Is drawing a language? Part four

The very idea of thinking of drawing as a language is problematic. We have long been accustomed to believing that the things that we take as being central to being a human being must also be central to the understanding of everything else. It has been argued by many that language is what makes human beings special and that the way that animals communicate is biological, or inborn. Human language it is further argued is symbolic, using a set number of sounds (phonemes) and characters, which allows ideas to be recorded and preserved. Animal communication it is argued is not symbolic, so it cannot preserve ideas of the past. Is that it then? 

This definition presumes that language is to do with phonemes and alphabets and that it is the use of symbols that singles humans out as being different. But what if a nest was a language event? Tailorbirds get their name from the way their nest is constructed. The edges of a large leaf are pierced and sewn together with plant fibre or spider's web to make a cradle in which the actual grass nest is built. Male weaver birds weave nests and use them as a form of display to lure prospective females, their efforts being both a protection for eggs and young chicks, as well as being part of a sex ritual. So we are happy about the fact that birds make things that operate as both protection and as sexual display, but we don't recognise their activities as including a language? So how do they communicate? Is not the nest structure something that is complex and robust enough to preserve an idea long enough for others of its species to consider its shape and construction in order to made decisions about future life paths?

A tailor bird builds a nest

An act of communication is the transferring of information from one thing to another thing. Every communication involves (at least) a sender, a message and a recipient, or a starting point, a movement between and an end point.  Communication includes the medium used to communicate and the location of the communication. So lets think about bees. 

The Roman poet Virgil had this to say about them, "Some, too, the wardship of the gates befalls, who watch in turn for showers and cloudy skies." An interesting piece of communication on Virgil's part because he is telling us that he has in some way been communicating with bees and that they in turn have been communicating with atmospheric conditions. The bees need to know when it is about to rain because they risk injury if they are caught flying in a rainstorm. Their navigation senses rely heavily on the sun and a rainstorm would in effect make it impossible for them to find their way around. 

Diagram of a bee's waggle dance

So there is a causal link between an inanimate thing, (atmospheric conditions) an insect, other insects and a human being. We know that bees communicate partly through the medium of dance and one way to think of that is as a living, moving diagram, a sort of mime or body language as us humans would translate it. In order to fly you need excellent sensitivity to changes in temperature, air pressure and wind direction, all attributes that could also be used to predict the imminent approach of rain.

I have been trying to learn more about Indian aesthetics and the more I research into the history of what is a very complex and fascinating aesthetic system, I become more and more aware of its roots in human body language, especially dance and eating. At the centre of Indian aesthetics is 'rasa', one understanding of which is the enjoyment of flavours that arise from selected ingredients and their preparation. The 'Natya Shastra of Bharata' is a complex drama and dance manual written about 2,000 years ago and it includes 108 codified units of movement,  including hand movements or 'mudras' which in turn have been preserved by being carved into sculptures now to be found in ancient temples. These hand movements could be read as a living diagram. 

Chin or Vitarka Mudra

The thumb touches the index finger, the meeting of the powerful grasping thumb with the sensitive index finger is meant to evoke mindfulness. 

Abhaya Mudra

The open hand, palm presented upright and frontally to others, is a gesture of fearlessness of reassurance and safety, a gesture which dispels fear.

Namaskara Mudra

The pressing of both palms together, a sign of joining and togetherness communicates reverence or a polite form of greeting.

Bhumisparsha Mudra

All the fingers of the right hand extend downwards to touch the ground. This gesture communicates grounded enlightenment. Originally in Buddhist traditions the earth pressing mudra is often found accompanied by the left hand held flat in the lap in the dhyana mudra of meditation. 

So going back to my original question, 'is drawing a language' I suppose I was really asking a another question, are all forms of communication languages? Is any effect by one thing on another a type of communication? Perhaps its simply a matter of focus. As communication includes the medium used to communicate with and the location of the communication, if we focus on this, we get very quickly to Marshall McLuhan's concept of 'the medium is the message'. He proposed that a communication medium itself, not the messages it carries, should be the primary focus of study. In the case of hand gestures the medium is located in the human body, so we would need to return to a close observation as to how the body moves and how we begin to develop meaning from an observation of the body in movement. This I suppose also suggests that a question such as 'is drawing a language?' is really redundant and that what is much more interesting is how is communication made between any two things and what sort of communication is it? 

