What’s the point of DRAWING?

“Until I saw my drawings replayed on the iPad, I’d never seen myself draw. Someone watching me would be concentrating on the exact moment, but I’d always be thinking a little bit ahead. That’s especially so in a drawing where you are limiting yourself, a line drawing for example. When you are doing them you are very tense, because you have to reduce everything to such simple terms“.

(David Hockney http://quote.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=84 )

“The process of drawing is, before all else, the process of putting the visual intelligence into action, the very mechanics of visual thought. Unlike painting and sculpture it is the process by which the artist makes clear to himself, and not to the spectator, what he is doing. It is a soliloquy before it becomes communication“. (Michael Ayerton  http://quote.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=84)

“The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities“. (Alain de Botton  http://quote.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=84)

“It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character”. (Camille Pissarro  http://quote.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=84)

[youtube]_VpmCxaYC7A[/youtube]

What does drawing involve? Hand and eye co-ordination, observational skills, responding to the world around you and to the word within you, looking and learning, make marks on paper or any surface you care to name.

Ideally students should not just draw in art class, but draw in other classes – drawing as scientific enquiry, recording facts visually, mind-mapping etc

And yes I love technology – and I have spent a lot of time drawing on my iPad – but I also love the reality of making a mark – not the virtual reality of making a virtual mark, but the real reality of scratching, scraping, pressing, daubing, smearing etc with your hands, fingers or any appropriate appendage.

[youtube]O_niI4AraoU&feature=related[/youtube]

Does IBDP visual arts recognize and reward drawing? Well, yes, indirectly.

There is no mention of the word ‘drawing’ in any of the current assessment descriptors, (or of ‘painting’, ‘installation’, or ‘multi-media’ etc), but there is reference to understanding the ideas and techniques that underpin artistic expression, exploring ideas that reflect artistic qualities, and technical competence – all of which relate to drawing, (among, of course, many other techniques and media).

Year in, year out, examiners say that if there was more drawing the artwork that they see every examination session would probably be better – and they don’t mean just drawings, they mean ALL artwork.

 

 

 

 

http://www.thebigdraw.org.uk/home/index.aspx

Why Draw http://www.artwiseca.org/why.html

“Visually exploring an idea with pencil in hand facilitates our imagination and encourages original thinking, flexibility, adaptability, and the ability to generate solutions to complex problems.

Problem solving through drawing is encountered in many situations.

The doctor who draws a simple illustration visualizing a patient’s need for orthopedic surgery becomes more effective as a communicator and healer.

An engineer exploring a design problem envisions a solution through sketching multiple options.

A teacher makes the water cycle concept more easily understood by her students when she visualizes the process on the chalkboard.

We often find in our daily life the need to make visual our ideas. It may be sketching out the floor plan of a remodeling project or drawing a wiring diagram for a component stereo system. Drawing a simple map for someone to reach one’s home saves extensive verbal instructions.

 Visuals are a much richer format than words alone and can show relationships and complex interconnections more “concisely”.

This is one reason that children’s books are often more effective at explaining theories and processes than pages of explanatory text.

Words alone do not communicate as well as words and pictures together”

Quote from ‘Deamsteep’

http://dreamsteep.com/writing/media-arts-production/85-why-draw.html

 Images:

My drawing (‘Female Nude’)