Draw and paint your reality and keep memory in good shape
Why should you start drawing and painting if you are not and do not intend to be an artist? Why should your kid draw instead of scrolling through screens?
The worst part of nowadays trends is trying to achieve a wonderful result without any efforts, experience and work. When it comes to art classes, that takes away from any benefits drawing and painting provides you with.
I have listed benefits of participating in art class many times before. Some:
Benefits of participating in art classes
I have also mentioned the effects of drawing and painting on our memory many times:
Drawing and painting for brain health
It is not that important actually what you draw or paint, but how you use the medium of your choice or art supplies you have. It is also very important for people who are not and do not intend to be artists, to pick up a pencil and start drawing. Do it for fun, for pleasure, do it without regard to results and just to keep your brain flexible, young and memory strong.
Realistic painting of Bell peppers on white background
How to turn simple things into awesome subject of painting
While trying to become familiar with drawing or painting, you will progress faster and create more impressive drawings and paintings if you use real things, not photos. When artists have experience and know what they are doing and what they are trying to achieve, they can use also photos because they will understand how to handle them.
Draw what you see
We can draw and paint anything. It does not have to be an extraordinary setup of extraordinary things. Anything you have on the table or in fridge is fine. Anything you see through the window is fine. Anything visible in the backyard is fine, too. Try to create abstract outlines at first and then refine every area more. Don’t worry about the result; allow yourself the freedom to be a creator. Who cares what you have drawn? The main thing is engaging our brain, eyes, mind and hand.
Photo versus reality
If your initial learning subject is already flat and two-dimensional, you will have hard times to ever adjust to drawing or painting from reality. It is even worse to trace outlines from a photo because you are missing the most crucial part of drawing and painting process which is to understand why you place things where you place them and why you use the specific artistic tools such as contrasts, shadows, overlapping, specific colors, sizes and shapes on certain areas.
Brain loves drawing and painting
Art is a very logical thing; and decisions we make are the result of communication between many brain areas which are activated while we perform some specific task. Unlike any other cognition and memory related activity, drawing process involves many areas of the brain because drawing is a multi-sensory activity and in order to create we use many brain regions:
to see and understand our painting subject;
to process its shape, outline, size and spatial relationship with anything else;
to send the signal to our hand with brush or pencil;
to recreate visual images with line, color, form, value, contrast and shadow on a paper or canvas;
to give our subject multi-dimensional look and volume on a flat paper or canvas;
to distinct between abstracted areas and definite details;
to make certain focal points stand out or point out the main area of interest.
Decision-making and personal know-how
That is a lot of decision-making! Therefore, using our brain to its full capacity more and more often, we become successful with capturing our idea or visually perceived subject and turning work on it into personal artistic experience, into our personal know-how.
Composition and values
Composition and values, as well as shapes and shadows are things we should figure out while we are creating a sketch or value drawing for a painting. That is why reality is more helpful than we think. Photo has limitations, and you will have to pretty much stick with it while reality allows for endless interpretation and adjustment.
Creation takes origin in us and our own brain
That is also my biggest argument against the idea of believing that watching how somebody else paints results in better drawing or painting for you. You simply do not know all the things the artist who demonstrates painting or drawing is considering. Artists, who demonstrate their creative process, have made countless decisions before they started to apply paint. They keep making new decisions every split second, and most often, they have also practiced on this particular piece many times.
Draw and paint and become more efficient with any mental task
If you already do not spend some calming, soothing and relaxing time with pencil or brush, please, consider it. You do not need to be an artist to start drawing or painting. However, most people need either mental or physical healing, and we definitely need to maintain our memory in a good shape. These are benefits we can count on along with creating something beautiful.
Sign up for art classes: Registration for art classes
P.S. I had already written this post by Friday morning, and my mom had a stroke on Friday afternoon. See lifeschool blog for more info on that: Bad news comes always at wrong time
My mom was better today. She recognized me and was able to recall my name.
I’m so sorry to hear about your mom. I hope she continues to improve.
We hope, as well. It’s complicated, though, I wrote about all this on my lifeschool blog https://inesepogalifeschool.com/2019/02/10/bad-news-is-always-unexpected/.
I still wanted to keep art website posts as they were intended initially. I loved how well the pepper painting came out. I’m probably pointing towards my art too less, it just disappears.