The secretion of fungal volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are used by fungi as a mechanism to protect themselves from enemies or to manipulate their surroundings.  They can operate as a means of communication, but these chemical signals are also able to specifically manipulate the recipient. VOCs can reprogram the root architecture of symbiotic partner plants or increase plant growth, they can also enhance plant resistance against pathogens by activating phytohormone dependent signalling pathways. In this instance it is quite clear that the communication process is also shaping and changing the recipient of the communication. A fungi is changing and manipulating the life of a plant. Chemical change is central to how I work as a human being, and a lot of the chemicals I put into my body are derived from the plants that I eat. So I could argue that my drawings, which are the result of my own predilections, which in turn are chemically led and are in turn heavily influenced by the food that I have been eating and that this in turn has been shaped by a fungal volatile organic compound, are also the result of chemical changes within a complex electro-chemical organism. If my drawings are the result of chemical changes that are the product of this chain of consequences, it could be argued that it is the mushroom that draws. 

Beatrix Potter: A snail and its young

This image of a giant snail creature communicating with a man about the relative sizes of fish they had in their respective imaginations caught, is a result of a chemical memory, one that has carried within it an image for some time of the drawing by Beatrix Potter further above. For whatever reason I had to get it out of my system by redrawing it, but Potter would not have had me in mind as the recipient of her 'message' when she drew this image and would herself have been more effected by an encounter at one time or another with a snail. You as someone looking at both images have already begun to manufacture a chemical memory of the experience and you may or may not pass it on. The image below was part of my own chemical chain response to a process not unlike Chinese whispers.  

See also:

 

The pioneer plaque

Invisible worlds

Drawing and communication theory

Is drawing a language part one

Is drawing a language part two

Is drawing a language part three

Drawing and object oriented ontology 

References

McLuhan, M (1964, 2001) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man London: Routledge

Schwartz, S. L.  (2004) Rasa: Performing the divine in India Columbia University Press

Werner, S., Polle, A. & Brinkmann, N. Below ground communication: impacts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from soil fungi on other soil-inhabiting organisms. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 8651–8665 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-016-7792-1

Drawing and Mindfulness: Part four: A Material Conversation

Sohan Qadri

If I had to pick out one artist that would be an example for any of us that wish to take the drawing and mindfulness approach onto a further level, it would be Sohan Qadri. He used to approach his work in a way that was very similar to a ritual or religious experience. Qadri was influenced by both Tantric-Vajrayan yogi practices and Sufi mysticism.  He developed his spiritual ideals through meditation, dance and music, eventually deciding to focus his art making on the potential inherent in the properties of paper. Qadri worked with heavyweight papers that gave him the opportunity to engage with his paper's structural and surface textural potential. In particular by soaking it and carving into it in several stages, and by applying inks and dyes between each stage, he was able to attune himself to the paper's properties. In the process, paper was transformed from a two-dimensional surface into a three-dimensional medium, or thin sculpture. In particular he developed controlled rhythmic ways of marking the papers, often using a careful repetition of incisions into the paper as he meditated. Each layer of marks would be followed by another layer of intense colour wash, the inks and dyes soaking into the newly disturbed paper creating powerful saturations and glowing surfaces of colour, that grew even more intense as each colour layer was absorbed into the surface below. Layer after layer of colour would be applied, each application regarded as if it was a paper's ritual bath of colour immersion. Qadri worked for many years, looking for a way to shape an art practice that would be an effortless method of creation perfectly in tune with his yogic practices. By respecting the crafting of paper, and by then furthering his awareness of that craft by engaging at an intense level with the fibrous nature of his material, he developed a way of working that was in total harmony with his paper's inception. 

