Left Brain Vs. Right Brain 2

Glance down at the following drawing. Does it resemble anything familiar? If not, that's good. Try not to look too hard. The point of the lesson is not to identify the subject – quite the opposite in fact. This exercise is designed to practice using the right side of your brain, the more visual side.



Starting at the top of the image, simply draw the lines and shapes that you see. As you work your way down, look for the angles that each line takes as well as the distances between lines. If several lines intersect one another and you see a shape, focus on drawing the overall shape instead. It doesn't matter if you replicate the image perfectly. The key is to practice drawing with the visual mode of your brain. This may seem awkward at first but take your time. The more you challenge yourself to these types of exercises, the easier it will become for your brain to process and correctly translate what you are seeing to the page.

When you're finished, turn your drawing right side up. What do you see? Does it resemble anything familiar now? As you know, this was an exercise in seeing through a different visual mode. One that does not label and then draws from memory but one that sees details, shapes and how they coordinate to form an overall image. As you were drawing, you weren't thinking about drawing the pocket or sleeve of the jacket perfectly because at the time you were not aware they were "pockets" and "sleeves". To you, they were straight lines that more or less intersected at 90 degree angles. This is how we must think as artists.

Other pages of interest

Left side of the brain vs. the right side
More on art and the brain
Negative space and contour drawings
Fundamentals of structure
Drawing lines: The straight and curved line