The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards [122]
I believe that most of us are too quick to name things when we are with small children. By simply naming a thing and letting it go at that when a child asks, “What is that?” we communicate that the name or label is the most important thing, that naming is sufficient. We deprive our children of their sense of wonder and discovery by labeling and categorizing things in the physical world. Instead of merely naming a tree, for example, try also guiding your child through an exploration of the tree both physically and mentally. This exploration may include touching, smelling, seeing from various angles, comparing one tree with another, imagining the inside of the tree and the parts underground, listening to the leaves, viewing the tree at different times of the day or during different seasons, planting its seeds, observing how other creatures—birds, moths, bugs—use the tree, and so on. After discovering that every object is fascinating and com-plex, a child will begin to understand that the label is only a small part of the whole. Thus taught, a child’s sense of wonder will survive, even under our modern avalanche of words.
Drawings by a fourth-grade student: Three lessons, April 15 to April 19, 1977. Instructional period: four days.
In terms of encouraging your child’s artistic abilities, I recommend providing a very young child with plenty of art materials and the kind of perceptual experiences described above. Your child will progress through the developmental sequence of child art in a relatively predictable manner, just as children progress through other sequential stages. If your child asks for help with a drawing, your response should be, “Let’s go look at what you’re trying to draw.” New perceptions will then become part of the symbolic representations.
Both teachers and parents can help with the problems of adolescent artists, which I discussed in the text. As I mentioned, realistic drawing is a stage that children need to pass through at around age ten. Children want to learn to see, and they deserve all the help they require. The sequence of exercises in this book—including the information on hemisphere functions in somewhat simplified form—can be used with children as young as eight or nine. Subjects that suit the interests of adolescents (for example, well-drawn realistic cartoons of heroes and heroines in action poses) can be used for upside-down drawing. Negative space and contour drawing also appeal to children at this age, and they readily incorporate the techniques into their drawing. (See the illustration of a ten-year-old fourth-grade student’s progress over four days of instruction.) Portrait drawing has a special appeal for this age group, and adolescents can do quite accomplished drawings of their friends or family members. Once they overcome their fear of failure at drawing, youngsters will work hard to perfect their skills, and success enhances their self-concept and self-confidence.
But more important for the future, drawing, as you have learned through the exercises in this book, is an effective way of gaining access to and control over the functions of the right hemisphere. Learning to see through drawing may help children to later become adults who will put the whole brain to use.
For art students
Many successful contemporary artists believe that realistic drawing skills are not important. It is true, generally speaking, that contemporary art does not necessarily require drawing skill, and good art—even great art—has been produced by modern artists who can’t draw. They are able to produce good art, I suspect, because their aesthetic sensibilities have been cultivated by means other than the traditional, basic teaching methods of art schools: drawing and painting from the