By Janet Sellers
“Drawing helps you see what you cannot imagine and imagine what you cannot see.”—Richard T. Scott, American painter and writer
Making art, particularly in a group setting, fosters creativity and social connection by providing a safe space for expression, sharing diverse perspectives, and building a sense of community. This dynamic process allows participants to overcome creative blocks and feel more connected to others. Also, drawing and art-making is just plain fun, especially in the case of a class with a supportive and creative teacher. Our creative inspirations, when supported, offer us immeasurable feelings of well-being and upliftment.
Tech companies like Google use art in the workplace as a “transformative vehicle” to encourage creative thinking and foster conversation among employees. By featuring vibrant and innovative artistic expressions in its physical spaces, Google mirrors the cutting-edge, forward-thinking nature of its technology.
Google actively seeks out well-rounded individuals who can offer creative skills and fresh perspectives beyond just technical expertise. This is part of the company’s hiring philosophy, which values “Googleyness”—traits like creativity, collaboration, and adaptability—just as highly as it does raw technical skills.
In addition to technical and role-specific knowledge, Google assesses candidates for “Googleyness” or cultural fit. This includes personal qualities like intellectual curiosity, creativity, and the ability to work in a collaborative and ambiguous environment. These are life-enriching qualities that drawing and art-making by hand, especially in a group setting such as an art class, help to develop.
Visual perception (sight) is the most obvious sense used for drawing, but artists do more than just see. They also interpret and organize visual information to translate it onto paper. Drawing develops observational skills. Drawing improves a person’s ability to notice and concentrate on fine details, such as subtleties in light, shadow, shape, and color. For memory encoding, drawing an object while visually inspecting it creates a more “context-rich” representation in the brain, integrating pictorial information with the motor actions needed to draw it. In today’s world, we need creative visualization to succeed.
For drawing from imagination, the brain must first create a mental image of the subject. We can proceed from fun scribbles and even determine visual meaning with imagination. Often, doodling helps us free up our creative centers for problem-solving.
Drawing and art help designers, scientists, and, of course, artists bring their imagination to a physical form. Our ideas stay in our head until we put them into a physical form and manifest them. The physical act of drawing, particularly with, say, charcoal or graphite but also with a pen, creates a neurological connection that uses not only the mind but the hands, the eyes, and more.
Drawing relies on a multisensory and whole-brain effort, engaging the visual system, tactile senses, and internal awareness of the body’s position in space. Neurologically, this complex activity activates a network of brain regions, including the visual cortex, motor cortex, and areas responsible for memory and problem-solving.
Janet Sellers is an artist, writer, and speaker, offering talks, workshops, and art in public places for museums, communities, and institutional talks and exhibitions. Contact Janet at JanetSellers@OCN.me.
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