Learning How to See and Drawing.

For many months I've had a fascination with cultivating the ability to see the world more directly. I want to be able look at the world without mediation from my personal, and highly effective, meaning making machine. This desire stems from the realization that I have become so indoctrinated by our modern system of symbols that I am often blinded to the true and beautiful shapes of the real world.

During the summer I had several conversations on this topic with my Mom. In response she lent me Betty Edward's book Learning How to Draw with the Right Side of Your Brain. This course-in-a-book is based on the notion that we all have good enough mechanical and coordination capabilities to draw in a realistic style. Most people can't draw because they are not accustomed to seeing the world directly. This is natural since modern living is dominated by systems of symbols that serve as the basis for our society. The problem is that we become slaves to these symbols, allowing them to limit our experience of the world (this last line is my own take).

I started reading the book on August 14th and have been diligently completing every assignment. For the first couple of days I had to fight off urges to just read the book without doing the work. I'm happy that I overcame this tendency towards procrastination and outright lazyness as I quickly started to thoroughly enjoy the exercises and drawing in general (I haven't enjoyed drawing this much since I was a kid). As the author promises in the first chapter, drawing practices are able to noticeably change one's state of mind - however, the operative word here is practice (and a lot of it).

Enough said about the reasons - they are not very important. What is important is the act of drawings itself. In this journal I will be sharing with you the outcome of these efforts. I hope you enjoy the good, the bad, and the ugly.