THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE 147
For me, drawing is a way of seeing things that
don’t exist yet. I draw to discover what I am think-
ing—to see how it looks—to flesh it out.
One day, when I was teaching a class about
drawing, when a student whined that she couldn’t
draw. I wondered why she was in the class, but I
asked her, “well, you have just drawn a conclusion
very well! So what is it you c a n’ t draw? I bet you
could draw water from a well....or we could draw
this class to a close—what does it mean—‘draw?’”
And suddenly I realized that this little word has a
lot of meanings. How does one become a good
“draw-er” anyway? Why is a draw-er different from
a drawer and why do we put drawers in a chest
while many people who draw have something to get
off theirs? People can draw a bath or a cart without
a pencil. We draw back the shades or the covers
each morning and instantly our attention is drawn
to something. Perhaps we look withdrawn or speak
with a drawl? We take a draw from a pipe near the
fire and watch as the smoke is drawn up the flue.
From what do we draw inspiration and why - when
the game draws to a close at the end of the day, and
no one wins—why is it called a draw?
And what can we draw from this exercise in
semantics?
Drawing happens when I match my thinking
process to the speed of my hand—i.e. when I merge
mind and body. It places me in the present. Draw-
ing is a meditation from which I can access inner
vision. I put down something on paper and then
react to it. Once I make a line, it becomes a con-
dition: does it look like what I thought? Does it
make me want to draw another or shall I erase it? It
encourages me to make decisions only I can make.
It has instantly become something that already
exists and it draws me into the world of its own
need to be drawn. More marks on the paper let me
see further what was only a moment before a desire,
a conundrum, an enigma, a problem to solve.
Drawing is a way to manifest what we alone can
imagine and to be able to share that image with
other humans. We draw drawings from within us
the way we draw water from a well. And we drink
water as we drink in images—we absorb them and
are in some sense made from them (you are what
you eat, and by extension, drink). As water replen-
ishes our body, drawing nourishes our soul.
When I want to figure something out, I sit
down to draw it into being. Sometimes, when it is
a dimensional thing, I try to find a material to draw
it in those actual dimensions, like cardboard. When
I design interiors I like to walk into the room and
start cutting out cardboard shapes to see how they
affect the room and how the context of the roomDrawing from Drawing
Doug Fitch
Pete in Hand