Reading the article, I couldn't help thinking of parallels to drawing and particularly that book (well, the original -- I haven't read the "New" one). Contrary

Reading the article, I couldn't help thinking of parallels to drawing and particularly that book (well, the original -- I haven't read the "New" one). Contrary to the expectations of most people, life drawing is largely a mechanical process that can be learned. It is very much a matter of learning to "turn off" the part of the brain that interprets images so that you can concentrate on relatively unimportant lower-level visual details, such as the angle at which the contour of a nose intersects the contour of the cheek behind it. The exercises in the book -- copying upside-down pictures, copying pictures in a grid, concentrating on negative space shapes, etc. -- all help do this. The physical left/right brain distinction, by the way, is speculation on the part of the author; apparently people with damaged right brains are also capable of learning life drawing. It does serve as a useful metaphor, however.