Number of words: 225

I won’t dwell on the intensity of my discomfort on the poor quality of my artwork, although both were painfully clear. I tell this this story as a prelude to the astonishment and joy I felt when I read ‘Drawing on the right side of the brain.’ On the opposite page are the before-and-after self-portraits of people who took a short course in drawing from the author, Betty Edwards. That is, they are the self-portraits drawn by the students when they entered her course and five days later when they had completed it.

Aren’t they amazing? At the beginning, these people didn’t look as though they had much artistic ability. Most of their pictures reminded me of my owl. But only a few days later, everybody could really draw! And Edwards swears that this is a typical group. It seems impossible.

Edwards agrees that most people view drawing as a magical ability that only a select few possess, and that only a select few will ever possess. But this is because people don’t understand the components – the learnable components –  of drawing. Actually, she informs us, they are not drawing skills at all, but seeing skills. They are the ability to perceive edges, spaces, relationship, lights and shadows, and the whole. Drawing requires us to learn each component skill. 

Excerpted from‘Mindset’ by Carol S. Dweck