Don’t look, now you’re a natural artist
There are two rules in Jan Huijbers’ art class; keep your eyes on the subject and don’t take your pencil off the page.
He teaches mind drawing, a technique designed to engage the creative right side of the brain so artists feel their way through drawing rather than watching each and every detail.
It’s a technique that works for artists of all levels.
‘‘After a few sessions the results were showing their own creative personality,’’ Huijbers said. ’’Everybody has creativity in their own minds sitting somewhere. A lot of people are technically busy their whole lives and never open the creative part of their brain and that’s what I try to explore.’’
Mind drawing is not about the technical aspects like perspective and proportion. ’’The exercise takes all the burdens of mistakes away and is pure concentration and connection to the creative side of the mind.’’
Huijbers read about the technique and wanted to give it a go. ’It’s pretty weird. People come to my class and they are totally confused because the left hand side of the brain, the technical part, says this is ridiculous. That weirdness, that feeling, has to be overcome. If they overcome that feeling they are walking free.’’
Margaret Dalton, who describes herself as a perfectionist when it comes to drawing and painting, wanted to learn how to do abstract drawing.
‘‘The exercise takes all the burdens of mistakes away.’’
Jan Huijbers
‘‘At the first lesson I was tied up inside. I felt like running because Jan said, ‘Here’s an object, now draw it without looking at your piece of paper.’ It was like horror for me because being a perfectionist in my drawing I couldn’t see where I was going wrong or right,’’ she said.
‘‘It was amazing how after a few lessons you get to really like it and the drawings, they’re all the same. We draw five or six drawings of the same object without looking and it’s amazing how they all just come out the same.’’
Dalton loves it. ‘‘I want to take it further. I’m hoping to put some colour in now,’’ she said.
The next six-week class starts on October 15 and email Jan on janhuijb@clear.net.nz for more information.
‘‘I would like to carry on with people who think art is not for them, because a lot of them discover the creative part hidden almost for a lifetime in their brain,’’ he said.