The Act of Drawing - The Line

Here is the first attempt at photographing the Act of Drawing. I started with the simplest element of drawing, the line. Obviously there is the "point", which is even simpler but no one is interested in seeing a point being drawn. The line is the simple element of drawing that involves motion.

These are really just testing out the apparatus for documentation. It still needs some work (ie better lighting, subject, etc) but it is going somewhere.

The Act of Drawing - Machine Concept

The next step in my thesis is going to be documenting the act of drawing it self. A record of the moments, thought and time that go into creating an image. I need to develop a system or machine in order to do this. Below are the first conceptual sketches:

Thesis - Lines Represent Time

A quote that I think is quite relevant to the new endeavor of thinking about and recording the act of drawing:

"All drawn lines have a speed that can be deduced: they have a beginning and an end, and therefore represent time, as well as space. Even a tracing of a photograph contains more 'time' than the original photograph (which represents just a fraction of a second) because the hand takes time to do it." - David Hockney

Sketches - Gourds

The following are sketches based on exercises that the first year class are doing in Arch 110. I am helping out and participating in the class and these are the most current. Each student was given the opportunity to select a gourd and then the drawing began:

Draw a circle on your page. Now, turn that circle into the gourd that you selected.

Imagine a larger circle. A circle that surrounds your page. Now, turn that circle into the gourd that you selected. The stepping up of scale made you focus on a different level of detail, and as a result, a different set of lines. You can see a similarity but the shift is evident.


A few gourds fell and were broken so I changed the subject of the sketches but continued with the same exercise.


With this change of scale, more of shift can be seem than in the previous gourd.

The final one from this series was an investigation of my own. I was interested in the interior of the gourd and what make the ridges so pronounced on some. We cut one open to see what was going on. I drew the plan and elevation as a study of that.

Sketches - Washington D.C.

I was away in Washington D.C for a few days and did some sketching. Also, I am going to be experimenting with some different scanning techniques over the next little while and would welcome the feedback.

Thesis - The Cartesian System

According to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "The blind, says Descartes, “see with their hands.” The Cartesian concept of vision is modeled after the sense of touch." "For Descartes it is unarguably evident that one can paint only existing things, that their existence consists in being extended, and that design, or line drawing, aline makes painting possible by making the representation of extension possible. Thus painting is only an artifice which presents to our eyes a projection similar to that which the things themselves in ordinary perception would and do inscribe in our eyes. A painting makes us see in the same way in which we actually see the thing itself, even though the thing is absent. Especially it makes us see a space where there is none."

The Cartesian system may not lend itself to painting but it most definitely lends itself to architectural drawing. This is an area that needs more research before I can say more.

The Act of Drawing

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?

Thesis - Etymology

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.

The Bed - Lighting and Shadows

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 1

In 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.

Sketches - Sandcastles etc

Here are two more sketches from the sketching class. No real theme here, just some interesting examples of different types of subjects.

The first is a sandcastle that Hugh Thompson had built previously. I tried something a little different with this one. More just a recording of shadows. Differing depths of shadow generating the form. There were very few (read "one") materials to render so it fell on a different technique to get it across.



The second is just another house from the west side of Cambridge.