7 Practical Skills Learned in Drawing Class Anyone Can Use Everyday

What Learning Art is Good for in Southcoast, MA – INCREASED POWERS OF OBSERVATION.  X-RAY VISION.  GREATER AWARENESS OF CONTRAST AND NUANCE.  PROPORTION.  PATTERNS.  PLUMB AND LEVEL.  SPATIAL RELATIONS.   These are some of my favorite things as the old song goes.  Whether some people know it or not, learning art is useful and the lessons learned have practical every-day uses.  Here are seven things you can use everyday that you can take away from my drawing class. 

                                                                                                                                       

SKILL NUMBER ONE - You’ll become a better observer.  Learning to draw will increase your power of observation even if you’re a guy.  As most women believe – men don’t notice anything. But, let’s not go there right now.  Your observation skills improve because drawing class teaches you how to look.  The better your looking gets, the more your seeing improves.  It is true that many people look but don’t really see.  This skill is a general one.  However, it is the gateway to many other skills.  THE TAKE-AWAY: Being a better observer offers you many benefits that you can use everyday because you’ll be more aware.  Being more aware brings more pleasures to the eye and so much more.

  

SKILL NUMBER TWO – You, as a better observer, will also gain the power of x-ray vision.  Drawing exercises force you to see the underpinnings of things.  Structure is what everything hangs on.  Bone structure especially.  Once you learn human anatomy in a life class, you’ll understand your body better.  You’ll also understand more about what makes some people more visually attractive than others and it’s not just the amount or shape of the padding on the chest and bottom area.  Imagine being able to see through clothing not as a voyeuristic thrill but as an aesthetic pleasure.  The more you understand the figure of another person, the more you’ll understand yours.  There’s much more to this skill. THE TAKE-AWAY: The really practical part is this skill helps you select your wardrobe better. It helps you see through things to get to the core of things.

SKILL NUMBER THREE – You’ll see more colors, shades and contrasts, and nuances than ever before.  Awareness, or more correctly, greater awareness is the all encompassing skill you’ll develop in my drawing classes.  What you’ll become more aware of are colors and shades. It’s amazing how black and white many people are.  For the most part, they are limited in their perception of shades as gray.  One gray fits all for them.  As for colors, until you take this course, you may be doomed to saying – all greens look alike to me.   THE TAKE-AWAY: Once you start seeing contrasts and nuances, a whole new world will open up to you.

SKILL NUMBER FOUR – Imagine being better able to understand the importance of proportion and being more spatially aware. There’s that word again – aware.  Better proportion awareness is all about knowing how-to compare the relationship between things when it comes to size, quantity or the ratio of things and their parts to each other.  It’s always valuable to know about symmetry, harmony and  balance.  Having a sense of proportion reveals the significance of things. THE TAKE-AWAY:  A sense of proportion when coupled with an objective view reveals the beauty of things that may have once been hidden to you. 

SKILL NUMBER FIVE – Once you start to see patterns you’ll see the rhythm of life.  Being pattern aware is important because, although more people relate the concept of pattern to dressmaking, it’s also about natural occurrences in climate or weather or, the spots on a leopard.  In art, pattern is about visual occurrence and its frequency, whether repetitive or alternating or alternating repetition.  THE TAKE-AWAY: Seeing, feeling and anticipating both erratic and consistent occurrences, characteristics and configurations, as well as, forms, styles, or methods.

SKILL NUMBER SIX – You’ll see the world through the cross-hairs of a telescopic site – everything is either plumb, level or something in between. When something is plumb, it’s completely vertically straight.  When something is level, it’s completely horizontally straight.  Of what use id this?  Ask a carpenter.  The greatest challenge in learning this skill is in overriding your brain’s tendency to straighten things out that aren’t really straight.  THE TAKE-AWAY: You won’t ever have to ask anyone if the picture you just hung on the wall is straight – you’ll know and it might drive you a bit nuts. Being aware of the plumb and level of things does have its upside!

SKILL NUMBER SEVEN – Learning about spatial relations takes in a bit of everything you’ve learned in numbers One through Six.  What value does this skill have?  Ever had to move a new piece of furniture into your house?  Then, you may find this as one of the most practical of all of these skills.  On the aesthetic side of things; a developed sense of spatial relations gives you both a real, as well as, a virtual sense of the space you’re in through your new knowledge of alignment; where things are in space and, proximity; where things are in relation to each other. THE TAKE-AWAY: A new-found sense or awareness of place, which defines where or the way in which you or something is situated in relation to everything else.  Comes in handy for parallel parking, too!

There are far more than just seven practical skills that you’ll learn and use.  These new skills aren’t limited to just being practical; there are many aesthetic skills as well. So here you are; skills far beyond just developing your eye-hand coordination.  Take a drawing course and open your eyes a bit more!