Drawing Is the Best Way to Learn

I loved the view taken by this author, db dowd in this article about Stick figures: Drawing as a Human Practice

It caused me to get my sketch book back out

Drawing shouldn’t be about performance, but about process. It is a way of taking in the world.

Drawing Is the Best Way to Learn, link to the full article

“We have misfiled the significance of drawing because we see it as a professional skill instead of a personal capacity,” he writes. “This essential confusion has stunted our understanding of drawing and kept it from being seen as a tool for learning above all else.”

... drawing is useful for our daily affairs from giving directions, taking meeting notes, outlining an presentation, or making grocery lists. It fosters close observation, analytical thinking, patience, even humility.  

Digital technology coddles us by giving us shortcuts to “instant knowledge,” but drawing breaks our collective instinct to Google everything, argues Dowd. He cautions against relying too much on easy paths to learning...

Drawing shouldn’t be about performance, but about process. Think of it as a way of observing the world and learning, something that can be done anytime, like taking notes, jotting down a thought, or sending a text.  

I wanted to put this in 'education' but nothing there seemed to fit...and 'art' is sort of the antithesis of what he is saying?

Whilst I agree that drawing enables better assimilation of detail/what is observed, nevertheless it can require learning about perspective and proportion.  This has never appealed to me since I find it tedious although I do like exploring light and shade with something simple e.g. a pine cone.

I find watercolours more liberating e.g. giving more free rein into playful explorations - not needing to be so tied to realistic capture.  Here's one of mine...

Lovely watercolor Amy

Whilst I agree that drawing enables better assimilation of detail/what is observed, nevertheless it can require learning about perspective and proportion.  

I think his intent is to encourage drawing, doodling, etc without concern about results...as he says it's "about process. It is a way of taking in the world."

I don't think he was talking about working towards any type of perfection of drawing skill...just encouraging us to draw rather than not draw because we are worried about it being or not being 'art'

Judith Browning wrote:Lovely watercolor Amy

Whilst I agree that drawing enables better assimilation of detail/what is observed, nevertheless it can require learning about perspective and proportion.  

I think his intent is to encourage drawing, doodling, etc without concern about results...as he says it's "about process. It is a way of taking in the world."

I don't think he was talking about working towards any type of perfection of drawing skill...just encouraging us to draw rather than not draw because we are worried about it being or not being 'art'

Ah I see/understand better now!  It's about overcoming the mental/judgemental stumbling block then (which, indeed, can be crippling)...kinda 'just do it!'

I do find drawing nature better enables you to take in wondrous, finer detail that the casual eye so easily overlooks.  It both further consolidates and bolsters my love of Nature.

Thank you for this topic, Judith.  So timely.

Seems as if I've been struggling forever to learn drawing.  Usually I shape things well enough by hand like clays, paper mache, foods, fabrics, whittling, etcetera, for practical purposes.  However my fingers seem to lose all creativity with writing / painting instruments.  

I've also been torturing myself - and others :=) - with restrictive drawing apps.  And now with a flood of ideas there seems to be no choice but to put pencil to paper and tough it out until something close enough shapes up  :-)  Though I'll have some modeling materials soon, there needs to be at least a rough draft to go by.

Okey dokey.  Here goes just doin' it! ^.^

Catherine Windrose wrote:Thank you for this topic, Judith.  So timely.

Seems as if I've been struggling forever to learn drawing.  Usually I shape things well enough by hand like clays, paper mache, foods, fabrics, whittling, etcetera, for practical purposes.  However my fingers seem to lose all creativity with writing / painting instruments.  

I've also been torturing myself - and others :=) - with restrictive drawing apps.  And now with a flood of ideas there seems to be no choice but to put pencil to paper and tough it out until something close enough shapes up    Though I'll have some modeling materials soon, there needs to be at least a rough draft to go by.

Okey dokey.  Here goes just doin' it! ^.^

Wonderful!
This article along with this quote  

“A simple line painted with the brush can lead to freedom and happiness.” Joan Miro.

recently did it for me.  
There's really nothing standing in my way except my own thoughts.
I used to 'just draw'...not sure why I stopped although some had to do with not being satisfied with the outcome and worrying about the judgement of others.  
Like you, my medium was not a pencil. Fiber, weaving in particular, was where I excelled.

I think it IS one of those 'just do it' things ...and don't be concerned about the outcome so much as enjoy the process

I totally agree! For me drawing is the only way I can make things really clear. Both to make it clear to myself as to explain to others. That's why I have been drawing since my childhood.
Because I am drawing that long (and that often) I became skilled in it. Sometimes I thought of becoming an artist.
Now I understand 'making art' is not my aim (nor is 'selling works of art'). I draw (or 'sketch' or paint watercolours) to depict, to illustrate, to clarify. When that's the reason for drawing it isn't important to be a 'skilled artist'. Everyone can draw!

