Are
there things you just don’t forget how to do, if once you’ve learned them?
David thinks playing the violin is “like riding a bicycle,” in that anyone who
ever played the violin can pick it right up again after years of not
practicing. Oh, no! I told him that playing the violin is not like that at all!
Even singing isn’t like that. The voice is an instrument, too, and not
practicing has consequences. Really.
For
most of my life, I only dreamed of being able to draw, but then I read Drawing
On the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards, and became convinced that
even I could learn to draw with a teacher using these methods. At last
Elizabeth Abeel offered a drawing class in Traverse City in the evening, when I
could get there to take it, and so, three years ago, my lessons and practice began.
Three
years ago. I kept at it through July 2014 but subsequently lost my discipline,
only picking up a pencil or pen a few times during our following Arizona
winter.
I’ve
missed those sessions with paper and pen or pencil. Photography, another
blessedly wordless activity, offers moments of relief from mental chatter, but
drawing is more like yoga than it is like (amateur) photography in that regard,
centering one’s focus and slowing subjective time. Really, taking time out of
consciousness altogether.
It
will take time, however, for me to work back into the wonderful discipline of
losing myself in drawing. That’s okay. I fully intend to get back to doing it
again on a regular basis – and making that decision, simply anticipating drawing, brought joy
to my heart. Waking up Saturday morning, before opening my eyes, I was already
seeing lines on paper – branches, leaves, facial features – simple lines
growing organically into living forms. What a simply luscious way to wake up! A
little later, then, driving along familiar country roads, I began seeing again
as I had when morning drawing meditation was a regular part of my life. Seeing more, seeing with joy!
My
hand is rusty, though. My mind still wants to jump around, and so do my eyes. What
I need to do is go back to those first lessons with Betsy, drawing vase-faces
and copying drawings upside-down. The purpose of those exercises is to turn off
the part of the brain that has names for objects and wants to take a short-cut
by producing a prototype. Oh, no you don't! We want that naming brain to shut up and let
the eye and hand follow contours wordlessly.
This
is going to be good medicine. I feel it already. Don't you feel the need for a break from talk-talk-talk this season, too?
...I venture to say that learning to draw always seems to help and never to harm. My students’ most frequent comment after learning to draw is “Life seems much richer now that I am seeing more.” That may be reason enough to learn to draw.
- Betty Edwards, Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence
