Betty Edwards - Drawing on the Artist Within : A Guide to Innovation, Invention, Imagination, and Creativity

Drawing on the Artist Within

The mind in creation is as a fading coal which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this arises from within and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or of its departure.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Also by Betty Edwards

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Copyright 1986 by Betty Edwards

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form

First Fireside Edition, 1987

Published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Simon & Schuster Building
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

FIRESIDE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Designed by Joe Molloy

Typeset in Berthold Times Roman by Mondo Typo Instructional drawings by Betty Edwards

Manufactured in the United States of America

30 29 28 27 26 25 Pbk.

Library of Congress Card Number: 87-72

ISBN: 0-671-63514-X Pbk.

ISBN-13: 978-0-671-63514-5

eISBN-13: 978-1-439-13266-1

The publisher and author wish to thank the museums, galleries, and private collectors for granting permission to reproduce the works of the art in their collections. Photographs are included by permission of the owners or custodians of the works reproduced. The author gratefully acknowledges the generosity of students in allowing her to retain their drawings during preparation of the manuscript.

Permission to reproduce the Portrait of the Artist by Henri Fuseli appearing on the book cover is by courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Permission to reproduce Pablo Picassos portrait drawing of Lon Bakst is by courtesy of the Picasso Museum in Paris and S.P.A.D.E.M.

The poem by Marilyn Thompson is reproduced by permission of the author.

The passage of Eran Zaidels article, The Elusive Right Hemisphere of the Brain, is from Engineering and Science publication of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California.

The photograph of Elizabeth Layton and her drawings are reproduced by permission of the artist.

The drawings and quotation by Rudolf Arnheim from his books Visual Thinking and Entropy and Art are reproduced by permission of the University of California Press.

The photograph by William Duke of Los Angeles is reproduced by permission of the photographer.

The advertisement in Chapter Seven is reproduced by permission of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Salem, North Carolina.

The quotation from the biography of Robert Musil by David S. Luft is by courtesy of the University of California Press.

Permission to reproduce the Grid diagrams in Chapter Nine was granted by Foote, Cone & Belding, Chicago and New York.

The quotation and diagram from Victor Rauzinos article in Chapter Eleven are reproduced by permission of Datamation magazine, copyright by Technical Publishing Company, a Dun & Bradstreet Company, 1983all rights reserved.

The engravings of Tweedledee and Tweedledum are reproduced by permission of the British Museum, London.

The photograph of the sea anemone from Kozloff, Seashore Life of the Northern Pacific Coast is reproduced by permission of the University of Washington Press.

The diagram titled Star Trek, Management, and the Brain is reproduced by courtesy of the Business Publishing Division of the Georgia State University Business Publishing Division.

The drawing of the Angels Head by Leonardo da Vinci on the Part I page is reproduced by courtesy of the Museo Torino, Turin, Italy.

The double photographs in Chapter Eighteen are reproduced by permission of the photographer, Nancy Webber.

The Self-Portrait by Leonardo da Vinci on the Part II page is reproduced by courtesy of the Museo Torino, Royal Library, Turin, Italy.

The drawing by Rembrandt on the Part III page is reproduced by courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Engel, Pasadena, California.

The photograph of Governor Edmund G. Brown is reproduced by permission of the Los Angeles Times.

I wish to thank the many individuals who contributed to this endeavor. In particular, my thanks go to the teachers who have worked with me over the past several years, teaching the studio/lab sections of my drawing classes for university students. Students drawings throughout the book reflect the fine teaching of these exceptional instructors: Marka Hitt-Burns, Arlene Cartozian, Lynda Greenberg, Linda Jo Russell, and Cynthia Schubert. In addition, my thanks go to J. William Bergquist, Anne Bomeisler Farrell, Brian Bomeisler, Don Dame, Frederic W. Hills, Burton Beals, Joe Molloy, Carol Wade, Diane McHenry, Jim Drobka, Harold Roth, Peter Hoffman, Stanley Rand, Stephen Horn, and Robert Ramsey for their generous giving of time, thought, and effort on my behalf And last, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Roger W. Sperry and to thank him for his kindness and generosity.

I am grateful to my family, friends, colleagues, and students for encouraging me throughout this project.

I dedicate this book to all of them.

Part I A New Look at the Art of Seeing

Part II Making Thought Visible

Part III New Strategies for Thinking

20 Drawing Power from Within

My friend mathematician J. William Bergquist invented the adjective numerate (as a parallel to literate) to describe the ability to understand and use numbers. Numerate has gone into the language and is now frequently used. What new word would describe the ability to understand and use visual information?

Writing this book has been a process of discovery. I started with a glimmer of an idea that visual perception, drawing, and creativity might somehow be linked. The writing took the form of a search, a hunt for clues that might allow me to capture bits and pieces of this concept and fit them together finally into a comprehensible whole.

At the start of writing, I was far from clear in my mind what shape the final manuscript might take. And in fact, as the writing progressed, it seemed somehow to take on a life of its own, leading