When people think of exercises that can be done to improve hand-eye coordination, they don’t always think of things like drawing and doing other artistic projects like ceramics or pottery. Learning how to do art, especially learning how to draw and sketch things to scale, can be an amazing way to improve your hand-eye coordination. After learning how to do different art forms like pottery, painting and sketching, you will be amazed at the results of your improved coordination. Don't believe me? Keep reading!
How Art Helped My Hand Eye Coordination
When the time came to draw graphs in math class, I would always get extremely frustrated. It was always so difficult because the teacher would go so fast. She would then tell the slower kids to try and copy down the graph to the best of our abilities so that she could move on. As a result, my graphs were far from accurate, which as you could imagine, made it next to impossible to study later on.
Now, I didn't even realize it at first but after just taking one 8-week art class in which only half of what I was learning was how to draw, my hand eye coordination improved a lot! I didn’t even notice it until the other day when I was sitting in the back of my physics class, quickly trying the copy down a graph, when all of a sudden I made the realisation that without even precisely graphing my plot points, I could just look at the board that was all the way at the front of the room and copy down everything precisely to make an accurate graph.
I know that seems like a weird story, especially coming from me, a neurodivergent teen who probably needs glasses, but I assure you that this is 100% true. I was astonished by my ability at first and I didn't understand how all of a sudden I could just copy down something like that after years of having terrible hand-eye coordination. But then I remembered the art class that I had taken a couple weeks before, and how my teacher was constantly telling us that eventually if we practised the methods that she taught us, our hand-eye coordination would become so accurate that we wouldn't even need to measure the objects that we were sketching before we drew them.
Of course, when she told us this information, I just rolled my eyes and didn't listen because I knew I wouldn't be taking art again in the future but I guess she was right, and the skill ended up coming in handy!
The Method I Was Taught
So let's be real, the first few times you try to draw something to scale, it's probably not going to look great. But you'd be surprised at how easy it is to make something almost 100% accurate to how it looks in real life.
Take an apple and a piece of paper. Here is the most important part that is really going to improve your hand-eye coordination. Try to guess the size. Draw two points for the top and the bottom of the apple, and two points for the sides. Then you will measure your apple with something like a caliper or a piece of string and adjust your points accordingly. Over time you will just simply get better at eyeballing it to the point where you won't even need to measure, which will improve your overall hand-eye coordination, guaranteed!
The Bottom Line
Art is an amazing way to improve your hand-eye coordination. Plus, you may even get some amazing pieces out of the deal. Who knows, you could be the next Picasso, and during that time period where you're making your most famous pieces, your hand-eye coordination is going to be doing nothing but improving the whole time. So, it's a win-win!
This story was made possible by our Community Partners Program. Thank you Airdrie Denture Centre for helping to expand local news coverage in Alberta. Learn more.
