Matt Rowley

Draw a Tree Matt Rowley

What does a tree drawing reveal about your personality? Think, for a minute, about the process of drawing a tree. Your mind must make dozens of tiny little decisions as you begin the task: What kind of a tree are you going to draw? Big, little, tall, fat, thin, bushy, bare? Are you going to draw branches and leaves? How many leaves? What size and shape will they be? How much detail? Branches -a lot, or a few, big branches, tiny twigs, thick or thin, or maybe none at all? Will the branches extend up, out, down, or all over the place? How will you orient the drawing on the paper? Creative talent aside, (this exercise has nothing to do with artistic ability), what about other details and shading... or lack thereof? As you go through this sketching exercise, your mind is directing your hand with the pencil, telling it what to draw, and where and how to draw it. Much of that thought direction, however, may be on "auto pilot," with your conscious mind taking cues from your unconscious. When faced with the task of drawing a tree, the unconscious mind immediately recognizes a tree as a metaphor of itself. Giddy with this obvious comparison, the unconscious mind seizes the opportunity to express itself without being obvious to the outside world. Similar to the same process that controls inadvertent body language, the unconscious mind projects evidence about its psychological self into the details of the sketch. This book will teach you how to understand what the unconscious mind is thinking, revealing insight into the personality of the artist. Beginning with the roots and working up through the trunk, branches, leaves, and other details, you are given a methodical approach to evaluate and interpret a treasure trove of subtle clues hidden in plain sight in the drawing.