I’m convinced that learning how to visually express yourself enriches your life in vitally important ways. Not everyone agrees with me though. In our societies, drawing is generally seen as less important to learn than writing or maths, for example. When I was studying to become an art teacher, I felt in need of some scientific back-up to help me articulate my feeling that learning how to draw does matter. So, I read a lot of articles from the field of arts education, and was able to find three Really Real Reasons why you should draw.

The second reason I found to draw is:

Drawing integrates the emotional and logical sides of our brain, which leads to inventiveness, improvisation, and out-of-the-box thinking.

Sounds pretty good, right? Let’s break this down further.

Two brain systems

Scientists say there’s two separate systems at work in our brains: emotion/attention and reason/logic. In our culture, in schools and in most workplaces, the logical side of our brain is given great value. We use skills that require reason and logical thinking all day long. But the emotional, intuitive side to our brain is equally as important.

It’s the emotional brain that has quick, multiple, inventive solutions to most problems. It’s our intuition that makes improvisation possible. Emotion drives attention, and you need attention for learning, problem solving and the deep thinking that leads to valuable insights.

System integration

Inventiveness, improvisation and out-of-the-box thinking simply can not happen when only reason and logic are at work. Emotion and attention need to come into play. So how do we integrate the two brain systems? Just so happens that creating is the answer! In the language of science:

“Transcendent movement patterns that characterise the arts often provide the integration between the two systems.”

Why use only one side of the brain, when we have two? When you create, imagine little sparks flying from one side of your brain to the other, and back again! Drawing is like a direct gateway to creative thinking, fresh ideas, and new solutions to old problems. If that’s not a good enough reason to draw, I don’t know what is!