MODULE 1

The materials for this module are pencil, eraser, sketch pad (9x12 inches). I know
that some of you are in your provinces right now if this materials are unavailable to
you please kindly find an alternative.

The first rule in copying objects (3D) or picture (2D) in front of you is to remember
that “Learning to Draw is Learning to See”. Maybe right now you are thinking that
what you are seeing in front of you are truly correct and you can copy the picture as
easy as one, two, three..

In our first exercise you will draw the picture below using pencil and the 9x12 inches
sketchpad.

When you start to sketch do not draw to little or to big. The first step is to look at the
edge of the paper and start to copy the lines using your pencil.

If you are sure that you have copied the contour, shade the background using your
pencil.
And make it dark like this.
Your Brain: The Right and Left of It

A creative person is one who can process in new ways the information directly at
hand - the ordinary sensory data available to all of us. A writer needs words, a
musician needs notes, an artist needs visual perceptions, and all need some
knowledge of the techniques of their crafts. But a creative individual intuitively sees
possibilities for transforming ordinary data into a new creation, transcendent over
the mere raw materials.
Time and again, creative individuals have recognized the differences between the
two processes of gathering data and transforming those data creatively. Recent
discoveries about how the brain works are beginning to illuminate that dual process.
Getting to know both sides of your brain is an important step in liberating your
creative potential.

Getting To Know Both Sides Of Your Brain

Seen from above, the human brain resembles the halves of a walnut - two similar
appearing, convoluted, rounded halves connected at the center . The two halves are
called the “left hemisphere” and the “right hemisphere.”
The human nervous system is connected to the brain in a crossed-over fashion. The
left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, the right hemisphere controls the
left side. If you suffer a stroke or accidental brain damage to the left half of your
brain, for example, the right half of your body will be most seriously affected and
vice versa. Because of this crossing over of the nerve pathways, the left hand is
connected to the right hemisphere; the right hand, to the left hemisphere.
The Bias of Language and Customs

Words and phrases concerning concepts of left and right permeate our language and
thinking. The right hand (meaning also the left hemisphere) is strongly connected
with what is good, just, moral, proper. The left hand (therefore the right
hemisphere) is strongly linked with concepts of anarchy and feelings that are out of
conscious control - somehow bad, immoral, dangerous.
Until very recently, the ancient bias against the left hand/right hemisphere
sometimes even led parents and teachers of left-handed children to try to force the
children to use their right hands for writing, eating, and so on - a practice that often
caused problems lasting into adulthood.
Throughout human history, terms with connotations of good for the right hand/left
hemisphere and connotations of bad for the left-hand/right hemisphere appear in
most languages around the world. The Latin word for left is sinister, meaning
“bad,””ominous,” “sinister.” The Latin word for right is dexter from which comes our
word “dexterity,” meaning “skill” or “adroitness.”
The French word for “left” - remember that the left hand is connected to the right
hemisphere - is gauche, meaning “awkward” from which comes our word “gawky.”
The French word for right is droit, meaning “good,” “just,” or “proper.”
In English, “left” comes from the Anglo-Saxon lyft, meaning “weak” or “worthless.”
A Comparison of Left-Mode and Right-Mode Characteristics
Crossing Over: Experience the Shift From Left to Right

Drawing a perceived form is largely a right-hemisphere function. This has now been
emperically tested and documented. To draw a perceived form we want the left
mode mainly “off” and the right mode “on, “ a combination that produces a slightly
altered subjective state in which the right hemisphere “leads.” The characteristics of
this subjective state are those that artist speak of: a sense of close “connection” with
the work, a sense of timelessness, difficulty in using words or understanding spoken
words, a feeling of confidence and a lack of anxiety, a sense of close attention to
shapes and spaces and forms that remain nameless.
It’s important that you experience the shift from one mode to the other - the shift
from the ordinary verbal, analytic state to spatial, nonverbal state. By setting up the
conditions for this mental shift and experiencing the slightly different feeling it
produces, you will be able to recognize and foster this state in yourself - a state in
which you will be able to draw.

VASES AND FACES: AN EXERCISE FOR THE DOUBLE BRAIN

The exercise that follow are specifically designed to help you shift from dominant
left-hemisphere mode to your subdominant R-mode. I could go on describing the
process over and over in words, but only you can experience for yourself this
cognitive shift, this slight change in subjective state. As Fats Waller once said, “If you
gotta ask what jazz is, you ain’t never gonna know.” So it is with R-mode state: you
must experience the L- to R-mode shift, observe the R-mode state, and in this way
come to know it.

VASE-FACES DRAWING

You have probably seen the perceptual-illusion drawing of the vase and faces.
Looked at one way, the drawing appears to be two faces seen in profile. Then, as you
are looking at it, the drawing seems to change and become a vase.
Before you begin: First, read all the directions for the exercise.
1. Draw a profile of a person’s head on the left side of the paper, facing toward the
center. (If you are left-handed, draw the profile on the right side, facing toward the
center.) Examples are shown of both the right-handed and left handed drawings
(Figures 4-2 and 4-3).
2. Next, draw horizontal lines at the top and bottom of your profile, forming top and
bottom of the vase (Figures 4-2 and 4-3).
3. Now go back over your drawing of the first profile with your pencil. As the pencil
moves over the features, name them to yourself: forehead, nose, upper lip, chin,
neck. Repeat this step at least once. This is an L-mode task: naming symbolic shapes.
4. Next, starting at the top, draw the profile in reverse. By doing this , you will
complete the vase. The second profile should be a reversal of the first in order for
the vase to be symmetrical. (Look once more at the example in Figure 4-1.) Watch
for the faint signals from your brain that you are shifting modes of information
processing. You may experience a sense of mental conflict at some point in the
drawing of the second profile. And observe how you solve the problem. You will find
that you are doing the second profile differently. This is right-hemisphere-mode
drawing.

Before you read further, do the drawing on your sketch pad.

After you finish: Now that you have completed the Vase-Faces drawing, think back
on how you did it. The first profile was probably rather rapidly drawn and then, as
you were instructed, redrawn while verbalizing the names of the parts as you went
back over the features.
This is a left-hemisphere mode of processing: drawing symbolic shapes from memory
and naming them.
In drawing the second profile (that is, the profile that completes the vase), you may
have experienced some confusion or conflict, as I mentioned. To continue the
drawing, you had to find a different way, some different process. You probably lost
the sense of drawing a profile and found yourself scanning back and forth in the
space between the profiles, estimating angles, inward-curving and outward curving
shapes, and length of line in relation to the opposite shapes, which now become
unnamed and unnamable. Putting it another way, you made constant adjustments in
the line you were drawing by checking where you were and where you were going,
by scanning the space between the first profile and your copy in reverse.
Assignment:

Make 50pcs small Face- Vase exercise using 1 sheet of your sketch pad and shade
the inside using your pencil like the example shown above.

(Note: Text and illustrations are from the book, Drawing On The Right Side of the
Brain by Dr. Betty Edwards)