Sohan Qadri

Before embarking on this next stage you will need to make a decision as to whether or not to make your own paper. If you have access to the right resources this can be a very useful thing to do because you will develop a deeper understanding of your paper's nature and it will help you to become engaged with it's materiality. There are lots of resources on 'You Tube' and the university has resources and technicians that will advise you on how to do this. If you want to begin with ready made paper, that's also fine, but you may need to spend more time exploring the surface properties of your paper in order to develop an understanding of its nature and how it can be worked with. See older posts on paper to get an idea of the possible range of papers to use. 

You will need to use colour in order to reveal the changes you make to the paper, and colour will need to be applied between every stage of your paper transformation, so you will also need to experiment with dyes and inks and explore the way they effect your chosen paper. 

Once you feel confident that you understand your paper, you need to familiarise yourself with the tools you will work with to make marks into it as well as the applicators for your dyes and inks.

Your paper marking tools and colour applicators will be vital to you. The process of making these tools can itself be part of the mind letting go, by gathering up objects and transforming them into tools for marking paper, you begin to see the world from the point of view of inter-object relationships. Perhaps as you take apart an old cheese grater and fit handles to its various parts, this activity might take you into thinking about your hand and how it holds things, of the sharpness of the different surfaces of the grater, of the potential for these surfaces to be used as scratching tools for roughening up your paper. (Typically you will make or find scratching tools, but also sandpapers, incising implements, polishing things and embossing tools) We have looked at making your own tools before.

The development of an organised almost ritual approach is going to be vital and you will need to embody or materialise your thoughts as part of this process. 

You will need to begin with at least 20 sheets of your chosen paper.

Take your first sheet of paper and position it in a portrait relationship with yourself. It may be lying on the ground in front of you or on your table. You need to see it as a whole. It is like you bilaterally symmetrical, the right half mirrors the left half. Meditate on this for a while, what does it mean to you? Are there any 'off centred' aspects that you might want to think about? Are you left sided or right sided? 

Now make a mark on the paper. Just one. But be as inventive as you can about how you make this mark. Look at the paper and feel for how this mark has effected your awareness of the the rest of the paper. What are its qualities, where is it? Is this mark nearer the top, or closer to one side or the other? Now put the paper to one side and make another mark on a new sheet of paper. Do this carefully and each time try to vary the quality of the mark and positioning. Carry on until 19 sheets of paper have a mark and one is left unmarked. As you make each mark, feel for how it relates to your own body, does that mark down on the left relate to your left foot, if so what does it feel like?

Now take up the first sheet again and make a line down the centre of the paper that represents your own awareness of the fact you have a backbone. Is this a single incised line, is it composed of several short marks that visually appear to become a line when seen from a distance? Once the first line is made, pass on to the next sheet and the next until you have made 18 different vertical lines. These can be lines made by pushing pins through the paper, dragging a compass point across the paper surface, incising with an empty biro, drawing with your fingernail, scraping with a knife or scratching with your cheese grater tool. 

Once you have made these lines paint a colour selected from your dye mix across the first one and spread this colour right to the edges of the paper. Now look at what you have done and let your mind wander into it. 

Do this with 17 of the sheets.

Put the papers aside and begin the same process on the first sheet once again, make a mark, look at how this changes the relationships set out between what you have done already. Then once you have done this with 16 sheets, move on and make another vertical line on 15 sheets. 

Now paint your dye across 14 of these sheets. 

Put these images in a row and look at them, what is happening, look at the difference between a mark that has had only one covering of dye and the others with two, compare the white sheet with dyed sheets.

Take 13 sheets. Look at your two lines on the first sheet and in your minds eye thicken one. It will become a rectangle, perhaps a long thin one, or if it expands out to the edge of the paper a much more regular rectangular shape. Now make the rectangle you see by building a surface of regular marks. These could be horizontal or vertical scratches, regular punch holes, overlapping hammered marks, regular scratchings from your cheese grater. What ever you can do to make a continuous surface that stops at 4 straight edges. 

Paint a dye over 12 of these sheets of paper. 

