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Spoiler: If you’re planning to read and use the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
After doing the somewhat strange first assignment to awaken the right side of your brain I went on with the even stranger second assignment.
The author describes how she found that her students can copy very complicated paintings with great ease if she turns the painting up side down.
The theory is that people normally use symbols when they try to draw something. So you might draw eyes as two concentric circles even if the eyes in the painting are picture perfect. But when the painting is turned up side down people don’t recognize the subject and draw what the see instead of what they “should” draw.
The second assignment uses this same technique.
Only thing was that it didn’t work for me.
Turning the page I was presented with an up side down picture of what seemed to be Einstein. But the caption read that it was a Philippe Halsman. Turning the book up side down I still thought it looked like a picture of Einstein. Turning it back and re-reading the caption I found that the picture was taken by P. Halsman.
According to the text it was indeed a picture of Einstein and apparently most people have a lot of difficulty recognizing pictures that are up side down.
The assignment was to copy an up side down drawing. Picasso’s Portrait of Igor Stravinsky. The point was stressed that you should first draw the picture before turning the book around to see what it looked like. Otherwise this assignment won’t work.
But again I didn’t see the problem. Although it’s a drawing that is very difficult to copy I had no problems what so ever in recognizing what it was about: A man in jacket and tie sitting in a wooden chair.
Up side down
Half way through the drawing I decided to give up.
Not the drawing but my neat way of drawing.
This drawing has a lot of lines that are far from straight. But if you try to copy them in exactly the way Picasso drew them they tend to get very straight. I decide to draw a little sloppy. Hoping that it would bring some life to the drawing. And it did.
Right side up
{ 6 comments }
Were you the author of the book called “The Right Side Of The Brain” ?
Hi Jessica,
No. The book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
is written by Betty Edwards
Unfortunately you missed the entire point of this activity. You are supposed to concentrate entirely on the line, shapes rather than image. Yes, most people CAN identify that it is a man on a chair, upside down. Point is, you will have less perceptual distortion if you look at it line by line, rather than by subject matter. You are supposed to read each line in relation to the other rather than what it ‘is’. This lesson is to encourage people to look rather than assume they know what they are seeing, which you did anyhow. Your drawing is fine, it is a man on a chair, but it is by far the drawing by Picasso of Stravinsky. You would have achieved greater success and accuracy had you followed the written directions. I have been teaching this drawing lesson for about a decade and I would’ve made you redo it properly. Sorry, that’s just me.
Ah. Well thank you for setting the record straight. And there I was thinking that I was a new Picasso.
Maybe now you can take the trouble to read the rest of the blog and discover that autistics don’t have problems with using the right side of their brain. We have problems using the left side!
Which is why I stopped with the book. I don’t have problems seeing details and their relation with other details. I’ve trouble seeing the big picture.
(BTW you’re the second drawing teacher commenting on my blog. The first one was as condescending as you are.
I would have thought the a teacher has the power to instill a love for drawing. Instead you put people down.
Why is that?.)
maybe the problem was that you recognized the image an your left brain took over trying to make sense of the “strangeness” of it. If you are really interested in learning to improve your skills, keep trying. the only way to fail is to give up.
thank you
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