The Power & Beauty of a Line

Thinking With Your Hands!

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies… . A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do … so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching… . The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.

Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451 

Frank Wilson "The Hand"“People are

born resourceful and they become skillful and thoughtful when they genuinely care about what they are doing.”

The Hand Creates the Mind

Two types of Hand MovementPrehensile

Movements - An object, fixed or free, is held by a gripping or pinching action between the digits and the palm.

Non-prehensile Movements - The whole hand includes pushing, lifting, tapping, and punching movements of the fingers

The GripPrecision Grip –

employed when delicacy of handling and accuracy of instrumentation are essential

Power Grip – executed between the surface of the fingers and the palm with the thumb acting as a buttressing and reinforcing agent

Practical Life & Visual ArtsCare of the Person

Personal Care & HabitsOpening & ClosingGrooming

Care of the EnvironmentCarryingCleaningPolishingCare of PlantsFood Preparation

Small Motor PrecisionPouring – Dry & WetSqueezingTwistingHammering

Visual ArtsCollage Clay workTextile ArtsPainting PrintmakingSculpture

John Napier "Hands"“When the hand is at

rest, the face is at rest; but a lively hand is the product of a lively mind. The involvement of the hand can be seen in the face, which is in itself a sort of mirror to the mind.”

Hands by Leonardo da Vinci

NEGOTIATING GRASP

THINKING WITH THEIR HANDS

Hand ~ Eye ~ Body ~ Mind ~ Heart

A Strong & Beautiful Hand

POWERMuscular ControlWritten CompositionAccuracy

Forms of Composition

The Art of Calligraphy

Drawing

The Line

Beauty

Writing is a relative new comer and only appeared in a small number of places on Earth. Unlike spoken language, a writing system is not something that nature gives us.

Steven Pinker

“The process of text production is radically different, cognitively and phenomenologicaly in a print-writing environment compared to a digital environment.”

Handwriting in a digital age?

Handwriting & Keyboarding

Unimanual vs bimanualSlow process vs quicker

processVisual concentration on tip

of pen vs concentration on keys and monitor

Shapes each letter vs readymade letters

Attention to grammar and spelling vs readymade software

The Hand Creates the MindExercises

RainSwirlsWaterfallNecklacesClustersA, B, C’s

ZentanglesDotsBorderStringsTangle PatternsShading