It’s also so that between writing, painting and publishing all this happened. I haven’t slept for a few days. I had a surgery a week ago and was thinking that everything was getting better. It’s ok. Mom is in Latvia, I am in Canada, that was the most complex part, the rude phone answers from hospital, no help to her, etc. She is 88. I’m not that young either. As I said, I described it on the other blog. Having a lot of medical knowledge doesn’t always help because there are reasons why stroke and blood clots must be treated fast. Reality can be rough.
Thanks for reading!
I love the pepper – especially the way the shadow slips off the cutting board. So sorry to hear about your mom, Inese. My thoughts are with you.
Thanks! Yes, it didn’t go too well. I just hope some fix is still possible. We will take whatever promises some hope. I was really glad mom recognized me today, yesterday now actually. Such a shock and insane human error, negligence even. I wrote about it on lifeschool blog a bit more. I hope this day goes well for her. This is all very scary.
Nice post, its always amazing to see people who take an art class and expect their painting to come out perfect without putting any effort into it. I really like the muted reds of your bell pepper.
Thanks, Shawn! I would be happy to see more people who simply want to have a good time and learn. Perfection with the first brushstroke ever usually does not happen. I think it’s also so that sometimes somebody is in the class only to be able to post what they did online and to receive praise. I’ve seen that quite a few times. My favorite are the devoted students who pay attention, are patient and work hard to achieve what they came here for.
Inese, you have convinced me, I will start drawing to keep my brain in best shape possible. And I’m sorry to hear your mum had a stroke. Wishing her a good recovery.
Creativity is important. Drawing and painting are the simple, affordable blessings. One of the best things we can do even when artist is just a beginner or paints only for pleasure.
I’m sorry to hear your mum had a stroke. My thoughts are with you.
I should start drawing to keep my brain in good shape. Excellent post.
Thanks, Irina! I am hoping for the best.
Dear Inese, I love the beautiful message that you share through your art and your words.
I also think that it’s a good thing to engage in creative activities and that you should ” Do it for fun, for pleasure, do it without regard to results and just to keep your brain flexible, young and memory strong”.
I loved the way you said it: “Don’t worry about the result; allow yourself the freedom to be a creator.” It’s is so true. The creative process is so relaxing and fulfilling in itself that you don’t have to really care about the result too much. It’s just about allowing yourself to be happy, to trust the process and to connect to a part of yourself that will always surprise you (in a beautiful way).
Thank you for sharing such an empowering message with us!
Thanks Michelle! Well, there are too many people who think that the only thing which matters is the result at any price. I mean, they’d rather trace and copy than to allow immerse themselves in creativity.
Copying and reproducing is limited, creative process has no limitations.
It’s also the internet which facilitates the idea that one does not need experience or talent. In reality, it is so that everything takes time, efforts and be willing to take risks and make errors in order to get to a splendid result.
My acrylic paintings had excellent response on Facebook this morning. It’s funny how I get a lot of attention globally, but not locally. Go figure. I’m working hard right now to set up the classroom and start out next week with classes and workshops. I’d need to post something, but I don’t have time.
Take care and thanks a lot!
Dear Inese, I totally agree with you: the creative process has no limitations. This is why I love it so much. And also for the beauty of being in the flow and totally forgetting about everything except for the creative task at hand.
I also believe in the importance of working hard, taking risks and learning from errors (I call them learning opportunities). And I also believe in trusting the process and allowing your medium to guide you. Staying open and flexible is an important part in the creative process.
I’m so happy that you received an excellent response on Facebook for your paintings. Your works are very beautiful and they totally deserve great appreciation.
Take care of you and good luck with your classes and workshops!
P.S. Thank you for all your beautiful replies!
Thanks Michelle!
You certainly understand what creativity is.
I regret I haven’t spent enough time yet visiting other blogs and also commenting on other blogs, like yours.
Your excellent language skills show, too, I would not believe you are from Romania or something like that, I take you live in North America, but I might be wrong.
The interesting thing is that people who come from Europe and especially post-socialism Europe are very creative. I know many of them, and their creativity really stands out among the North American brothers and sisters who mostly try to sell things with rare exception of creating them from scratch. I believe all creative North Americans are among my friends and the others just do not count. LOL.
I wish I had way more exposure, but that would mean spending tons of money for less or more successful advertising.