Take 11 sheets and look at what has happened to your other line. Is it lost under the rectangle you have made, does it stand clear, can you still see part of it? Make another line designed to reinforce awareness of this line. Do you make a shattered disjointed line next to a clear sharp line, or do you echo it by making another sharp line but how far away should it go? Once you have made these 11 new lines, paint the dye over 10 of your sheets of paper. 

Now lay out all 20 sheets, look at them closely. You have in effect been playing with a particular variation of Paul Klee's idea of moving 'from point to line to plane'. However by adding colour you have included a very emotional ingredient to the sequence that will hopefully ensure that this is not a cerebral exercise. The fact that only changes in the paper surface are used to capture changes in colour intensity should also make you far more aware of the paper as a material, rather than as a background on which to work.

As you look at the sheets you have worked on hopefully one will stand out as being of interest in some way, you will be drawn to one of the sheets for whatever reason. Take it out of the presentation, look at it for a little longer and add a fold to the structure. Work on the back of the paper to ensure the fold is sharp then flatten out the paper and fold the paper again in the opposite direction. Then flatten back out. Now paint your dye over the whole surface. 

Pick another sheet of paper from your remaining sheets and look at this. Now cover a proportion of the surface with a sheet of thick clear paper. Whatever is left uncovered lightly sand with rough sandpaper, or scratch over with a set of regular marks. Now paint your dye over the whole surface. 

Take another sheet. This time close your eyes and feel with your hand over the surface. With your eyes still closed take a sharp implement and scratch into the surface feeling for the difference you are making. Now look at what you have done and dye the paper surface. 

Take another sheet and do nothing to it. Now take a different coloured dye and paint it all over the surface.

Take out another sheet. Using a bowl of clean water and a rag wipe away as much dye/colour as you can from one area of the sheet of paper. 

On another sheet make a straight line one inch wide from one side of the image to another. This can be an any angle. Make the line in anyway you want, it can be dyed, scratched into, embossed, whatever you feel is right.

On the next sheet make a square anywhere on the paper in any way you wish using any of the techniques already used to mark the paper. 

Now take a sheet and make a tear into it. 

Take another sheet and make another tear, this time you are to dye the sheet once the tear is made.

Draw a circle into the next sheet of paper using any of the paper marking techniques you have been using. 

Now lay out all of your sheets of paper again, look at them and think about how they might relate to yourself. This is a very personal thing and how you make the connection is up to you, remember there is no right or wrong way to do this. 

Pick one sheet, close you eyes and feel it, follow the lines and surfaces with your fingers and build up a picture in your head. Now look at it from a distance, and feel for the differences between sight and touch. Now decide how to respond to what you have felt or seen or both by making either a mark, a series of marks, a line or a shape.  You could work on this sheet with eyes closed, by working whilst looking very hard, or alternating between looking and feeling. Use any combination of the techniques you have introduced. 

Pick another sheet and reinforce one element by painting into it with a different coloured dye. 

Pick another sheet and do the same but this time using the dominant coloured dye found on the chosen sheet. In effect this would be blue on blue or red on red, a heightening of saturation or intensity. 

On another sheet remove a large area of information by sanding or any other appropriate erasure technique.

On the next sheet to do the same thing but this time to erase within a sharp boundary. Such as working within a taped out boundary or using a clean sheet of paper to mask out the area you are working in. 

Repeat this process on two more sheets and then apply dye across both sheets. 

Finally, choose a sheet and simply dye the edges, letting the colour fade out into the existing colour field.  

At this point it is time to stop. Go back reflect on these images and see what has happened. 

The next stage is up to you. 

You will now have a much better understanding of your chosen paper. Do you move on to explore a different sort? Are there any sets of marks or forms that particularly intrigued you? Do you begin the next exploration by starting with these? Do you begin this time with a square sheet of paper rather than a rectangle? Do you use tearing techniques alone? What if all your marks were punched into the paper? What is it about the colour that works for you? How would you approach dyeing paper if you had to do this again? What if all your marks were confined to one half of the paper? 

The next stage will be about focus and it is your decision as to what that is. 