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:I totally agree! For me drawing is the only way I can make things really clear. Both to make it clear to myself as to explain to others. That's why I have been drawing since my childhood.
Because I am drawing that long (and that often) I became skilled in it. Sometimes I thought of becoming an artist.
Now I understand 'making art' is not my aim (nor is 'selling works of art'). I draw (or 'sketch' or paint watercolours) to depict, to illustrate, to clarify. When that's the reason for drawing it isn't important to be a 'skilled artist'. Everyone can draw!

This is my usual motivation, as well. But, I do also love to sketch, draw,  and paint (in several mediums) for pleasure. It's been a very long time... maybe a decade or so, since I've done much more than doodling, just for pleasure, though. I do have plans (& hardware supplies, wood is cut...) to build a fold-out cutting/ crafting table, which once folded to the wall, will appear to simply be a framed painting. The hold up in getting it done is a mental block: I can't decide what I want to paint! Maybe getting it done and mounted will help. It would be a great rainy day project, and I need to take that cue from Nike, too: JUST DO IT!

Coming to the end of my time as a quasi-educator/mentor, it is no small concern how much education is 'screen based', -- which has its pros, but most certainly its cons as well.  Very often the one being taught will say "show me how to do it" and I will respond with "No....I will verbally instruct you while *you* do it".  There is nothing quite like the one learning actually going through the physical motion of the task rather than just *seeing* the task done.  In the same way, if we are dealing with an abstract concept, they are surprised when I say "Get out a piece of paper and a pen(cil)...." .... cuz, I mean, who uses those any more?!! :-/    As we revisit the concept being addressed, I tell them to draw out on the paper what it is that we are describing and remind them that (at least for now) we are abstractly conceptualizing an aspect of biology/chemistry that we can't actually see.  In other words, we are creating models for how the molecular realm works and then setting up tests to support or refute our (typically crude) concepts of how things work.  But it's so often forgotten how much stone and painting stick, pencil and paper, and chalk and chalk-board provided a crucial medium to relay abstractions that have produced (for better or worse?) some of the advancements that we have today.

Anyone have suggestions or tips on how to draw landscapes not from the perspective of a helicopter? I like to draw landscapes and do so for designs, but it would be nice to have a more realistic perspective at times, and I always seem to float up above the drawing as I go!

Ben Zumeta wrote:Anyone have suggestions or tips on how to draw landscapes not from the perspective of a helicopter? I like to draw landscapes and do so for designs, but it would be nice to have a more realistic perspective at times, and I always seem to float up above the drawing as I go!

Probably you can find tutorials on drawing perspective on the internet.
The most important thing in your case is: there is a 'horizon' (it might be a line, but it can be invisible too). Everything that's below your eye-level is under the horizon and what's above your eye-level is above the horizon. So if you have a house with a door, that door is about two-thirds under the horizon and one third above it.
If you don't look at it in a frontal view, but from aside, there are 'vanishing points' on the horizon. This is impossible to explain in words only ...

This popped up in 'similar threads' today (In R. Ranson's Nature journaling thread) and I wonder whether anyone uses drawing as a tool for permaculture "observation".
It seems that it would be the ideal method of slowing down and just looking at something. I often draw as a planning tool, but hadn't considered using it as an observational tool. It is so easy to use a camera to record without actually seeing what I am recording.....

I learned about the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards from this post. Her argument is that most of us learned to draw by drawings symbols, not the actual lines that we see. Her method is to get you to draw something upside down. Then to draw your hand facing you. Then to draw by negative space. I haven't tried it, but the results are impressive.

I remember drawing negative space at school - looking at the shapes between things - and I enjoyed that. I don't know about drawing something upside down. I always found it difficult to copy draw - you might just as well us a computer perhaps. Drawing and painting from real life was much more enjoyable. I deliberately chose my exam media so that it could be real life, not composed, because my compositions always turned out rubbish, although that was what the class mainly spent more time on.
Not so practical when your climate is wet and windy though! I'd have to concentrate on "still life" inside.

Gladwell said that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something or to master a skill.

He calculated that one only needs about 100 hours of instruction in most cases as a foundation in most fields, and the rest is practice, practice, practice.

2,000 hours per year if you practice 8 hours per day, 5 days per week equals 5 years of practice.

One could truncate that timeline by practicing 10 hours per day 7 days per week, or ... you get my drift.

But one might quickly burn out at that pace.

Drawing would be no different, but not everyone wants to become a master, rather simply be mildly proficient. At that level, I don't see drawing as an art. Let's call it a practical skill. How long would that take? I would think that a few minutes every day of intense practice would yield noticeable results in about a month. If one kept at it, think of how much improvement a year would produce. And all of this attainable with a nib and a pile of cheap doodle pads.

Just some thoughts.

j