The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards [124]
Glossary
Abstract Art. A translation into drawing, painting, sculpture, or design of a real-life object or experience. Usually implies the isolation, emphasis, or exaggeration of some aspect of the artist’s perception of reality. Should not be confused with nonobjective art.
Awareness. Consciousness; the act of “taking account” of an object, person, or the surroundings. Possible synonyms are seeing or cognition.
Basic Unit. A “starting shape” or “starting unit” chosen from within a composition for the purpose of maintaining correct size relationships in a drawing. The Basic Unit is always termed “One” and becomes part of a ratio, as in “1:2.”
Blank. An egg-shaped oval, drawn on paper to represent the basic shape of the human head. Because the human skull, seen from the side, is a different shape than the skull seen from the front, the side-view blank is a somewhat differently shaped oval than front-view blank.
Central Axis. Human features are more or less symmetrical and are bisected by an imaginary vertical line in the middle of the face. This line is called the central axis. It is used in drawing to determine the tilt of the head and to place the features.
Cerebral Hemispheres. The outermost part of the forebrain, clearly separated into two halves on the right and left sides of the brain. Consists essentially of the cerebral cortex, corpus callosum, basal ganglia, and limbic system.
Cerebrum. The main division of the brain in vertebrates, consisting of two hemispheres. It is the last part of the brain to evolve and is of critical importance in all kinds of mental activity.
Cognitive Shift. A transformation from one mental state to another, e.g., from L-mode to R-mode or vice versa.
Composition. An ordered relationship among the parts or elements of a work of art. In drawing, the arrangement of forms and spaces within the format.
Conceptual Images. Imagery from internal sources (the “mind’s eye”) rather than from external, perceived sources; usually simplified images; often abstract rather than realistic.
Contour Line. In drawing, a line that represents the shared edges of a form, a group of forms, or forms and spaces.
Corpus Callosum. A massive, compact bundle of axons connecting the right and left cerebral cortices. The corpus callosum allows the two halves, or hemispheres, of the cerebral cortex to communicate directly with one another.
Creativity. The ability to find new solutions to a problem or new modes of expression; the bringing into existence of something new to the individual and to the culture. Writer Arthur Koestler added the requirement that the new creation should be socially useful.
Crosshatching. A series of intersecting sets of parallel lines used to indicate shading or volume in a drawing.
Edge. In drawing, the place where two things meet (for example, where the sky meets the ground); the line of separation between two shapes or a space and a shape.
Expressive Quality. The slight individual differences in the way each of us perceives and represents our perceptions in a work of art. These differences express an individual’s inner reactions to the perceived stimulus as well as the unique “touch” arising from individual physiological motor differences.
Eye Level. In perspective drawing, a horizontal line on which lines above and below it in the horizontal plane appear to converge. In portrait drawing, the proportional line that divides the head in half horizontally; the location of the eyes at this halfway mark on the head.
Foreshortening. A way to portray forms on a two-dimensional surface so that they appear to project from or recede behind a flat surface; a means of creating the illusion of spatial depth in figures or forms.
Format. The particular shape of a drawing or painting surface—rectangular, circular, triangular, etc.; the proportion of the