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The act of drawing just as important as the end result. The evidence that the act occurred is, of course, the drawing itself. It is a remnant. Evidence that the act occurred.
But what is the “act”?
What occurs during the drawing process?
It is an exploration and a record at the same time.
Act: take steps, react, move, work, function, serve, have an impact on, action, feat, exploit, move, gesture, performance, undertaking, stunt, operation, achievement, accomplishment.
It is the movement of the body as the result of of the mind. The communication between what we see in our mind and the paper. The body, the hand, is the tool.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty agrees, "The painter “takes his body with him”, says Valéry. Indeed we cannot imagine how a mind could paint. It is by lending his body to the world that the artist changes the world into paintings. To understand these transubstantiations we must go back to the working, actual body – not the body as a chunk in space or bundle of functions but that body which is an intertwining of vision and movement."
How do you document the act?
The etymology of thesis topics came up in conversation the other day and I thought it might be interesting to investigate the matter a bit more fully.
From "An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language" by Rev. Walter W. Skeat:
Draw - to pull along. Merely a variant of drag; the form draw dates from about A.D. 1200
Draft - the act of drawing, a draught. A corruption of draught, by the usual change of gh to f, as in laugh. See Draught.
So I went and looked up Draught:
Draught - Not found in Anglo-Saxon, evidently derived from Anglo-Saxon dragan, to draw, drag. In Dutch; dragt, a load, burden. From dragen, to carry. In Danish; dragt, a load. In Icelandic; dráttr, a pulling, a draught (of fishes) or draga, to draw.
Also draughts, a game in which alternate draughts, i.e. "moves", are made. Chaucer uses draughtes, in the sense of moves at the game of chess, in the Boke of the Duchess.
I have returned to a previous project that was started and then left behind to explore other avenues. Mainly sketching, but now back to full drawings.
The original post for "The Bed" can be found here:1000 Hours of Drawing: The Bed - In Progress 1In order to continue with this drawing (fill in the rest of the space) I need to figure out where the light sources are. The bed was first drawn without consideration for the rest of the room. That was the point, if you go back and read the original post. Let the drawing dictate the space. With shadows already established in the bedding and as a result, the bed is dictating the light sources for the room. Below is my way of figuring out those sources.
