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.
