I am documenting the 'Drawing Growth' process here, explaining how to draw a tree by focussing on relationships between branches and buds - 'growing' the drawing by close attention on these relationships. Once you get to know the branches and buds you have chosen to draw and how they relate to one another, it becomes like playing a piece of music. Deeply satisfying, meditative and joyful! Step 1. Choose a tree to draw. Step 2. Make sketches to get to know it. I suggest focussing on a small area to begin with, to have a hope of really deeply understanding the twists and turns and growing. You will return to draw the same section again and again, and will notice the tiniest of changes. Drawing 1. Sketch the tree a few times to decide which section to focus on. Choose just a few branches at first. You might draw the whole tree quite a lot of times before you plump on one area. Try drawing without looking at the paper, to give you the opportunity to really attend and engage with the tree and to begin to understand its posture, and decisions it - or a pruner - has made about how, when and where to grow. Don't pay ANY attention to your drawings at this stage - you are using drawing as a way to learn more about the tree, not to create an image. The drawing is evidence of your close attention. Photo of the chosen section of the tree. Drawing 2. Draw just a few branches - this way you can relate points to points, e.g. check how a tip of a branch relates to other branches and buds. The next drawings have some of these relational lines visibly drawn on. You can 'Eye Draw' these and translate to your hand, or you can 'Air Draw', to help your hand to learn the angle and distances between points. Air Drawing is when you trace a line in space with your pencil - e.g. lift up your hand and follow a branch with your pencil, drawing along it. This encodes the visual line into a motor action. In fact when drawers look at things with intent to draw they imagine the action and create a motor plan for their hand. See my doctorate for more info on drawing and cognition - specifically the physical synchronisation of eye and hand movements and the role of motor planning in drawing. http://www.academia.edu/26532696/Learning_to_draw_an_active_perceptual_approach_to_observational_drawing_synchronising_the_eye_and_hand_in_time_and_space January 4th 2018 Drawing 3. Drawing invisible lines between points on the tree. Learning how buds relate to one another in space. You can use this as an 'as you go along' check on accuracy of your drawing. You can then compare tomorrow's drawing with today's, to see how the tree has grown. An accident with a dirty rubber (eraser for US people) led me to think I will make some charcoal drawings, prepare a ground and rub out the branches and buds, as another way to draw the tree. Drawing 4. Warm up drawings, to get a feel of the rhythms of the branches. Including some drawn in relational lines. Detail from Drawing 4. While drawing, I became especially interested in one area, so for now I will narrow my focus down again, to just these small few branches. This way I will really notice any changes and growth of new buds. - more tomorrow.
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AuthorAngie Brew is an artist, researcher and drawing teacher. She holds a Drawing MA with distinction from Camberwell College of Art, UAL, London. For her doctorate she worked in the Drawing & Cognition Project, Camberwell, researching enactive observational drawing methods and pedagogy. This resulted in a new cognitively-informed approach called 'Drawing Growth', synchronising eye and hand. Her art practice explores drawing for well-being, and close observational drawing of growth processes. She is artist in residence in a community greenhouse in Brixton, London, where she leads a collaborative Drawing Growth project and a weekly drawing club. ArchivesCategories |