Oh dear! I have a sneaking feeling that there is some confusion about right-brain functions. The brain is multifunctional. People who have suffered brain injuries retrain and learn to draw on resources in or delegate to the intact part of the brain, wherever it is! Let me quote a reference from this page:
http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,5813,00.html

".......But left-handed brains are not simply mirror images of right-handed ones. Functions such as verbal language are usually located in the left hemisphere regardless of handedness. However, among left-handers, there is a greater likelihood that the language centers turn out to be located on the right side or on both sides of the brain. In other words, the brains of left-handed people tend to be different, and to have a greater variety of configurations, than those of right-handed people. "

The implications are many and various!

As a left-hander, I am able to speak from experience. Left-handers certainly have to be more flexible, have more intuition and adaptability than right-handers, who make up roughly 10% of the world population and have to deal with a world catering for right-handers. Then again, many artists are left-handers, in part certainly because we have to be creative to survive.

This implies that the right-hander is more likely to be left-brained and struggling to gain the artistic freedom the right-brain seems to offer. Why else this appeal for help?

It also implies that the left-hander is less able to work in a controlled and thoughtful manner. That is patently not true!

I think the answer (apart from Betty Edwards's exercises - useful but not conclusive) is to RELAX and let the creative spirit, which is possibly located in the heart (or stomach?) take over!

There are many sources of information on the medical implications of handedness and brain functions, many of which are contradictory (the above link has a page discussing some of them). An equal abundance of theories on creativity and how to log into it are available on the internet!

Creativity is a natural part of being human. Go with the flow and stop thinking about what`s going on in the brain!

Sorry, it reads incorrectly! 90% are right-handers (i.e. left-brainers? NO!).

I am not left-handed myself but have always enjoyed the following statement: "If the left brain controls the right hand, then only left-handed people are in their right minds."

Shifting into right brain is actually getting into the "Zone"--where time, personal problems, worries are put on hold and innate creativity abounds. These are left brain matters that can easily be vanquished for a time when needed. Bette Edward's book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is the best at learning to control and isolate the left side of the brain. I taught at the graduate school level using this book as a guide. In only one session the class would let out a collective cheer as they realised their new control over the right and left side of their brains! The premise is the left side of the brain does not like complicated things and will turn off allowing the right side to dominate for the magic of creativity. It is a very simple premise but absolutely profound in its power to find the personal creativity within. Talk about freedom, control and excitement!

From your esoteric: Statistically, women are supposed to be better able to access this ability (right/left brain interplay) than men.

Why? Because our culture continues to suggest that men- in order to be men- shut down their sensitivity to things like beauty and art. Sensitive men are frowned upon. Hopefully one day soon all of humanity- regardless of gender- will have access to a functional working right/left brain and most judgment against sensitive men will cease to exist. And the world will be a better and richer place for all.

People love explanations that isolate bits of life into a matrix of comprehesible understanding. One person adds this or that piece, but another often moves it around, removes it, or cements it (we'd like to think) into place, having added to it. Julian Jaynes had a compelling notion that was, insofar as the evidential support went, not a particularly sound accretion to the matrix. Yet.

It's very tempting for artists of all media to speculate on the uber abstractions of the activity of artists. We are rarely very good at it, but it's fun. Visual artists that work in paint and crayon do their best work silently. Even a great landscape is mute of speculative or didactic philosophy. On the other hand, it can be-- and if it's great, usually is-- ripe with the very stuff of successful accretion into the corpus of understanding, the matrix of knowledge that comprises our species' intellectual attainment. We can talk about it in general terms. "The subject of the painting is light." or "...captures the spirit of...", that sort of thing. Beyond that, the media and the support do the speaking.

Right brain, left brain, neural response, synesthesia, talent, inspiration, muse, training to render, training to see. There are all sorts of ways we want to jack into the species legacy intelligence, but in the end the true contribution of an artist cannot be reduced to words of explanation, as much as we enjoy trying.

Too much talk about right and left brain. I've read the studies and worked with Betty Edwards Book.
What it comes down to for me isn't right or left brain but habits, good work habits. Lately I'm doing much more drawing of ideas for projects. I spend days working and reworking the drawing on paper until I'm ready to start the painting process on canvas. All the time spent on the drawing absorbs me as much if not more than the painting. I keep regular hours for working. I know what I need to do and do it. This may seem like simplification of the issue, but if you establish good work habits and treat them honestly and with diligence, your brain; right and left; will take care of itself. And, as I understand it, we switch back and forth constantly while working. It's all a natural process that happens without our interference. Take each task as it comes and complete it and move to the next one. Your creative self comes from your heart first not your brain.

