This is a continuation of a series of posts about learning to draw using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain concept. The last update was the draft version of this profile.

This is the final version of my first live profile. Of all the work I have done in the class so far, this is the drawing I’m most proud of. Within 20 minutes I had a likeness of Bill down on paper and after probably 1 and a half to 2 hours total, I arrived at this drawing.

When I first started drawing Bill my left brain wanted to stop me and kept saying this is too complicated and you don’t know where to begin. But then I was able to quiet the brain down, go to the basic unit of measure concept and mark the position of the back of the eye, the chin and the back of the ear. After that the right brain took over and and Bill started to appear. I’m now a very big supporter of the Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain concept.

All my drawing posts can be viewed here.

On to the Self-Portrait. Yahoo!!!!

What do Robotics, The Closet and Conflict Resolution have to do with Self Actualization? Good Question you ask! Bear with me as I weave this real story of self actualization that touched my heart and that of many others.

Self Actualization

According to Wikipedia, people that are self-actualized are characterized by these traits:

• They embrace reality and facts rather than denying truth.
• They are spontaneous.
• They are interested in solving problems.
• They are accepting of themselves and others and lack prejudice.

While there are many people in the world that are self actualized, I would dare say, there are many more that are not. But who can challenge the benefit of self actualization? Knowing who you are, and being able to grow your own abilities in a non-judgmental way can help you achieve whatever greatness you want out of life. Be that the greatness of self-fulfillment, joy and happiness, financial abundance or that of achieving specific and distinct other goals in life. Anyone want to climb a mountain or sail around the world?

Parents and teachers of middle school and high school kids know all too well that getting them to understand that they need to embrace, in a positive and constructive manner, their own realities and seek ways to improve, is one of the greater challenges of being a parent. And teaching them to be non-judgmental is very tough, especially as parents carry their own judgments with them through life.

Robotics

I have been participating with US First Robotics competitions for three years as a Coach and Tournament Judge. Yesterday (November 15, 2008) I had the privilege to Judge 12 First Lego League (FLL) teams in the Robot Engineering category at the Maggie Walker Richmond Tournament for Virginia First.

The Closet and Conflict Resolution

We were interviewing one of the teams at the tournament during engineering judging and heard this story of The Closet. To put it in their own words:

We are all strong headed and only want to use our own ideas. We don’t want to listen to the other team member’s ideas!

Yet while we were interviewing them we did not see any evidence of this Strong Headed-ness. In fact, they supported each other and respected each other in a forum that easily can get out of control. So we probed a little and they told us the way they dealt with these conflicts it to get the parties involved, get them in a large closet with a mediator and work through their disagreements. They leave the closet agreeing on a direction and even more remarkable, the other team members don’t participate in the conflict resolution at all. Yes, they agree to agree! How remarkable for these young people. This process leads to respect, allows for brainstorming and non-judgmental spontaneity and allows for disagreement since they have a mature and respectful process for conflict resolution.

In the end, they collectively came to understand their team and individual realities, strengths and limitations and found a way to solve problems that was positive, mature and non-judgmental. Clearly they are on the road to self-actualization.

We can all learn from these young people. Discover your differences, embrace them and resolve them.

USFIRST Robotics

If you have children that need a creative, engineering like outlet for expression, or even just want them to gain experience with teamwork, research, presentations and have fun doing it. Consider having them join a USFIRST Robotics team. For FLL (ages 9 – 14) teams start to form in the early spring usually. Ask around and you may find a existing team, or consider starting one of your own. You can always post a comment here and I will find you your local or state FIRST representative to contact for more information. Support USFIRST. It does make a difference!

Now go hug your child and embrace them for they are our future!

This is a continuation of a series of posts about learning to draw using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain concept. The last update was the simple profile post.

Last night I spent less than an hour drawing Bill. I still have more work to do on darkness and lightness. Given this is my first live profile I’m happy with it. I’m hoping to draw my family after the class is complete.

I’ll post the final version when its ready in a week or two.

This is a continuation of a prior Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain posts (Learning to Draw). See update 6 for my perspective drawing example.

So in the last class we practiced drawing a profile after learning some fascinating information about proportions and location of eyes, ears and more. Pretty cool stuff. Very Left-Brain information necessary to get the Right-Brain working artistically.

We practiced drawing a freehand copy of a profile called Madame X by John Singer Sargent .

Below is the image we used to freehand copy and then my copy. Still needs lots of work and you can see I moved a lot of lines around (the chin area especially) to try to get the proportion worked out.

The original Madame X by John Singer Sargent

And my Version

Tonight we are going to do live profiles of each other. Now that should be interesting.

This post continues the prior posts about Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - See update 5.

In update 5 I showed my first perspective that was done to learn some of the techniques. This example is our official perspective. I did this over 2 classes and a little at home. I probably have about 4 hours into this one.

It’s a corner in the speech center at the University of Richmond. Pretty complicated with lots of doors, hallways and trim work. I’m pretty pleased with this one with the exception I don’t have door knobs on the doors and there are some places where the proportion and angles could be a lot better. But all told, not bad for my first complex perspective.

I’m pretty excited about the process of learing to draw. I’m really looking forward to the process of the self portrait. If that comes out looking good, I’m going to draw my daughters after the class is finished.

Up next, we are going to learn to draw profiles.