Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
In 2011, Trica and I arrived in New York as students, ready to be certified in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. We thought we understood drawing. We had been teaching it for years. But it didn’t take long for us to realise how much we had yet to learn. This experience would change not just the way we drew, but the way we taught forever.
On our first day, we stepped onto the streets of Soho and into the middle of a scene that felt straight out of another world. Quite literally. Men in Black III was filming, and between drawing sessions, we watched aliens sip lattes, a strange contrast to the quiet intensity of Brian’s studio. Outside, the city hummed with life. Inside, time slowed. We surrendered to the practice of drawing, letting go of assumptions, unlearning and relearning.
Mornings were spent immersed in lessons on perception, where science met art in ways we hadn’t imagined. We weren’t just learning to draw. We were learning to see. The brain, we discovered, constantly shifts between different ways of processing the world, suppressing one mode in favour of another. Afternoons, pencil in hand, we wrestled with our own mental conflict, pushing past symbols and learning to see as artists do.
Most people can draw. But our brains, designed for efficiency, resist cooperation. From childhood, we reduce the world into symbols. A house becomes a square and a triangle. A face, a circle with two dots and a line. These symbols help us recognise objects quickly but limit how we experience and express what we truly see.
Through Betty Edwards’ work, Brian led us into a world of edges, spaces, relationships, light, shadow, and gestalt. It was not just a new way of seeing but a new way of knowing. Over the course of a week, a month, and then another, we realised that drawing was never about talent. It was about perception, and about learning to see the way artists do. And the best part? Anyone can learn to draw, and we can say with certainty that we can teach anyone to do it!