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Reddit mentions of The Natural Way to Draw - A Working Plan for Art Study
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Reddit mentions: 1
We found 1 Reddit mentions of The Natural Way to Draw - A Working Plan for Art Study. Here are the top ones.
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| Release date | May 2013 |
By no means am I an expert, but I have been working through similar limitations. Instead of never having visualization skills, I seemed to have lost them over time due to specializing in a science field throughout college. Too much analysis and not enough creativity just atrophied my imagination. Anyway, I have made good progress in reclaiming my inner vision and this may be helpful for you:
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This Video gave me some good ideas for establishing ritual and positive affirmations, and also helped me realize I should start by trying to hold the image of real life objects or images in my head before trying to conjure my own. I've practiced with the water charger (first looking at it in the present then closing my eyes, and eventually recalling it stone by stone through memory). I also do this with places I've visited or common objects in my day.
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To further this practice, I bought a tarot deck and use the images to strengthen my active imagination. First just "soaking the image in" with eyes open, and then close the eyes and practice holding it in my mind's eye as vividly as possible. Slowly I have been able to build up my "endurance" and now I can let the image play out as a scene and come alive.
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Finally, simple drawing practices like Contour Drawing and others from the Nicolaides method helped me learn to "see" correctly. As a bonus, this is a great way to connect with nature. Find a cool tree or powerful stone and soak in the image while drawing it. Explore its contours through touch, then draw it while looking at the object and not looking at the page.
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Basically, this all boils down to not jumping straight into self-conjured images. Instead, use real life images or objects and build up your endurance with simply holding the image in your mind. It has taken me about a year of slow practice to rebuild my inner vision, but I am just now experiencing good breakthroughs!
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Final point - for me, shifting away from the thought that the image will appear before my eyelids like a movie took me a while to overcome. I am not conjuring an image projected for my physical eyes to behold, I am "seeing" it with my inner vision, which actually kind of feels like the image is located between my eyebrows, and not behind my eyelids. Hard to describe - but I hope this helps.