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.

So the third and final reason you should draw is:

Drawing lets you experience the intrinsic and valuable sense of pleasure that comes from creating.

In other words, it’s fun.

Or maybe fun is not the right word. “Fun” is associated with things that are easy and throwaway. In contrast, art is often complicated and challenging. But if you stick with it, you’ll experience an intrinsic kind of pleasure that’s deeply satisfying.

So what is this pleasure? Scholar Constance Bumgarner has described it this way:

“Art is a part of our lives because it brings us the pleasure of engagement. Art makes us feel; it makes us feel alive sensuously, emotionally, and intellectually.”

The importance of the experience

In this time of busy-ness, to-do lists, keeping track of everything that needs to get done and of what other people need from you, it is so rare to just have a moment where you are purely experiencing. Just focused on your senses, in the moment, and not thinking about anything else. And yet it is so important for our well-being to have moments like that.

It doesn’t matter what layer of society you are from, what level of education you have, I believe we all crave to actively create something, and to enjoy the confidence that comes with it.

A state of flow

In the first two parts of this series, I talked about how drawing trains your somatic knowledge so you can develop a unique way of seeing, and how drawing integrates the logical and emotional sides of the brain so you can come up with fresh ideas and solutions. These two circumstances together lead to a third effect of truly seeing and drawing: an alternate state of consciousness called Flow.

To achieve an intense, focused way of seeing, you need to concentrate deeply. And, the intuitive side of your brain needs to be “on”. When both of these things are the case, it means you can be completely involved in what you are doing, and purely focused on the present.

When you are working on a drawing and it’s going well, you lose track of time and can actually slow down. You feel calm and have no worries at all. There is an inner clarity — you intuitively know how to make the drawing better, and you are confident that you have the skills to do it.

These happen to be the exact characteristics of flow, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who has famously done lots of research on human happiness and creativity. He actually calls flow “the secret to happiness” (watch his excellent Ted talk here). He wrote for example:

“When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.”

So yes, drawing can make you happy. You now have scientific proof to back that up!

The act of drawing

Cartoonist and teacher Lynda Barry has talked about the drawing as a place for an experience. Rather than think of a drawing as the aim, she proposes to think of it as the side effect of a certain state of mind and a physical activity. And I agree with her.

I think the act of drawing is much, much more important than the result. When you’re drawing and you get into a state of flow, that becomes its own reward.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still try to make the best drawing you can though! In fact, chasing that goal is what gets you into flow in the first place. But I think you’ll find that it’s not the finished drawing that makes you happiest, but rather the experience you had while creating it.