Drawing on the right side of the Brain.
Linda Hamilton Ross.

The great thing about being the Organiser is I get to choose the subjects and speakers. Of course if I'm the only one who turns up it will occur to me that this was a very specialist subject and only of interest to me!
By the number who joined me in June this was clearly of interest to many and I had several messages of regret from those who had somehow allowed other things to get in the way of their plans always to be at NLP-South meetings on the first Thursday of the Month.

Linda has a delightfully relaxed style of presentation and took some time to explain the 'normal' developement of the brain in regards to drawing ability and the roles played by each hemisphere. She had also brought along several books on the subject for us to look at and a sheet of titles and brief descriptions to demonstrate the breadth of information available and also some cd's with slow 'baroque' music for changing our brain waves in the second exercise. (These are all available from Linda, visit her web-site for details www.innergameofdrawing.co.uk).
In the first exercise we were asked to copy a section of a drawing. We were not able to identify any complete objects in this small extract and therefore it presented itself as only lines and squiggles. The 'left brain' needs to name shapes and patterns and then replicate them using pre-loaded symbols. The failure to do this means the 'right brain' has to take over the task, producing a much better, realistic version. My brain couldn't detect any recognisable objects and so, when Linda showed us the whole picture from which the part had been culled, I was really pleased with the result. Instantly my brain updated its information bank. I would like to think that I followed the instructions exactly, which were just to look at the lines in tiny detail, but I don't usually follow instructions if I can find some other way of doing things!
Linda then excited us by revealing the fun we were about to have in the second half of the evening and we broke for refreshment.

Most of the second part of the evening was devoted to an exercise, with a brief explanation from Linda on how we were to perform! She gave us precise instruction and emphasised that this was an exercise, and if we ended up with anything like a recognisable picture then we had got it wrong! The final result should look like a spider had fallen in the inkwell, got on the paper and then had an epileptic fit!

This exercise is about the quality of looking, and learning to trust our brain (right side) to play with what we are looking at. We were changing how we look. Every second we look away from something we are relying on memory. Linda assured us that eventually we would find our 'left brain' got bored with this and would stop interrupting and commenting or directing our gaze.
So after the set up we began a twenty minute exercise to draw the contours on our loosely clenched fist, but, believe it or not, without looking at the paper!
Linda kept an eye on us and her only comments were "slow down", "even slower", "try dead stop!"
I think I achieved the objective but was aware of a lot of internal dialogue and efforts to gauge time. I have to say that it certainly didn't seem like twenty minutes. (Much shorter). I can appreciate that further practice will really change this and my 'left' brain would soon learn to give up earlier and go make the tea!
I had a second agenda of my own for this session, to see if I could apply the principles to creative thinking in general and learn some new ways to access full 'left - right' brain working. Whilst I can't say I'm fully there yet this certainly has started me on the journey and I intend to follow this through either by further reading or joining one of Linda's classes.
Thank you Linda for the effort you put into the evening which was thoroughly enjoyed.
Want to know more? Visit Linda at www.innergameofdrawing.co.uk

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