On February 19 I bought a book and workbook package, a book-based course on learning to draw; Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards (2), and the accompanying (optional) Workbook (3). I knew at the outset that this was going to be a challenge for me, primarily for three reasons. First off, my right (dominant) hand doesn’t work properly anymore, due to a rare disease that struck in 2016. This makes it difficult for me to hold a pencil properly, so I’d have to adapt my grip.
Another, perhaps more important, challenge in teaching myself to draw is the fact that I’ve been living with a mild cognitive impairment (MCI) since the end of 2018. The MCI makes it practically impossible for me to read a long chapter at a time, and it’s very difficult for me to follow detailed instructions.
Finally, I set myself a goal of finishing the book – and all forty drawing exercises in the workbook – within a period of only six weeks. Why? Because I want to be done by the time our snow melts here; before the start of our cycling and gardening season. I also knew that if I didn’t set a fixed deadline, this challenge was something that would drag on forever; it would be too easy for me to simply forget to do some of it each day, due to my MCI.
Then, as an added incentive, I decided to register for a live-virtual watercolour painting course on March 29, 30, and 31. I should be able to handle this, despite the MCI, because the course takes a two-hour break (to paint on our own) every two hours. I want to learn to draw because I just started t taking watercolour painting courses and workshops at the end of January, and quickly realized that I’ll probably be able to create better paintings if I can improve my ability to sketch out scenes and details.
MCI causes such difficulties concentrating, focusing, following instructions, reading, writing, etc. that by late December 2018 it had become impossible for me to continue with my beloved career in bioethics. I was devastated to have to walk away from a job that I adored, and soon found myself using my healthcare and clinical/medical research background to help other patients with the same rare disease (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), which was previously known as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD)) and other debilitating chronic pain conditions.
I quickly discovered that an interesting area of research for chronic pain these days is art therapy; one-on-one or group sessions with licensed art therapists. This is fairly uncommon in my area, and prohibitively expensive, so I began viewing creative arts courses in a different light; almost as an unguided art therapy program to help me manage the chronic neuropathic pain and other symptoms of CRPS.
At the end of 2019 I signed up for a wide range of free or inexpensive creative courses and workshops, offered through local community centres and municipal libraries in my area. All of these were scheduled to begin in mid-March last year… and were, of course, cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Although all these courses cancelled, I was able to get my creative juices flowing again by designing and then sewing my own model of two-layered cotton face masks – to help protect all my loved ones. By the time I was done, I’d made almost a hundred of these for my extended family, and I still don’t want to see my sewing machine again any time soon…
At the start of this year, I decided that I’d waited long enough to finally take some creative arts classes and found some good options being offered virtually. This was the start of what I’ve been calling my DIY (do it yourself) and at-home art therapy program. Learning to draw will be an essential component of this, even if it’s not something that I’d originally planned.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure at the outset that I’d even be able to start this book-based course, let alone hope to finish it! Once I’d gotten past the first chapter, though, I was committed to seeing this challenge through. To help me meet my self-imposed deadline, I’m using a ‘trick’ from when I was working full-time while completing my university degrees during my evenings and weekends; including my masters’ degree and thesis/project in bioethics.
For each book that I had to read back then – and later for every thesis section I had to write – I’d first break the task down into blocks of about an hour. For example, I knew that I could usually read a specific number of pages of a healthcare or health policy textbook per hour, while taking notes.
Or that I could probably write a certain number of pages of a thesis section, including the time to enter all my references into the clunky old referencing software that we used back then. This unit or block of time wasn’t random; a one-hour period fit both my lunch ‘hour’ and my twice-daily hour-long public transit commute-and-wait (in much of Montreal’s bus, train, and underground transit system at the time, buses would inexplicably leave a train terminal just before the train arrived!).
Once I’d figured out how many one-hour blocks it would take me to finish a book, I scheduled each one – as an individual task – into my agenda. Back in the day, there were no smartphone calendars and reminders! Why did I go to all that effort? Because once I’d done that, it became easier to stay on track with my plans than it would be to go back and reschedule each of these specific tasks in my calendar.
This ‘trick’ took a bit of time to set up, but it worked really well at keeping me on track back then. So I did the same for this new book on drawing, tying in the workbook exercises associated with specific sections of the book, setting up reminders in my smartphone. If all goes well, this will provide the extra motivation I need and the pop-up alarms will help manage my cognitive issues.
So far it’s working. Whenever I fall a bit behind, I make sure to catch up the next day – simply to avoid having to reschedule all of those individual tasks in my calendar! Wish me luck, and stay tuned to see how it goes 😉
As always, thanks so much for stopping by. I wish you joy in your day, love in your heart, and a smile in your eyes. Keep well, and stay healthy.
References
(1) National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS); the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Fact Sheet. Website. Updated 14 Oct 2020. Online:
https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Complex-Regional-Pain-Syndrome-Fact-Sheet
(2) Betty Edwards. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition. 2013. Penguin Publishing Group. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-1585429202. Details:
https://www.drawright.com/bettys-books
(3) Betty Edwards. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook. 2012. Penguin Publishing Group. Paperback. ISBN-13 : 9781585429226. Details:
https://www.drawright.com/bettys-books