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Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is one of the most effective teaching methods for drawing ever developed. In this tutorial, the participant will be introduced to the underlying theory behind the method. The bulk of the session will involve practical hands-on exercises, which demonstrate the participants ability to learn to draw, and to learn to "see things more clearly.
In this tutorial you will learn basic strategies for accessing the visual, perceptual mode of thinking. This type of thinking is learned through the acquisition of very basic drawing skills and the acquisition of an understanding of the nature of drawing.
© 1997 Copyright on this material is held by the authors.
Learning to draw means learning to see things differently-- to see in ways not used in ordinary life. Once learned, drawing can be used to record what you see, either in reality or in your mind's eye, in a manner not totally unlike the way we can record our thoughts and ideas in words. In this intensive workshop, the participant is introduced to the perceptual skills necessary for realistic drawing and for seeing things "as they are."
Drawing is an active, creative and self-directed process, causing a slowing-down of close observation that leads to a "different way of seeing".
This course is especially designed for people who perhaps believe that learning to draw well is possible only for those lucky persons with inborn talent. For over a decade, Betty Edwards has disproved this widely held belief. Given proper instruction, the basic perceptual skills of drawing can be taught and can be learned in a short amount of time.
Dr. Betty Edwards argues persuasively that the right hemisphere's strengths have been undervalued and under-trained in our schools an in the culture at large. At the same time, she has set out to establish --particularly with her work on creativity, --that the highest level of functioning comes from learning how to use the strength each hemisphere appropriately and flexibly, according to the demands of a given task." - Tony Schwartz What Really Matters; Searching for Wisdom in Americ. Bantam Books. 1995.
The basis of the teaching technique used in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the differences between the functions of the left hemisphere of the brain and the right hemisphere of the brain as established by scientific research. This research is largely derived from the work of Nobel prize winning neurobiologist, Roger W. Sperry, whose work was first published in 1968. Sperry was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981.
Sperry found that the two hemispheres of the brain use two different styles of information processing, with both hemispheres working at high, human levels of cognition. This contradicted previous convictions that only the left, verbal hemisphere was capable of human level cognition.
Sperry determined that, for reasons as yet unclear, the two hemispheres of the human brain are specialized for two fundamentally different ways of thinking. Continued research by scientists such as Jerre Levy, Michael Gazzaniga, Eron Zaidel and others, went on to establish more specifically the characteristics of the right hemisphere in comparison to the left.
Dr. Betty Edwards is a world renowned educator in the field of art. She is the author of the best selling non-fiction books Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and Drawing on the Artist Within. Her work has reached well over 3,000,000 people, world wide. Both books have been translated into over twelve languages and are used as text books in schools and colleges nationally and internationally.
She has presented over five-hundred workshops, seminars and lectures for public schools, art associations, university students, technical and scientific staffs and corporate groups. She has presented seminars in creative problem solving to corporations such as : The Walt Disney Company, Digital Equipment Corporation, Apple Computer Company, IBM, Polaroid, AT&T Bell Labs, American Advertising Associations, Saatchi & Saatchi, GE, American Dental Association, and the American Institute of Architecture.
Dr. Edwards is Professor Emeritus, California State University, Long Beach. She continues as the Director of the Center for the Educational Applications of Brain Hemisphere Research at CSULB. Through her books, workshops and seminars Betty Edwards continues to make a huge impact upon the fields of art education and Creative Problem-Solving.
1. Edwards, Betty. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Tarcher/Putnam, New York, 1989.
2. Edwards, Betty. Drawing on the Artist Within. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1986.
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