind. It involves drawing a silhouette of a face and then drawing the silhouette inversely so it forms a vase. This creates a shift from the left-brain to the right brain.
My thoughts on this exercise first begin with the idea that when you give someone a suggestion that something is going to be difficult, there is a good chance the suggestion will manifest. Before beginning this exercise the author says it is to create visual conflict, and sure enough she is right. Is she right because it has to do with the mind changing modes or is she right because of the planted suggestion?
Also, where I believe the issues lie in this exercise, if not in the suggestion, is within the idea of drawing an opposite. You are not drawing what you see, but the inverse. This may be what she says, but not quite so succinctly.
She also says this is about problem solving. Here, I agree totally. So, she asks the question: How did you solve it (to complete the drawing of the vase)?
I could not think in terms of following the lines because I would have copied what I saw and made a parallel sketch. I also found as I was drawing each section that actually being aware of what I was drawing helped - as in, “now I must draw a nose, lips, chin…” - even though she says these inhibit the brain. As I did the drawing, I made adjustment to make the design more symmetrical. I thought, “the nose curves like this.”
Then the author asked if I had used an eraser, and I most certainly did and I do not feel a bit guilty about it.
In discussing The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain with an artist friend, he completely put the purpose of chapter three together for me. This chapter is all theory and ideas about consciousness based on research.
What my friend brought to light is that this chapter is Betty Edwards’ pre-talk. As a hypnotist, this is a really important part of my client sessions - everything is built up during this time and can make or break a session. This is where you can gain rapport and validate what you are about to do.
So, now suddenly this chapter has new meaning for me. But it also makes me wonder about my own pre-talks. Am I coherent and consistent? Does the pre-talk seem worthwhile to the client? I am not saying the chapter is irrelevant. It is really good and I get it. But where as I believe my expectation was that it would be given along with the exercises not separately. Time to put my own practices to task again.