Sohan Qadri

Drawing and mindfulness: part one

Drawing and mindfulness: part two

Drawing and mindfulness: part three

Drawing and mindfulness: part five

Sohan Qadri's work in relation to communication theory

Sohan Qadri in Venice 

Drawing in or with paper

More thoughts on paper

How paper is made in Nepal

Drawing and Mindfulness: Part two: Drawing before drawing

Your stance and balance are vital and so is your ability to mime what you see

Once you have all your preparation done, before making an actual drawing you will need to think about the drawing you need to visualise before you make a drawing. 

When teaching observational drawing I have always started with the toes. These are as far away from the eyes and head as we can get, but awareness begins here, because without an awareness of our feet and toes we will easily become off balance. To be in balance is also to feel healthy and alive and a balanced point of view from which to observe and to respond, is one of the things we are aiming to achieve. 

Your stance is going to be vital. If you are standing to draw, you will need your body to be as relaxed as possible and ready to respond sensitively to any eye/brain/hand implications that your looking implies. Balance will depend on how well your feet are 'planted' on the ground. However if you are too firmly set there will not be enough response or springiness in your step and a drawing will lack the full range of rhythmic touches. Therefore begin with this exercise. 

Position yourself at an angle between your easel* and the subject that you are going to draw. If possible stand, because this will enable you to access the full range of your body’s movements, but I realise as I get older, that standing for long periods becomes harder and harder, therefore use discretion here and decide what is best for you in terms of your own fitness and physical capability. 

Begin to move your toes and start tightening and relaxing your muscles, feel for the muscles in the rest of your right foot, work along to your ankle and now do the same with your left foot. Move on to your calf muscles, tighten them and then relax. Think of your knees, upper thighs, stomach, back and ribs, slowly working up through the body and becoming aware of each set of muscles as you do this. Eventually you will get to the shoulders and then arms. Spend more time here, move your shoulders around in their sockets, then upper arms, and elbows, eventually moving to your wrists, hands and individual fingers. Make tight fists, splay out your fingers, touch each finger to each finger lightly, imagine holding something between your fingers and watch your movements as you rotate fingers and wrist together and then separately. 

Finally you need to move your neck muscles, again tighten and free them, moving your head forwards, backwards and sideways and in rotation both clockwise and anti-clockwise. Now move on to the muscles of the face, scrunching up eyes, pulling strange gurning faces, sticking your tongue out, until if you are in company, you have no inhibitions or worries about looking strange or weird, or if on your own, you simply become face lost or not bothered about what you might look like. 

Now look at your subject, take a step towards it and back from it, one step to the left and back again then one to the right and back again. Now do this again, this time between each step breathe from the diaphragm. At last you can begin to look at your paper; is it set at the right angle? Is it too high or too low? What is the angle between your subject and your paper, how far do you have to move your head and body in order to look from your subject to the paper? 

Decide on where your central drawing position is going to be. Now pull yourself up to your full height, begin with your toes again, up through your legs, body, neck and head. Imagine a string attached to the top of your head, think of its position right above your spine and allow it to pull you up. Now relax. 

This is a good time to make any adjustments needed to your paper and easel or other supports. Make sure all is firmly attached and tightened up and readdress your stance. 

This time begin to move your hand around the paper, move it to the top edge, try a long horizontal straight movement with your arm, think about shoulder control, elbow and wrist. Now move your hand to the centre of the paper. Touch it with the extended index finger of your drawing hand. Slightly rock your body from your toes, knees and hips and see if you can steady the body by simply allowing your finger to bend with the movement. Now do this with all four corners of the paper. 

Once you are aware of these corners, you can begin cross movements, going initially from bottom left to top right, then top right to bottom left. Once you feel in control of these movements, try bottom right to top left and top left to bottom right. How in control are you? Think about balance again. Are you always in balance as you make these movements? 

Now step back from the paper, look across at the subject you want to draw. Begin searching with your eyes, look left and look right, look up and look down. Can you ‘see’ your body movements in the subject before you? You have just been stretching to the left and right, crossing your hand from the bottom to the top of your paper, but can you ‘feel’ this or ‘see’ this in your mind as you look at the subject? 

