Drawing on the dominant eye Decoding the way we perceive, create, and learn

Betty Edwards, 1926-

Book - 2020

In this highly anticipated follow-up of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Edwards illuminates another piece of the creativity puzzle, revealing the role our dominant eye plays in how we perceive, create, and are seen by those around us. Research shows that much like being right-handed or left-handed, each of us has a dominant eye, corresponding to the dominant side of our brain--either verbal or perceptual. Once you learn the difference and try your hand at the simple drawing exercises, you'll gain fresh insights into how you perceive, think, and create. You'll learn how to not just look but truly see. -- adapted from Amazon.com.

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Subjects
Genres
Problems and exercises
Published
[New York] : TarcherPerigee [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Betty Edwards, 1926- (author)
Physical Description
ix, 159 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 148-150) and index.
ISBN
9780593329641
  • Acknowledgments
  • A Note About the Cover Self-Portrait
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1. Two Ways of Seeing and Thinking
  • Chapter 2. The Dominant Eye and the Brain
  • Chapter 3. Human Faces and Expressions
  • Chapter 4. Seeking and Finding the Dominant Eye
  • Chapter 5. Drawing and the Symbolism of Eyes and Eyedhess
  • Chapter 6. Why Do We Make Portraits of Ourselves and Other People?
  • Chapter 7. Drawing Some Conclusions
  • Glossary
  • Bibliography
  • Index

One of the best-known quotations, origin unknown, is: "The eyes are the windows to the soul," telling us that by looking deeply into someone's eyes we can find the hidden "real person." A more modern (but less poetic) version might be, "The dominant and subdominant eyes reveal the mind." But then questions arise: Which eye are we talking about, left or right or both? And which mind, since there are actually two "minds," the left and right hemispheres of the brain? And why are the eyes designated differently, "dominant" and "subdominant," since they seem to most of us to be pretty much the same? In fact, our two eyes are visibly different, one from the other, reflecting our two minds and our two ways of viewing the world. That difference between our two eyes is observable and, at the same time, strangely unrecognized. Might the difference be helpful in our search for "real" persons? At a conscious level, we know that what we see with our eyes is intimately connected to what we think and how we think and, at the same time, what and how we feel. Oddly, we seem to be unaware that when we look closely enough in a mirror into our own eyes, or look into other people's eyes face-to-face, we can actually see which eye is reacting to the words we are speaking or hearing and which eye may be feeling but not attending to the words. Most people are unaware of this difference. But again, we use this information subconsciously in our daily lives, most notably to guide our interactions with other people. Those interactions are complicated by the so-called crossover connections of mind/brain/body. For most of us, our left-brain hemisphere "crosses over" to control the right side of our bodies, from head to toe, including the function of our right-dominant eye. Likewise, our right-brain hemisphere "crosses over" to control our left side, from head to toe, including the function of our left sub-dominant eye. The right eye, then, is most strongly connected to the verbal brain half, which (for most people) is the left hemi-sphere. In both casual and important face-to-face conversations, each of us subconsciously seeks to connect with the other person's dominant, verbally connected right eye. We seem to want to speak right eye to right eye--dominant eye to dominant eye. In face-to-face conversations, we often subconsciously avoid the other eye, the subdominant left eye. It is mainly controlled by the nonverbal right-brain hemisphere and is visibly more disconnected and unresponsive to spoken words. Nevertheless, it is there, looking a bit remote, as though dreaming, but in fact reacting to the tone, the tenor, and the more visual and emotional, nonverbal aspects of the conversation. My personal awareness of this strange visual difference in our eyes has come about over many years, as a result of both teaching and demonstrating portrait drawing in our Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain workshops. The more I have observed, the more it has intrigued me. Thus, this book examines how all of us "draw" on the dominant eye. Excerpted from Drawing on the Dominant Eye: Decoding the Way We Perceive, Create, and Learn by Betty Edwards All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.