Quick on the draw
WE’LL GET TO THE ART OF THE MATTER..
WRITE on! Whether you’re a dab hand at sketching or get laughed at for doodling a stick man, we’ve all had a crack at drawing at some point in our lives.
For those who are blessed with natural talent, today’s National Drawing Day is a good excuse to grab a piece of paper and a pencil. The rest can take notes as KIM CARR scribbles down 15 things you never knew about the subject.
1 Drawing is one of 12 dictionary definitions of art alongside making things and music as a way to express emotions.
2 The first human drawings date back to the Stone Age and were found in a South African cave. A cross-hatched pattern in red ochre crayon was drawn on to stone.
3 Spaniard Pablo Picasso learned to draw before he could walk and said art is essential for the soul with our bodies craving it for happiness. His first word was lápiz (pencil).
4 Boffins looking at the works of Italy’s Leonardo da Vinci, such as that above, learned he was ambidextrous and could draw with one hand while writing with the other. They figured this out as writings in some of his creations were mirrored or written backwards on one side but as normal on the other.
5 The first pencil was invented in England in 1565 after graphite was found near Seathwaite in Cumbria. The solid material was sawn into sticks and used for marking sheep by local farmers.
6 Dutchman Vincent van Gogh, above left, often used a carpenter’s pencil to sketch with and liked to press hard and work on wet paper. He was particularly talented at pen drawing and graphic technique. He used an accounts ledger to keep his sketches inside.
7 Drawing has been proven to be an excellent way to help keep your memory strong, reduc-ing the challenges the brain has when trying to solve problems.
8 Spain’s Salvador Dali put himself into a self-induced hallucination to create his famous melting clocks works, which he got the idea for while watching Camembert cheese melt in the sun.
9 Doodling while on a phone or video call helps limit daydreaming, increases concentration and stops boredom.
10 Art therapy encourages drawing as one method of releasing anxiety and stress to improve mental health.
11 Circles are one of the hardest shapes as the brain struggles to focus on movement and the actual task at the same time.
12 Blind contour drawing is a practice where an artist draws the subject without looking at the paper.
13 An intense desire to draw is a behavioural condition known as hypergraphia, observed in people with temporal lobe epilepsy.
14 Ukraine’s flag is said to be one of the easiest to draw as it has two equal-sized sections of blue and yellow which run horizontally on the flag with the blue depicting sky.
15 Between 1912 and 1948 drawing was one of the art forms included in the Olympic Games before sports only.