Attention Studies:
The Neuroaesthetics of Slow Looking and Making

Every drawing in this series was made on foot, in under thirty minutes, looking directly at the same suburban trails that become the paintings.
No editing. No going back. Research in neuroaesthetics documents measurable shifts in attention, mental clarity, and thought organization after sustained looking sessions.
These drawings are that practice made visible — not studies for the paintings, but evidence of what slow looking does to a mind moving through the world.

Each drawing session begins with a brief self-assessment
— mental clarity, attention quality, body tension, time perception, thought organization —
rated before picking up the pen.
The same five dimensions are rated again after.
The pattern across sessions is consistent:
measurable shifts in as few as four to thirty minutes of sustained mark-making.
These are not studies for the paintings. They are the research itself.

This sketchbook methodology was developed alongside a Collin College Study Grant investigating how sustained making can restore conscious attention in algorithm-driven environments.

The data is ongoing.