Begin to look for relationships. Look for one point at for example to the right of your subject, perhaps slightly above the centre of your subject. Look horizontally across from this, what significant things can you see? Look vertically down and do the same thing. Now look across your subject at an angle of approximately 45⁰and see what relationships you can spot along this imaginary diagonal. 

You can carry on looking for as long as you feel comfortable, but after a while you will need to begin embodying your looking. I think of this as a sort of mime. 

Go back to looking at your paper, repeat the process of becoming aware of your body and this time try and think about how breathing and moving are synchronized. Do you breathe out as you make a long horizontal movement with your arm or do you breathe in? Move and breath for a while until you feel relaxed. Beware of doing this too forcibly; you can get dizzy if you are not careful but if you do feel dizzy, simply sit down and relax. 

Now return to looking at your subject and this time transfer the looking to the space in front of your paper, begin to mime over your paper what it is you are seeing. Try and gently touch the paper with a slightly bent but still extended index finger as you do this. What sorts of curves do you need to make, where does a curve begin in your body? Does it start with a roll of the hips, or the bend of a knee? What is the smallest curve you can see and how will you make this? Is it a roll of the wrist or a twist of the fingers? What sorts of straights are there? Can you lock your shoulder/elbow/wrist/fingers in such a way that you can move these interconnected body parts together in a straight line? Do you have to rock your body backwards and forwards as you do this in order to keep an even pressure on that bent index finger as it lightly touches the surface of the paper?

Now go back to looking at your subject. However this time as you look, can you bring in those mime movements and play them out in the space between you and the subject? As your eye looks at for instance a long straight edge, can you mime the drawing of it? This is a sort of body dance. You are trying to choreograph your movements to become in tune with the rhythm of relationships that you find as your eyes move over the subject. You are in effect attuning your body to the perceived world. 

Once you begin to feel comfortable with these movements, try to remember them and now practice making these movements back over your paper surface, again lightly touching the surface with a slightly bent index finger. This is very like learning dance moves and you need to open your mind out into a physical space, so that you can orchestrate your body movements in your visual imagination. 

Do not at this stage worry about making a drawing. The wonderful thing about the ‘miming’ of a drawing is that you can do this anywhere and you don’t really need any drawing materials. You can imagine where the easel and paper are and practice transferring the mime from the imaginary space in front of the subject to the imaginary space in front of the drawing paper. 

Eventually you should be able to build up a range of movements not too dissimilar to those you might employ when undertaking Tai Chi or a choreographed dance. Go back through the movements you are making and think about how you can make smooth transitions between them. Think about how the body can move forwards and backwards between the looking positions and the drawing positions, move carefully into the angles of looking that you need to make in order to see the subject and transfer this seeing onto the paper. Try and slow these movements down in order to know them more intimately and then as you feel you have them in your mind, begin to speed them back up again. Once you have developed an idea of a rhythmic set of movements begin to think about using a range of speeds, slow large movements, perhaps interspersed by faster small movements of the body. For instance a long sweeping movement of arms coming from the hips, contrasted with tiny fast finger flicking. At this point you may well begin to become more interested in one approach over another, that's ok, this is simply your own sensitivity reasserting itself. 

At this point you might try returning to the beginning again. Stand tall, stretch out your spine and then begin moving through the dance of mime drawing, in your mind you should be able to 'see' the drawing evolve as a series of gestures overlaid one over the other, each one staying in the mind long enough for you to be able to 'see' it behind each new gesture before it fades away. 

Once you feel totally at one with your drawing mime and your body flow feels synchronised with your looking, then you are ready to move on the the next stage; Drawing and Mindfulness: Part Three: making the drawing. However, you don't have to ever make a physical drawing and if you want to, you can make these exercises part of a stand alone routine designed to attune your mind and body relationship.

Drawing and Mindfulness: Part one

Drawing and Mindfulness: Part three

Drawing and Mindfulness: Part four
Drawing and mindfulness: part five

*See the previous post on choosing an easel or support for your drawing.

