The powerful good influence drawing will have on your life

Published by Armored Pencil on

Think about this for a minute, you’re being taught to read and write, but did your parents teach you HOW to draw?

So how does drawing influence us? As a kid, you picked up a colored pencil, crayon, or ink marker and went about. Your parents would marvel at what you created;

“Is that a sun? Is that our house? Ooh look you drew Max our dog. I am never going to remove this from the fridge!”

Somewhere down the line, you stopped, saying you couldn’t draw. Not because you can’t but because you judge yourself as being unable to replicate a Mona Lisa. You have too high standards. Now let me tell you why you need to glue a pencil to your hand…

— Don’t do that right? I don’t want you to come back to me saying you accidentally sharpened your finger instead of your pencil…

How does drawing influence us?

It will make you more confident, and less afraid to make mistakes. Making mistakes is how you learn and progress. You spot that something is off but can’t put your finger on it. You will start digging into what might be wrong. Asking for critique and advice.

Where does drawing influence us? You will be noticing and seeing more of our surroundings. And you will walk around and constantly ask yourself, how can I reproduce that. You will look at perspective, colors, and lighting. While you would at first just walk by, you now take the time to absorb what you are seeing.

Drawing has an impact on your emotions as well as on others. It can make you feel sad, or joyful and the other entire spectrum of emotions. It also has the power to lift our spirits or bring us down. And it can help us express our feelings and dreams. For instance, I have a fantasy, no not that kind. A fantasy story I would like to put into images also known as comic. I’ll let you in on a secret, that’s my motivator why I picked up drawing again.

Two young girls drawing focussed

Funny fact about this one, women, well little girls develop fine motor skills faster. Or maybe a because they have a bit more patience. It was something I noticed with my kids, the oldest, a boy took longer to develop the skills to color in between the lines. He also didn’t care, going about it with that crayon like a savage murdering that piece of paper. While my daughter when at the same age was focusing more on precisely putting the marker between the lines. Anyway, it’s not too late for you to work on developing those fine motor skills.

I’m old, so I can’t start anymore.

Also, it is not too late to start. I was 35 when I picked it up again, although I now wish I did it more during my teens when I had plenty of time. But as important, a study says it helps older people a demographic most at risk of impaired cognitive functioning and manual dexterity stay active and focused for longer.

Art has a sneaky way of working on your intellect, you are constantly letting your brain work, looking at references. Thinking about proportions, perspective, lighting, and storytelling.

It helps us relax, this study says. 45 minutes of creative activity significantly lessens stress in the body, regardless of artistic experience or talent. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you suck at it, but it will be good for you to do it!

Everyone has heard about the stories that you should draw things to remember them better. A new study shows it to be true. It’s even superior to activities such as reading or writing. You’re being forced to process information in multiple ways: semantically, kinesthetically and of course visually. Drawing information is a powerful way to boost memory, increasing how much you recall to nearly double.

So what other things does drawing influence?

Drawing can help us figure things out. Don’t you think that if architects didn’t draw what they envisioned first, houses would be all wonky? Or that suddenly there is a door that when opened runs into a wall? Would be super funny if we just started building things. Oh, and costly fixing our mistakes. Not so expensive to fix mistakes with a piece of paper.

Also think about your surroundings, how many things are explained to us in drawings, every road sign, universal for understanding what you need to do, or not do. Warning signs that you can fall off a cliff, or slip on a wet floor, drawings are often used to keep us safe.

Caution slippery when wet, drawing influence.

For me, the following one is my biggest driver. Drawing to tell stories and jokes, I want to create comics of all kinds of stories I told you before.

You can create drawings to make a point. Like political comics and satire making an argument or your point of view on something.

I’m just going to say one word — IKEA, do you think you could put that cabinet together without that instruction drawing?

Ikea man trying to figuring out how to build his product

I mentioned this before art can lift spirits, so can yours. If someone is feeling down, making a funny comic can help them. Create a portrait for your meemaw, who recently lost her buddy in life. It will probably cheer her up. Is all of this enough to see the how drawing influence our lives?

I think I have given enough incentive to get you started, if not.

When you get good enough in the craft you can earn your money with it. There are loads of jobs that require some kind of drawing skills like; landscapers, architects, engineers, tattoo artists, advertisers, clothing design, graphic design. I’m just going to stop there because the list is long!

Being an artist can be big business these days. But you need to put in the effort and keep close to yourself. Especially if you can move the skill to draw digitally, that will significantly increase your chances of making money with it.

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Want to know what I am up to? Give me a follow on Instagram ArmoredPencil.

Better yet, send me a message or share your post with #drawing-reference on instagram and share with me what you have been drawing. I would love to see your progress.

Want me to help you start? Then these articles might be for you.

Categories: Inspiration

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