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!!!!

A friend of mine (twitter @kcreamer) recently told me about a great blog site litemind.com that is “Exploring ways to use our mind efficiently.” I’m finding this site to be a very fun and productive read since I have an interest in Whole Brain Thinking and the impact that brain dominance plays in our own abilities to be creative, achieve success in life and work, and be happy. I’ve only just begun to explore the site but in that process have discovered that twitter user @lucianop is the site owner and primary author.

These recent posts at litemind.com can help us begin to understand how greatness can be achieved. You might want to go read these and come back for my commentary:

Einstein’s Secret to Amazing Problem Solving (and 10 Specific Ways You Can Use It)

This article deals with the importance of critical thinking and problem definition in solving big problems.

How to be Great: Rising Above the Talent Myth

This article deals with the myth that we are born great. It lays out some practical steps for what is termed “Deliberate Practice” for achieving greatness. One thing is certain, when striving for greatness; it takes lots of practice and work.

Deliberate Practice, Self Actualization and Meta Cognition

The process of achieving Deliberate Practice can help you achieve Self Actualization. The ability to look at your own performance, in a non-emotional, non-judgmental manner is so very important on the road to Self Actualization. And Self-Actualization is required for sustained greatness.

Meta-Cognition, the thinking about your thinking, is key to the ability to look at ones-self and examine the good and the bad, and then deciding what to change and how. Progress toward greatness cannot occur without this introspection and correction. Yet many of us get hung up emotionally about our failing and faults and then come to believe that we can never eliminate or overcome our failings. Our failing become self-limiting beliefs.

Strengths Alignment

To harness your greatness you need alignment of strengths, goals and values and the identification and elimination of self-limiting beliefs. Otherwise, the effectiveness of deliberate practice is limited.

People have innate strengths, as highlighted in the Gallop Organizations StrenghsFinder book and assessment (also known as Strengths Finder) and the VIA strengths discussed by Dr. Martin Seligman When your work or play is aligned with your strengths (your core abilities), your ability to achieve mastery rises exponentially. In addition, people that operate in alignment usually can achieve “flow” or right brain thinking easily. And as one of the leading positive psychologists Dr. Seligman has learned, being in the flow leads to sustained happiness or achieving the so called “Good Life”. Deliberate Practice becomes much easier when you love your work and this love emanates from the alignment of strengths and the resulting flow.

You can read more about strengths at Why You Need To Assess Your Strengths Now.

Self-Limiting Beliefs

Additionally we are conditioned to believe that we are limited beings. Most of us travel through life with many self-limiting beliefs. Teachers, peers, parents, friends and others condition us from very early on to believe that we can’t do this and we can’t do that. These beliefs then form self imposed barriers to our own achievements. Truly great people identify their self-limiting beliefs (or don’t have them to start with) and work to tear them down and replace them with greatness beliefs. Tiger Woods belief that he would be greater that Jack Nicklaus is a great example of replacing self-limiting beliefs with beliefs of greatness. Consider as well the 4 minute mile. Until Roger Bannister broke this barrier in 1954 no one thought it possible (other than Roger). Then a month and a half later his record was broken. And since then, the sub-4 minute mile has become routine.

People wanting to achieve greatness have to start off with a belief system that the impossible is possible, and that they will be the one to make it happen.

In future articles, I will outline simple steps for identifying and eliminating self-limiting beliefs and replacing them with greatness beliefs.

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.