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| New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook: Guided Practice in the Five Basic Skills of Drawing | 
 enlarge | Author: Betty Edwards
Publisher: Tarcher
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $10.22
You Save: $7.73 (43%)
New (43) Used (17) from $9.80
Avg. Customer Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 3277
Media: Spiral-bound
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 11.9 x 9.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 1585421952
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.2
EAN: 9781585421954
ASIN: 1585421952
Publication Date: October 28, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Just bought and using this book December 2, 2005
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
I bought this book because a few art ladies in my neighborhood meet once a week to work from this book and now I am meeting with them. I have never read any of Edwards other books and am not familiar with her theories. I just wanted to reactivate my art talent.
I have done ten of the forty exercises so far. I have been impressed with how easy it was to just start drawing again. From some of the exercises I get the drift of where Edwards is coming from, but what is more important is the experience I am gaining.
On exercise six are drawings upside down and you sketch them that way; then turn them upright when done and surprise you have an amazing sketch of the drawing you copied. The idea is that you trick your brain into switching to the right side and stop the left side from talking and cluttering up your mind with thoughts such as "I don't do upside down pictures".
If you get the book do all the drawings in this exercise and you will find an interesting thing happens. The drawing you think is the simplest to do and get right is actually the hardest and the hardest is the easiest to do. You can come up with your own theory on that. I have my own. I learned a lot about myself from this exercise when I analyzed my pictures. One thing I found is that I draw things slightly larger than I see them. So go for it and see what happens for you.
I mail ordered all the supplies listed in the book and found that I did not need all the things on the list and could have done without some things and saved myself some money. It is easy to adapt the lessons to your budget if you get creative. Do get the kneaded eraser, charcoal, and number four pencil. You can end up spending over twenty dollars for all the supplies recommended.
I plan to update this review when I am done with the workbook. I give it four stars now because I have not finished the book and the issue with the supply list.
 The science is not silly at all. August 21, 2004
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
I would recommend this book in a heartbeat to anyone. To those who cited Mrs. Edwards reference to scientists who are proponents of the paranormal sciences, I would quickly point out that the core of her thesus rests on the work of legitimate and completely accepted neuro-science (not paranormal science), specificaly the work of Roger W. Sperry and his students at the California Institute for Technology in the 50's and 60's, work which has been enhanced and greatly expanded since then by the science community. I don't know how much if any of Mrs. Edwards reliance on the opnion of paranormal scientists is in this book, but it clearly has nothing at all to do with the foundation of her thesus. The results are the proof.
A fine workbook - worth the price! June 29, 2003
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
This isn't meant to replace Edwards' outstanding books, including the classic Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. But it is helpful with its exercises, drawing tool, and current research. Don't expect miracles, but do expect improvement in your drawing skills! ...
Excellent tool for artists and non-artists December 15, 2003
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
I have to disagree with the few negative reviews that have recently appeared for the Edwards workbook. This is a fine gift for anyone interested in learning to draw. While it doesn't go into depth as "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" does, it does provide enough information to get started - the methods and approach of Dr. Edwards are groundbreaking and absolutely essential information if you want to use your WHOLE brain. (And yes, Nicolaides' book is important, too, but Edwards work is very complementary to it, and carries his work many steps further...)
 The ANIMAL FARM ACADEMY of ART May 23, 2004
14 out of 100 found this review helpful
"DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN"?
LEARN-TO-DRAW: UNTHINKING PERSONS APPLY HERE!
Same author also wrote: "Drawing on the Artist Within".
In one instance, it is drawing on the "brain", and in the other, it's drawing on the "artist within". Betty Edwards is an art fad theorist. Edwards cashes in on the simple fact that many people are unfamiliar with INVERSE/OBVERSE perception.
What EDWARDS actually offers is a psychological crutch, for all the drawing instruction is founded upon a singular theory. That is not encouraging art in others. Rather, it's ART FASCISM. Art has never been founded upon a singular theory. Often as not, ART is the anti-thesis, the opposite, of all theorizing and intellectualizing. EDWARDS makes the practice of ART a theory-dependent activity, rather than a form of creativity that transcends idea-formation. It's a very undemocratic idea; but at the same time, credit Edwards with coy marketing, if not art theory fascism.
What does one actually draw WITH? Is it one half of the human brain? ...OR... Is it the Heart? Because if it is the latter, EDWARDS' art theorizing collapses. Realistically, people who draw, no more analyze "HOW" they draw, any more than a bee analayzes "HOW" he flies; but false instruction is marketable when truth & fiction are cunningly mixed.
Here, the subtle suggestion is the blatant falsehood that there exist people in the world that cannot draw. IT IS NOT TRUE! That is a false assumption, swallowed hook, line & sinker by a gullible public. To the point here, there are no SCIENTIFIC evidence or facts presented as evidence that there are people who-cannot-draw. In this manner, Edwards is able to shift between POPULAR MYTH and SCIENTIFIC FACT. RIGHT-BRAIN PERCEPTION is sold as the snake-oil miracle cure for the suffering masses who have been denied spiritual healing.
Furthermore, even if EDWARDS were to carry her own logic forward to its rightful conclusion, and the reader applied the very same RIGHT-BRAIN/INVERSE/OBVERSE mode of visualization to the purpose of examining definition of terms, it would become obvious that Edwards turns all definition on it's head. One example of such table-turning involves the meaning of the term, "artist" sloppily inferred merely to be.. "those-who-can-draw". If Edwards can teach you how to draw, you are, ipso facto, an ARTIST. Don't we all wish!
Allow me to provide another ready example. Lewis Carroll's story, "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" provides a rich assortment of visual images, and many of these amusing dramatic themes rely precisely upon INVERSE/OBVERSE PERCEPTION and RIGHT-BRAIN processing; but Edwards ignores this and suggests to the pop-culture crowd, and those not gifted with critical thinking skills, that some scientist has a NEW & IMPROVED invention whereby humans can now access their RIGHT-BRAIN and be magically transformed into a NEW & IMPROVED identity, that of an "ARTIST". How absolutely silly!
This is the same as suggesting, that if I change my car's tire, by becoming conscious of the NEGATIVE SPACE surrounding the tire, I am an AUTO MECHANIC. This is what Edward's calls reaching a state of "altered consciousness".
ART is the opposite of any such instruction that reduces itself to any kind of theoretical hand-holding. And for these reasons, EDWARDS books are a conflicting hodge-podge of New Age metaphysics, pseudo-scientific jargon, and sly half-truths, the nature of which, great ART has been combatting from time immemorial, for all such ideas place a crippling limitation upon free spirits. Art is about freedom, rather than binding or crippling attachment to intellectualizations, human fear, doubt, insecurity or angst. If you are not burdened with such negativisms, there is no reason to buy Edwards' theory; no need to draw-on-the-cash-in-your-wallet.
What Edwards does, and does very well, is practice a kind of intellectual gangsterism. Logic and Reason and any questions are simply forced aside with pages of metaphysical and NEW AGE propaganda, while followers repeat claims in Orwellian fashion like the barnyard stock in "ANIMAL FARM"; "FOUR LEGS GOOD; TWO LEGS BETTER!" Such mantras, chanted by the naive, produce an equivalent:
"RIGHT-BRAIN-DRAWING, MAKE-ME-AN-ARTIST!" "RIGHT-BRAIN-DRAWING, MAKE-ME-AN-ARTIST!". If only it were true.
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