Transcriber: Mohand Habchi Reviewer: Jin Ge
Images are the native language of the imagination.
This is why most people don't dream in text.
Now making images is not only an art
but a visual form of communication
that it's rich and is complex as written language.
The most fundamental way to make an image is to draw one.
Now I've drawn for my entire life
I've taught thousands of people to draw
and I am convinced that drawing is a skill
that is as essential as literacy and numeracy.
Now specifically I'm talking about observational drawing,
which means to observe something
and draw an accurate representation of it.
Observational drawing is more of a science than an art.
It requires learning how three dimensional
forms occupy space,
how they interact with light,
and demands that every attribute of the subject
be analyzed and recorded.
Now people often assume that
a good drawing is accurate from it start
but this is absolutely not the case.
The first lines of a drawing are rarely accurate,
so they're drawn lightly
often so lightly they're hardly visible.
Light lines can be drawn, evaluated
and redrawn as many times as necessary
in order to arrive at an accurate representation.
This means that drawing trains our minds
to view our mistakes
as an essential part of a process.
Too often people experience a sense of
shame regarding their mistakes,
but imagine what might have been different in your life
had your mistakes in any area been viewed as normal, temporary,
and holding vital clues your eventual success.
Now in addition to being fundamental to drawing
this is also the mindset that is crucial for innovation to occur.
The ability to innovate is essential
in a global economy
where almost anything to be commoditized
except the process of innovation.
In fact new ideas only occur when we take risks
and our failures become productive.
Drawing habituates that thought process
and bearing it in mind is a perfectly
natural way of finding solutions.
Now I often hear people say
that drawing doesn't have a practical use outside of art design
and I actually agree with one addendum,
if you're a human you're a designer.
To design is to analyze and solve problems.
Limiting ourselves to words and numbers
leaves a gap on our problems solving skill set.
Human beings have a powerful imagination
that when tempered with a design process
Drawing is a tool that allows us to visually tap into that imagination
and extract ideas so they can be developed.
Drawing when combined with language and mathematics
offers a complete set of tools
for solving and exploring creative challenges,
as well as communicating those solutions to others.
Now in almost every drawing class I've ever taught
there are students who are convinced that they can't learn to draw
because they're not talented.
The whole concept of talent is that of a skill-based aristocracy,
that if we're not born into we're doomed to mediocrity.
This idea create a dangerous mental block to human capacity.
Fortunately researchers are proving that mastering any field
depends much more on passion and practice that innate ability.
Just like language and mathematics drawing can be taught
and while you're learning how to draw,
you may begin to wonder
what else you are capable up
to use to assume required talent.
There is a sense that people often get
when viewing an old drawing
that it was done because the camera
had not yet been invented.
But the act of drawing is much closer to solving a mathematical equation
than taking a photograph.
Drawing is an active way of engaging reality
of observing, analyzing and recording it
with the possibility of reimagining it.
40% of our brain is devoted to processing visual information,
that's more than all over other senses combined,
but most people never gain the conscious understanding
of how to communicate visually through an image based language
which is a universal language.
Now in my own life, drawing is how I've made sense of the world,
to borrow from thorough drawing is always been my way
of driving life into a corner and reducing it down.
I would encourage everyone
to participate in this fundamental human experience.
I'm calling for a widespread visual literacy,
whether it's on paper, tablet or any other form of technology,
visual literacy begins with drawing.
Thank you.
(Applause)