INDEX

Drawing and Mindfulness: Part one: Preparation

Georgio Morandi: Still Life

I'm very aware that drawing as a window into mindfulness is something I have been having to address more and more at the moment. So perhaps it is time for me to put my thoughts down about this. There is a particular mental and physical conjunction that is required in order to make a drawing that helps you to achieve such a state; however as a name, 'mindfulness' when using drawing as a way towards some sort of mind/body awareness, is for myself the wrong term. 'Mindfulness' suggests that you want to achieve some sort of awareness of the mind and how it works, the word suggests that you need to become 'full of mind' and in actual fact, the opposite is the case. The mind needs to be emptied into the body and drawing is a wonderful way to do this, but it takes time and practice. So in this case what I am suggesting is that if you want to achieve what I would call ‘mindemptyness’, a ‘mindmeld’ or a ‘mindvoid’, you could follow the exercises I will be suggesting over the course of the next few posts.  

There are several stages that you need to move through in order to use drawing as a tool to help you embody a ‘flighty’ mind and to balance the mind body relationship. I have therefore decided to break the subject down, so that if you want to follow the process, you can do this in a measured way and not be tempted to rush. Like most things, if you slow down and take one step at a time, you will eventually feel the benefit of deeper knowledge and in the process calm down and become de-stressed. Think of how calm and still the Morandi still life drawing is above. It is stripped down to its essence and nothing is superfluous. The drawing seems to echo a state of mind and this is what eventually I would hope anyone can achieve by applying themselves to some not too hard to learn approaches to drawing. 

Preparing to draw

The subject. What to wear, where to do it, lighting, choosing papers, materials to draw with and your supports such as tables, easels or donkeys. 

There will always be a certain amount of preparation required before you begin drawing, and how much will be up to you. At its most basic you can simply decide to go with what and where you are now, just grab the nearest pencil and drawing pad and just draw what is in front of you and there is nothing wrong with that, but you may want to think it through in more detail, I offer you both options. 

Choosing a subject. 

The reality is that everything is interesting. Those artists that you meet that are always looking for inspiration or the ‘right’ subject matter are I firmly believe deluded, and its not what it is but how its looked at that is important. A drawing by Van Gogh is instilled with his energetic looking, whether it’s a brick wall he is looking at, a starry sky or a wheat field. Therefore your subject just needs to be something that allows you time to look at it. This is the vital element, ‘time’. For instance if you want to draw the dog it may be one of those dogs that never stops moving, therefore you will need very fast responses to capture anything useful, so I would suggest if you are a beginner to this sort of drawing, selecting something that is much slower moving, such as a still life situation or a view through a window, or architecture. Nothing is ever totally static, but everything has its own timeframe, a rock is much slower than a human being, which is faster than many plants, but slower than a mayfly. In many ways your subject will be how to capture a series of time bound relationships. 

What to wear?

You do need to be comfortable, and when we come to looking at what you will need to do, one important issue will be balance, so this means either to go barefoot or to wear comfortable shoes that help you stand for as long as possible. You will need to stretch and bend, so think of clothes that you would wear if you were to go to Tai Chi or contact improvisation dance classes. You can do this anywhere, inside or outside, so adjust clothing in relation to temperature and never wear anything that you don’t want to get dirty. 

Lighting 

Lighting is always an important factor; the quality, intensity, angle and direction of light will effect what you see and you can either control this to the nth degree or respond to whatever lighting conditions you find. For instance you might want to light your subject from one side, thus giving more focus on shadow and the way light can model form. Some life classes have hanging lights that enable the drawer to light their paper in order to assess and control changes in tonal value, whilst the life model may sit in the dark under a spotlight. You may want to draw using the natural light of a window to illuminate your paper, whilst the rest of the room disappears into gloom. This is up to you, but even if all you do is decide to simply use whatever the situation is, just remember it is light you are actually seeing, not things. If you want to think about this in more detail there are other earlier posts on light. 