I have read Betty Edward's book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It is an interesting concept not to be taken too seriously. I'm not sure whether shifting into right or left brain is the right term that I would use. It sounds very mechanical, but if that's the case then my brain must shift into overdrive when the ideas flow and then shift into neutral when they stop.

The greatest gift was to be born left-handed, Thank ya Lord.

I agree with Gary Irish. As a wood worker who has shifted from linear work (square) to round work(turning/lathe) the zone is definitely more evident. Creativity is all over the brain, being aware or open to the creativity is where we need to be, to get in the zone.
I don't know if being more male or female, in ones thinking is how I would describe what is happening. Several researchers in the study of creativity do not think it is more prevalent in male or female. I do think that pushing the Zone is important to greater creativity

As I learned long before the left brain/right brain thing: Discipline is the first law of art. Or: Discipline is the foundation that sets you free. Or: Discipline gets you off the ground so you can fly higher. In all these manifestations of the same concept, "discipline" means learning the rules/techniques/processes to the extent that you don't have to think about them - they become context within which you create.

I've went over 40 years of painting without ever worrying about which side of the brain was used. LOL Just paint the damn thing!! LOL

Shifting into right brain functioning occurs spontaneously, i.e. without conscious control, all the time in probably everybody. Over the years, as part of my psychiatric practice, I have worked with writers, musicians and visual artists in training them to make the left-to-right brain transition on purpose. The necessary methodology that I use is one which I developed from clinical hypnosis techniques, simplified and stripped down to their essentials. The suggestions that you give in your article are a good beginning but fall far short of the potential that can be achieved with these methods.
I wanted to make this response in order to indicate that there is in fact relevant technology out there that goes quite a bit deeper than is generally appreciated.

My strategy for achieving 'mindlessness' is to stand tall and pull an imaginary plug from the back of my head, tip my head backwards, and allow the accumulated detritus to fall to the floor. After a minute or so, I replace the plug, pick up a broom, and sweep the droppings into the corner of my studio. It works for me, even though many friends tell me that mindlessness and gazing up at the stars is a normal day to day modus operandi for me.

It’s all fine and good to talk about accessing the goddess (god) within but what if you’re totally empty? I find myself doing the same thing over and over because I am like a vacuum. What can I do to get inspired again? I listen to music, look at other art mediums; nothing’s working. Do you have any advice for someone like me?

My thoughts are that a male artist creates with his anima and the female artist creates with her animus (Jungian philosophy) I f one can dialogue easily between the two we have a flow that works.
Anyways that is my take on it.
I like to light a candle and make the experience a numinous one. I invite the Divine to teach me. It helps me to open to the muses. Channelling is good.

I love to paint with music...however, quite by accident I discovered that if my iPod was playing through the earphones I could 'disappear' more effectively than if music was just playing through speakers. Then, my tutor Timothy Tyler introduced me to books on tape. They are a glorious way to quiet the inner voice that keeps trying to be in control. Hours can pass...

One thing a friend of mine told me is to start drawing, or in this case, painting with your left hand. According to him, this will trigger right brain thinking and after a while, you can switch back to your right hand to paint.

Well, that's interesting. I wonder if waking early in AM and staying awake is related to painter's block. At those times focusing on breathing helps.

This sounds very confusing. Didn’t you say that the left brain is the one who plans and makes decisions – so that would be the “executive” or “god”. Not the right brain which is the unconscious follower of the structure. Maybe I misunderstood since this would throw away the theory of artists having to turn to the goddess within. This would mean the opposite – we would have to hide from the “executive” goddess in order to activate the unconscious play.

Someone thinks it's harder to shift to right brain in watercolor. I disagree. The link above goes to one page of my website that demonstrates the right brain at work with watercolor. I started this painting by randomly putting water on my paper - lots of water using a paint mop instead of brush. Then I added a little yellow to see what I had, started adding additional colors at various stages of drying. Let it dry, then finished up.

Yes many artists using watercolor use it in a very controlled manner, but please don't say it's harder to stay in the right brain because of the medium.

