📝 Drawing to See
3 Sketch exercises to practice looking harder
‘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
Learning to draw is learning to see.
Betty Edwards describes in her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain how the process of drawing is fundamentally based on five basic skills that involve perception: perception of edges, of spaces, of relationships, of lights and shadows, and gestalt (seeing the whole and its parts). Edwards is a strong believer (and her vast experience teaching people of all levels of skill to draw demonstrates it) that drawing is a skill that can be taught, in a similar fashion to reading and writing and that it doesn’t involve talent but just instruction to learn the former basic skills. Furthermore, in doing so, our perception of the world becomes enormously richer.
David Hockney also talks a lot about how drawing makes us see clearer:
Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still. The image is passing through you in a physiological way, into your brain, into your memory - where it stays - it’s transmitted by your hands.
Seeing clearer is a byproduct of learning to draw, but looking harder is also a skill we can cultivate, regardless of being artists. As designers, this is something we should train ourselves constantly. A more mindful observation of our reality is the first step to a more creative life.
These are some easy exercises we’ve done in The Sketch Club that help you look harder (picture Rafiki from The Lion King):
Noticing, depicting and designing colours in the city.
Drawing the same subject every day.
Documenting seasons one drawing a day.
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Happy sketching!
Ana
Have you been drawing recently? It would be great to hear about it! Leave a comment and share your thoughts :)
Thank you for this post as it has inspired me to make a fall sketch tomorrow before the season changes more. Then, a few months from now, I'll make an effort to sketch the same scene so that I have a "winter sketch."
I’ve been sketching daily lately! I usually have about an hour a day to make artwork, and am trying out a daily sketchbook as a way to contain my art practice. Also, thank you for this wonderful newsletter 🙂