Betty Edwards Quotes
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An individual's ability to draw is... the ability to shift to a different-from-ordinary way of processing visual information - to shift from verbal, analytic processing to spatial, global processing.
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As each new skill is learned, you will merge it with those previously learned until, one day, you are simply drawing - just as, one day, you found yourself simply driving without thinking about how to do it.
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In early childhood, children develop a set of symbols that 'stand for' things they see in the world around them... Children are happy with symbolic drawing until about the age of eight or nine... when children develop a passion for realism. Our schools do not provide drawing instruction. Children try on their own to discover the secrets of realistic drawing, but nearly always fail and, sadly, give up on trying.
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Clearly the work of a master teacher who has deep knowledge of his subject and enormous empathy for his students and his readers.
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As parents, we can do a great deal to further this goal by helping our children develop alternative ways of knowing the world verbally/analytically and visually/spatially. During the crucial early years, parents can help to shape a child's life in such a way that words do not completely mask other kinds of reality. My most urgent suggestions to parents are concerned with the use of words, or rather, not using words.
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As a teacher and parent, I've had a very personal interest in seeking new ways of teaching. Like most other teachers and parents, I've been well aware painfully so, at times that the whole teaching/learning process is extraordinarily imprecise, most of the time a hit-and-miss operation. Students may not learn what we think we are teaching them and what they learn may not be what we intended to teach them at all.
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Art has this long history, predating even language, of expressing nonverbal information.
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Be clear in your mind why learning to draw well is important. Drawing enables you to see in that special, epiphanous way that artists see, no matter what style you use to express your special insight. Your goal in drawing should be to encounter the reality of experience... to see ever more clearly, ever more deeply.