I have been getting them now for nearly three years and have been scrolling through the earlier letters, and I can't see an answer to this question: When do you know you are good enough to start trying to market your work? How long, in terms of experience, should you have been painting for before you can feel that your art has reached its level? I am in my forties and only started painting about four years ago. I am currently studying in my last semester for my Advanced Diploma in Fine Art. I am attaching the paintings I have done over the course of this year - I think there is a marked improvement from the first painting I did (Rockpool III) and the one I have just completed (Waterfront at The Rocks). The thing is, I thought the Rockpool ones were great when I did them (and my classmates and the tutor said so), but now I feel I've improved so much that maybe they aren't so good after all. I'm assuming you keep improving as long as you keep painting; but the curve must level out.

Once again I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your twice-weekly newsletter. Your vast amount of knowledge on art is refreshing and never ceases to amaze me. There is always something new to learn from you, thankyou so much. I especially like the bit of Esoterica at the bottom of your recent newsletter article and feel compelled to write to you and add to this conversation on the interplay between the two hemispheres of the brain.

I gave up drawing at the age of 14 years believing I just weren't talented enough. I didn't paint again until the age of twenty-three years (thats twenty years ago now:) when I contracted C.F.S/M.E and suffered many debilitating symptoms including many of my cognitive abilities such as short term memory loss, no sense of time, being unable to walk further than my bathroom and back for many months. I set myself goals to get to the letterbox in my yard and once I got there I realised if I could do this I could do anything and so asked myself the question 'What do I want to do more than anything else in the world?" the answer that came to me arrived in an overwhelming emotion; all I wanted to do was to learn how to paint and draw.

Suddenly I began to paint realistically like never before, however I had difficulty in composing my own original art. I then studied for my diploma in art and so began an incredible journey of healing and self-discovery. Over a ten-year period I grew from believing I couldn't draw to becoming one of the city's most prolific and highly respected artists, sponsored by the government to hold several exhibitions. I now live in Noosa Queensla and am a gallery represented artist, author and art-educator.

If you can create the time, please see my attachment where I share with you my philosphy on drawing and the most recent 'before' and 'after' drawings that course participants are achieving in the virtual classrooms I teach at Drawspace.

Your letter today about right vs left brain highlighted a conundrum I am experiencing between what Bill Herring (see your quotes) calls a light/dark approach vs a cool/warm approach. My background is in light/dark but my experience is telling me cool/warm is where the action and excitement is. You can see this conflict in the paintings on my website (and the paintings you have chosen for my previous writings indicates a bias toward cool/warm). I gather from your books you have experienced this transition. Any advice for those trying or needing to make this transition?

I am so sorry I was so out of the information loop when the 'left and right brainer's ruled the roost, I have no idea what was the basis of that colloquialism, but my parents were in their last years and my life was not channeling sides of the brains...

...the inner game of music ia also a great read for we painter,....sculptors et al

This comment is for Helen Kirk....in answer to your question as to when you are good enough to market your work...you are always, and never, good enough to market your work. :) Just begin. Hopefully you will always continue to improve and find that your work gets better as you know, and practice, more. (I have paintings that I did 10 years ago that I thought were the "end-all-beat-all" works of my career...I now look at them and laugh (and cringe a little.) My point is...start marketing now...learn the business of marketing...put your feelers out to what people think of your work. One of my favorite "tricks" is to enter art shows (start local) and stand around my painting (without wearing the standard art show name-tag) and listen to what people really think about the work...it is a great teacher and very humbling to do this. Take what is said with a grain of salt and continue the process of making your art. I guess the short answer (in my humble opinion) is "begin now."

As a watercolorist I have learned to combine left and right brain functions by playing music while I paint. I only listen to music with lyrics in a language I don't understand (to limit distraction) and I choose songs that I feel compliment my subject (such as French singers for my Paris series).

This serves to create a mild distraction, and also sets a mood, so I can concentrate on the temperamental watercolor medium but still lose the self consciousness that comes with left brain thinking.

It works for me.

For my students -and me- I have them do some brain gym/ lazy 8's; also, just having a warm up routine such as stretching and drawing large circles on the page in clock wise and counter clock wise directions seems to open the channels between spacial and critical thinking in the mind and body.

I remember to have my students do it (or else the class crawls along) yet frequently, I don't do it for myself until I remember, um, what is it I need to do to get "there"?

Golfers have their routine before each shot, to ready the mind/body connection with each stroke. Settle in to one, and your body will let you "go there" - it just wants to know you know what to do when you "get there". ;)