Ambidexterity

I filled the last page of this red notebook – 63 consecutive days of sketches made with my right hand. (I think it’s the only sketchbook I’ve ever filled exclusively with one theme!) I thoroughly enjoyed giving my non-dominant hand a solid workout – much more than I thought I would. The first couple weeks were rocky: The drawings took much longer, and it felt so awkward and unnatural even to hold pencils, let alone draw with them. Yet it took much less time than I expected for my right hand to catch up to my left in sketching time and even skill. That’s when I learned that drawing skills are much less dependent on hand strength, agility and coordination than I realized; the brain is doing almost all the heavy lifting.

After those first couple weeks, I began enjoying the daily practice because I could feel my right hand gaining strength and coordination incrementally but reliably. As I’ve been learning to draw these past nine years, I have often been disappointed that developing drawing skills is not a straight trajectory of improvement – I continually backslide, improve, backslide again, improve again. Using my right hand, however, did feel like continual improvement in terms of physical ability. It was satisfying that way. 

As for my concurrent handwriting tests, some samples were better than others (see end of post), but I see almost no significant improvement over the course of two months. If I had been practicing my writing daily alongside drawing, my results would likely be different. Taken about weekly, however, these samples indicate that drawing practice does not necessarily improve skills in all areas of hand use. 

That said, I think I have become generally more ambidextrous. I find myself spontaneously picking up a lid or a utensil from the table with my right hand, which is a task I normally would do with my left automatically. I still need my left hand for full strength, like opening a jar, but both hands can do tasks that don’t require strength. I feel more balanced now. Most important, I know that if I ever injure my left hand, I could still draw! 

It was a fascinating and rewarding experience – and now I’m glad it’s done. It’s good to have my left hand back again. And my right will go back to modeling, which my left has learned is no easy job, either!

Ahh, left hand -- how I've missed you!