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Don't get me wrong, I love this book. I nearly read it all in three sittings and I really love the approach.
The very good: Excellent book for beginners, it will coach you to draw what you see, not what you think. Absolute must if you are interested in the dichotomy between left and right brain hemispheres and how they interact. The introduction captivated me, and further exercises are great experiments to experience the switching of processing between the two halves of your brain first hand. I knew about it but I didn't think it could be made so obvious.
The only good: The author describes five skills that together compose drawing skills: - Perception of edges - Perception of spaces - Perception of relationships - Perception of lights and shadows - Perception of gestalt The first four could be reduced to three in my view but I am willing to accept the four. If the first four were properly rendered, the fifth would derive naturally. Once a face is out of proportions, the correction of resemblance will require correcting the rendering of the first four. "Gestalt" here is not a skill, it is an effect.
The not good: Very little that I find unacceptable, really. Mostly in the explanation of perspective. The explanation of point of view is perfect except it starts by "In a one point perspective drawing...". No. Every realistic drawing (the point of this book) has one point of view and only one, however many vanishing points there are. Yet this statement is still accurate, it just suggests that the definition does not apply to multiple points drawings. I was willing to overlook that one.Read more ›
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Back in 2008, an injury left me bedridden for a few months, so I got this book to pass the time.
I was intrigued by the ideas in the book, and because I was also reading "Phantoms In the Brain" by V. S. Ramachandran, I saw that many of Edwards' claims were supported by newer research. (Especially that our conscious minds are not aware of the primary information the brain processes.) The second time through the book, I began trying the exercises that interested me. I didn't make much progress until I got to the section on blind contour drawing. I was fascinated by the idea that I could look at an object, and without looking at what my hand was doing, faithfully record parts of what I saw with amazing detail. After that, the upside down drawing was another amazing demonstration. One night, on a whim, I photocopied some line drawings and our whole family sat down to do the upside down exercise. Everyone did an almost perfect reproduction of the line drawing they had been given! I took that as proof that our perceptions do, indeed, get in the way of our ability to draw.
Did this book teach me to draw? Absolutely. But I had to go through it about three times before I began to make real progress with beautiful drawings. The exercises help with skill-building, but a faithful commitment to practice helps the most. Want to be a pitcher? Pitch. Want to be a writer? Write. Want to draw realistically? Draw. Practice makes perfect. That's true of any skill.
As far as the right brain/left brain thing, I think what Betty Edwards did was explain her thought process on how she developed the exercises, and attempt to explain why they work. She probably did this because a key element of learning anything new is first believing that you can learn it.Read more ›
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I ordered this book because I could not find my copy of the Revised Edition, a book that is worth reading and studying over and over. I thought so much of the book and its lessons that I decided to order the newest edition. The day before the new edition arrived I found my dog-eared, page-stained copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and revisited a couple of my favorite pages.
Today the newest edition arrived. It might be a masterpiece in it's genre, but I'll never know. The type face is so small I, literally, cannot read the side bars, and reading the body text is not much better. The amount of ink used for the impressions is minimal and adds to the difficulties. A book does no good if half of it cannot be read and the other half is difficult to read due to typeface or any other physical limits. A direct comparison of font size between the two books makes it very apparent it isn't just a grumpy whiny old man's grump of the day.
Publisher should be ashamed. If I can read the last edition with no problems I think I should be permitted to read the latest edition just as easily.
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I took an art class to up my GPA, only to discover talent actually helps one achieve said goal. I took a second art class, though, because it was required to "balance" my education. In that class, they taught us almost verbatim from this book. It was astonishing, because I discovered I DO have talent!!! What this book covers is the whole idea that our ego wants us to draw picture perfect images it thinks it sees and squelch the drawing habit if one is not successful. This is something that evolves in our teens and sticks with us. The attempt of the author is to train us to ignore the ego and re-learn SEEING what we're drawing. She has numerous steps which do just that which are designed to trick the brain, confuse it, redirect it to the right side of the brain and disallow it consultation time with the logical, left side of the brain. In a very, very short period of time, it does just that.
Part of the book shows examples of before and after re-training the brain. My pictures could join them, because the improvement is real. Be forewarned this book is not a read and learn book. It is lessons and requires steps to be followed in order to accomplish the goal. I bought this book just recently to replace the one I had in college (burned in a fire). My kids used it this summer and now want doodle books and sketch pads for Christmas. HIGHLY recommend!!!
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This item: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition
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