Introduction

When you draw, you are using multiple brain regions. Your frontal lobe kicks into action providing reasoning, planning, movement, emotions, and problem solving. Your parietal lobe provides movement and orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli; your occipital lobe delivers visual processing; your temporal lobe, perception and memory; and your cerebellum, additional movement.

When you draw, you are concentrating, allowing the rewarding neurotransmitter dopamine to flow. Some people report feelings of calm. Others say drawing allows them to keenly focus.

Drawing entertains many of us.

Drawing is a way to make sense of one’s self in the world, a way to relate to others and to explore one’s own identity. It allows you to explore what you see in the visible world and interpret what you see.

Drawing is a way to visually communicate ideas and feelings.

Drawing visually records people, places, things, memories, and events.

Drawing is a form of creative self-expression.

Drawing is visual thinking—a cognitive way to explore and understand ideas and experiences.

Drawing from observation entails interpreting and visualizing what you see. Or you might visualize what you think in a conceptual drawing, or you can visualize what you imagine.

As a child, tracing your hand was a magical way to replicate your hand. Instinctively you knew the drawing was a record of your existence. Now, drawing can be anything you desire: naturalistic, realistic, stylized, abstract, nonobjective, whimsical, satirical, flat, illusionistic, textural, colorful, expressionistic—anything.

This book introduces drawing topics in a logical way, allowing you to build technical and compositional skills and comprehension. Some techniques have comprehensive step-by-step instructions. Some instructions are short prompts that cue a creative action. Highly esteemed artists, designers, illustrators, architects, filmmakers, animators, cartoonists, educators, and other creative professionals contributed many of the prompts in this book.

There are many ways to draw. Portraying the world as we see it is only one way to visualize. This guided sketchbook will teach you how to draw what you see as well as encourage you to draw conceptually and experiment. So make your brain happy—draw!

• Play!

• Observe mindfully.

• Evaluate spatial relationships. Pay as much attention to the interstices—the spaces between forms—as to the forms themselves. Imagine that between each form in your drawing there is a stretchy band that creates visual tension.

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Draw! Checklist

Have You S.E.E.N. It?

S = Spatial relationships. Consider the spaces between forms as much as the forms themselves.

E = Edges. Consider all drawn elements in response to the format’s edges.

E = Emphasis. Consider emphasizing some elements and deemphasizing others. Create a focal point.

N = Negative shapes/space. Consider all negative space.

Does the page’s orientation best suit the direction or emphasis of your subject matter?

What kind of graphic or pictorial space do you want to create? (Flat or illusory? Near or far?)

Have you created a focal point?

Have you arranged the composition to guide the viewer through the pictorial space?

Have you created a point of entry into the composition?

Have you evaluated spatial relationships?

Did you consider the negative shapes?

Is the composition balanced? (If not, what expressive purpose does imbalance serve?)

Have you drawn with as much specificity to each shape or form as possible?

Have you used tools to their best advantage?

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Diamond Rivera

{ARTIST}

“When starting off with an idea and a blank page you don’t need to tell every inch of the story. You need to include enough detail to allow the viewer to get an idea of what is going on.

“You can let them fill in some blanks, too, which will keep the audience engaged for a longer period of time. And it’s OK if not everyone walks away with the same story.

“Crop your drawing to give it an interesting perspective.”

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