DORS 02-14-2010

Chapter 4, Crossing Over: Experiencing the Shift from Left to Right. Chapter 4 goes right into a couple exercises designed to "help shift from your dominant left-hemisphere mode to your sub dominant R-mode." The first exercise is called Vase-Faces #1. The Idea is to draw a face in profile from your imagination, put a couple lines on it to give it the shape of the vase and see if you can duplicate it on the other side... Was harder than it sounded for me. There was some difficulty coming back down in reverse on the opposite side. Betty calls this comparative duplication process "scanning," and, as you can see I wasn't very good at it.

The second vase-faces exercise is called "The Baroque Vase and Monster Face." The instructions are similar excepting that I was to draw a profile of "the oddest face you can conjure up - a witch, a ghoul, a monster." The experience of drawing these vase-faces was interesting because you get a sense that there actually is a problem or buffer between what you see and what your hands want to do. Its as if I were using new circuit in my hand-eye apparatus. In the book she talks about a subtle shift in consciousness , these exercises were just a small taste of what she is trying to instill in the would be artist.

Up next, upside down drawings, Ive done one of them so far but am hoping to complete the three befor my next posting. The two vase-faces were done again at Thunderbird coffee house, I was drinking Earl Gray, mmhmmm.