Drawing for everyone

Everybody learns to draw before they learn to write. Or more exactly, at one point in everyone’s life, drawing and writing are one and the same thing. Before baby learns to write a letter, the most elementary unit of the word and the sentence, baby learns to grasp a pencil in the palm of his or her hand and then inscribe into a surface a round sweep, a circle. Baby is only learning the psycho-motor skills required to make a fundamental gestural mark on a piece of paper. In time, the circle will grow into a wider complex of elements, two eyes, a mouth, hands, legs, feet. It becomes a graphic representation of items in the child’s environment, people, animals, trees, sun, flowers, etc. It becomes drawing first and long before the circle becomes zero or the letter “o,” writing.
In time, the world inflicts upon the child its own inherent bias. They are mere socially constructed standards but their impact on the child’s growth is nothing if not profound. Children who do not learn to write and do math at pace with their biological age are retarded. People who never learn to write are illiterate. People who never learn to draw beyond the most ineffectual scribbles are only normal. Why does that make sense?

The latest literature on drawings say it does not. Everyone ought to draw. Drawing is not the consequence of special talent as we once thought. Drawing is only a fundamental capacity to communicate that any normal person should theoretically know and be skillful with if only we gave drawing a chance. But the fact is, only a few people do know how to draw. Because of this many miss out on an aspect of their own humanity which would have provided them one more capacity to interpret and derive pleasure from the world. It is nothing less than tragic.

Human anatomy is so constructed that the right brain is connected to the left part of the body. In her book “Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain” Dr. Elizabeth Edwards explains that we live in a right handed world. Left handedness is thought of as abnormal, even demonic. Many children who might have been naturally left handed are eventually convinced to be right handed merely by social pressure. Even so, it might be interesting to note how many great guitarists are left handed even if the guitar is a right handed instrument: Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, etc.

Edwards believes drawing is a function deriving mostly from the right hemisphere of the brain. This is the side of the brain that is suited for the appreciation of spaces, colors, values, movement, music, those elements which are identified to be the elements of design and art. The left hemisphere on the other hand is best suited for processing letters and numbers, linear logic. The complete and balanced mind would therefore know how to logically think using letters and numbers, it would also know how to think visually and creatively. It would know how to draw.

The world has been skewered towards linear logic and right handedness. Right brain functions on the other hand have been marginalized into the exotic, the special, the mysterious, the function of talent, art. There is a social cost for doing this. The world would probably be more fun and happy if it learned how to draw better. It would certainly be more creative.

Imagine, if instead of castigating children for drifting off into fantasy land in the classroom, we simply gave them ample opportunity to dream and fantasize inside the classroom environment. What if we never allowed children to forget how to draw? What if we taught them how to communicate with drawings even as we continued to teach them how to communicate with words and numbers? What would the world be like?

Is the drawing skill important in all professions besides the arts? Is imagination a necessary skill for all? Imagine if all engineers were also inventors. Imagine if lawyers could imagine the trajectory of courtroom arguments even before they go to court, if managers could imagine the ultimate outcome of every decision they make, if they could move people the same way a conductor  moves an orchestra, if they could improvise as well as jazz musicians? And what if politicians could foresee a better world for all of us and move us with their vision? What if priests could give us better sermons, moving us closer to God with their wit? And what if we all saw the beauty of a world of goodness instead of thinking simply in terms of sin and retribution?

It is only right for the world to progress into a better appreciation of the drawing skill. Summer is the season of art workshops everywhere. Hopefully, we would all be even more interested in drawing than we already are. It makes perfect sense, and most especially if our right brain is also reading this.