Drawing is also about desire –
a desire to understand, to record,
to consume bodily; to love and hate,
and to show others how much we love
and hate the things in our world; to
see and be seen. This is no pathology
or twisted craving, but a human need
to meet one another. It is also about
being able to be the “other” and
understand the “other”.
To draw is an incredibly freeing
process; to become more than one
thing. As Woolf’s narrator observes,
“what greater delight and wonder can
there be than to leave the straight
lines of personality... to feel that one
is not tethered to a single mind but
can put on briefly for a few minutes
the bodies and minds of others.”
Drawing can be everything – there
are rules to be broken. Technique is a
useful tool, but never an end in itself;
it is all about the attitude that you
provide for yourself, the questions
you ask with your drawing and then
the practical question of how to
begin. It just requires that pencil.
I try not to force things and try
(very hard) not to struggle. It requires
a lightness of touch, but is an exact
pursuit; you need precision and to
give your whole attention to the
moment. The best drawings have a
specificity to them, where the subject
has been well-seen in a particular
way. I like to draw from something in
front of me, but there is no hierarchy
of style or subject matter here.
Observational drawing is no more
“true” than an abstracted response
to the visible world. Photography and
Einstein challenged the idea of a
classical ideal in Newtonian space
and time. Agnes Martin’s beautiful
drawings of light and landscape both
internal and external are drawn
equivalents for this reality as
much as Turner’s.
An open, imaginative approach
is key. Keep your mind’s eye open
for connections to other seemingly
random images and trust yourself.
There is no correct way – it is
important to develop your own sense
of what you want in a drawing; to take
responsibility. When you reach
a degree of confidence, your
unconscious mind can provide
rich, interesting and sometimes
miraculous drawings. But it is
practical to set up a framework,
which is why students often work
with a model or an arrangement of
objects. Exploring with different
media can also be fruitful.
Often, things happen – mistakes,
coincidences – and it is helpful to
pay attention, and instead of thinking
things are wrong or bad, to see your
page as an interesting experiment.
Sometimes, a drawing only seems
any good with hindsight, especially
awkward drawings. You cannot judge
it as you go along, and you can’t be
perfect; all you can do is take the
action to draw. Nurture the drawings
you make.Drawing can play an active, political
role as well as a personal one. I love
the way that drawing passes right
through dialectical boundaries and
remains a common language, a primal
form of communication. You can be
light on your feet and open to humour
while drawing about heartbreak. For
me, drawing is more synthesis than
analysis; more felt than understood.
Open the door, take a walk with that
pencil from behind your ear, and begin.
This is an extract
from Ways of
Drawing: Artists’
Perspectives and
Practices edited
by Julian Bell,
Julia Balchin and
Claudia Tobin, and
published by Thames & Hudson, £29.95.
http://www.thamesandhudson.comOPPOSITE PAGE
Joana Galego,
About Not
Breathing, mixed
media and
collage on paper,
152x113cmABOVE Sarah’s
studio wall with
her studies for An
Allegory of PaintingArtists & Illustrators 55