Drawing and the Brain Discussion

Drawing and the Brain

Drawing is micro-movement and the synchronizing of eyes and hands.  It is "thinking with our bodies" and a way to develop cognitive skills and processes.

Drawing, whether from life or memory involves relationships, articulations, and connections.

In a recent collaboration, an artist and a surgeon worked to find similarities in their respective crafts. The following correlations between surgery and drawing became apparent.  Both relied on:
- thinking of how to respond to sensations
- thinking about how you are moving
- fine-grained temporal and spatial analyses
- thinking about where you are
- gestural tasks
- performative tasks

Parting note:

The confidence to draw in whatever method is relevant to the individual student. "Good drawing" does not belong to a specific group of students.  Instead, we should use drawing to understand our past, construct your future, and to build new neural pathways.

Excerpts from "Drawing Connections", Brew, Fava, Kantrowitz.