Betty Edwards

Clearly, the basic ability to draw does not necessarily lead to the “fine art” found in museums and galleries any more than the basic ability to read and write inevitably leads to literary greatness and published works of literature.

process as they had experienced it. Some individuals advised that to be truly creative we must somehow turn ourselves away from usual modes of thought in order to see things differently, to look at the world from a different point of view. Still others expressed serious concern that verbal language can be inappropriate for certain creative tasks and that words at times can even hinder thinking.

But the notion that we might benefit from a visual, perceptual language as a parallel to verbal analytic thought processes is, perhaps, an idea of our own time.

Drawing is the time-bound activity of seeing. It stills the brain’s noise and gives us a window to a process as independent as the autonomic nervous system. It seems peculiar that the process should be so elusive.

“If you have found a door to the process (with the exercises in this book), I think your discovery has little to do with art. Art is a specialist’s activity in this culture, and is just a symptom of the process of seeing.”

“There is something antic about creating, although the enterprise be serious. And there is a matching antic spirit that goes with writing about it, for if ever there was a silent process, it is the creative one. Antic and serious and silent.”

JEROME BRUNER On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand,1965.