A few posts on Light

Tone and emotional value

Uses of shadows

More thoughts on lighting

Paper

Choosing paper is a complex subject and there are plenty of earlier posts on paper that might help you think about which ones are best for you. Perhaps one of the most important factors is paper size and shape. In order to capture body/mind transference, your paper needs to be of a size that enables you to develop body movements in front of it and of course to make marks on it using those body movements. Therefore A1 or larger might be required if you are thinking of really pushing this type of work forwards, however you can still do this on a post-it note if that is all you have, but the amount of visual scale translation is much higher and the challenge much harder if you want to go that way. 

Paper shape will affect your physical relationship with the situation, think about the differences between working on portrait, landscape or square formats. The degree of roughness or smoothness will determine the flow of lines or type of mark being made and the paper’s weight will determine the amount of ‘work’ you will be able to engage with it, in terms of rubbing out, scratching into etc. 

Further posts on Paper that would be useful to read if you want to undertake an in-depth preparation before setting out to make a drawing.   

An introduction to paper research

More thoughts on paper (includes further links to other posts on paper)

Paper shape and size 

Online books on the history of paper making
Where to get large sheets of paper

Paper supports

Sundeala soft board

The support for your paper is very important. A good drawing board is essential if you are to develop a firm support, this needs to be further supported by an easel, a table or a donkey. For drawing boards I have traditionally used Sundeala ‘K’ Quality standard pin board, which is manufactured from waste paper, and has a light grey textured surface. Boards are 6mm, 9mm and 12mm in thickness and a standard sheet size is 1220 x 2440mm. I then cut drawing boards to size. You can get other sheet sizes on request. An 8 x 4ft Sundeala board will cost you £60 from Amazon, not that you would normally need a drawing board that big. If you are going to stretch paper a good solid wooden drawing board is better, but far heavier. 

Artist's radial easel

Most art schools will have the artist's radial easel as a standard support for undertaking observational drawing. It can be set up at different heights and has adjustable wooden clamps so that your drawing board can be held in place firmly. However, when using this type of easel any untoward pressure on the drawing board can cause the easel to rock and thus destabilize or upset the delicate balance needed for fine motor control. H frame or studio easels are much more sturdy and although more expensive you will only ever need to purchase one and it should last you a lifetime. Donkeys are ok but if you want the full spectrum of body movement to be built into your drawing, something that allows you to stand is always best. 

'H' Frame or Studio Easel

 

If you are going to use wet materials you may need a table, but check that you can see your drawing subject easily when working at this table. In this case you may want to think about stretching the paper. 

Don’t forget you will need to attach your paper to the board, again opinions vary, but whether you use drawing pins or clips, they will each leave a distinctive impression within the final drawing. 

 

Drawing board clips

Find a link to a video on how to stretch paper at the end of this post which also gives you several drawing exercises to try which can be used as warming up processes when you are trying out materials.

Drawing materials 

Your drawing materials may be wet or dry. However there are big differences between them and as always there are previous posts that are designed to help you think about what you might draw with. However there are some basic differences. If working using very wet materials, such as ink and brush, you may want to work standing at a table, with the paper horizontal, dry techniques such as charcoal or chalks, are fine when working on more vertical surfaces.  The applicators you use are also of course very important, whether these are brushes, charcoal holders or electric erasers, each will have a certain set of qualities that will shape the way the drawing is made. 

Earlier Posts on drawing materials 

Charcoal

Graphite

Ink

The ballpoint pen

Coloured drawing materials:pastels, crayons etc.

Silverpoint

Making your own drawing tools

This initial preparation is an essential first step towards mindfulness, because it is beginning the process of converting your thoughts into a physicality. It is a first step towards ‘material thinking’. Therefore spend some time playing with the papers and materials you are thinking of using and get to know more about them by testing out their limits. 

Drawing and Mindfulness: Part two: Drawing before drawing

Drawing and mindfulness: Part three: Making a drawing
Drawing and mindfulness: Part four: Material conversations
Drawing and mindfulness: Part five: Finding yourself