And though she doesn't announce this as her goal, the effect of her teaching is to impart the habit of carefully watching one's own painting behavior as a way to refine it further. In fact, tracing from photographs gets more mention, as if that were an acceptable substitute. The solution is to get a really good book on drawing, and work through it along with your painting. The Edwards book is a classic, and this new edition is expanded with color plates and updated art, and fine tunes the text and examples to bring some points into better focus. Drawing is both a way to fix and discover the painting, to outline its place on the paper and to uncover the specifics of value, style and movement.
Drawing is a way to stimulate, and then record, the act of seeing.
This dynamic is also apparent in Cathy Johnson's drawing book, but Edwards brings it out systematically. Once you grasp how much drawing can nurture and develop all aspects of your art, you plunge into it with pleasure. The right brain-left brain theory that Edwards builds on, largely discredited by more recent psychological research, happily is used as a metaphor for getting out of self critical, logical, and dutiful artistic habits. Edwards brings together a stimulating variety of seeing and sketching exercises, supported by examples of student and professional artist drawings, to loosen up and then refine the hand-eye skills of drawing. Edwards has honed her teaching methods through years of experience.