Project #1: DRAWING is...

What is Drawing?

According to Webster's dictionary, drawing is defined as “the art or technique of representing an object or outlining a figure, plan, or sketch by means of lines."

This, of course, is usually the first thing many people think of when it comes to drawing, I was and still am one of them. 
Yet, after really contemplating the word drawing and looking through various definitions, I’ve come to find that it's meaning isn’t art specific, it engulfs a lot of different positions. 
Drawing isn’t just about the line one puts on paper, it’s about what you take from that line. 

Minimalist artist Sol LeWitt once said, “When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who could be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations." 

     I think the same thing goes for the word drawing, drawing has always been seen as this one method used in the making of art and that’s not all it entails.  Look at all the definitions the word connotates above.

What if someone was to hang a piece of blank white paper on a wall in a gallery and calls it a work of art, now the artist, of course, did not physically draw anything on this piece of paper, but that doesn't mean that nothing can be drawn from it. 

A lot of people may look at this piece of paper and see nothing, but others would look and draw many things from it. 

“The making of marks with meaning."  Robert Kaupelis, a renowned drawing professor at NYU 

OR:
a mark-making process used to produce a line - based composition on a ground.

Examples:
1. In figure drawing, Jennifer made charcoal drawings on paper. The mark- making medium was vine charcoal; her ground, also known as the substrate, was white drawing paper.

2. Earth Artist Richard Long made a drawing as he walked for 11 days between the west and east coasts of England. His mark-making medium was his body and the ground on which he drew left a record of his movement, and observed/selected found marks, was the earth. 

Long's legs are his stylus, his feet the nib with which he inscribes his traces on the world. Walking becomes an act of inscription, and his work is a reminder that our verb "to write" originally referred to a kind of incisive track-making.

EXPERIMENT RULES

Part 1: Read the article from The Guardian on Richard Long

Richard Long > The Guardian and the TATE

Richard Long Walking a Line in Peru 1972

Part 2: 
In your sketchbook, write 13 points about what drawing is for you and what it can be on a piece of paper. Date it, copy it and hand it in at critique.

Richard Long Five Stones

Part 3: 
You are to use the article as the ground for a drawing that has been inspired by the article and your meditations on drawing. 

PROJECT RULES

1. You may scan, photocopy,  photograph the article > create some sort of physical artifact of the article that you will make use for your drawing's substrate.

2. You must use the whole physical article by whatever reproductive means you choose. 

3. The article does not have to remain intact. 

4. You can use any media you choose. 

5. You can use mechanical and reproductive means. 

6. The completed work may be any size. 

7. You should come prepared to “install” your drawing so that it is well presented prior to critique.

8. During the critique, you should be able to explain the intent behind all the choices you made such as:

Answer these in your sketchbooks:

The choice of the substrate used

The choice of the media selected

The application choice you made

What was the scale you chose

What was the mark making system you chose

a Richard Long drawing

Long's feet see the world for him. But they also, less conceptually, bear him and launch him.

"My work has become a simple metaphor for life. 
A figure walking down his road, making his mark. 
I am content with the vocabulary of universal and common means; walking, placing, stones, sticks, water, circles, lines, days, nights, roads."

Students' thoughts on drawing:

"When thinking about drawing, I immediately think about art as a whole; the different mediums and techniques. I have always connected with the emotion and the paper, with the people I have met, with my teachers, and I finally was able to connect with myself...Drawing has become something more to me than just lines on paper...it connects me to what is important to me in my life.  By drawing, learning, and creating it did save me in a way. So not only is drawing a connection of lines to create a bigger picture, it's a connection of lines in people's lives that link us together.  What drawing means to me is life; whether it's the life of an artwork or the life of the artist."

"To me drawing is a form of expression, just as most forms of art are perceived. Drawing specifically can be anything if your imagination is flexible enough. Sol LeWitt once expressed “conceptual artist are mystics rather than rationalists.” I believe this shows the artist's ability to grasp ideas deep within a creative mind or ideal to create a piece that challenges that of conventional art." 

"Joseph Beuys once said “thinking is sculpture” and this means a lot when expressing your mark because it creates a sense of freedom where there are no wrong answers, and creative expression can take place. Similarly “formal art is essentially rational,” says Sol LeWitt. This can also mean that in understanding drawing that anything can take place and to embrace more nontraditional art forms and to take irrational risks."

STUDENT WORKS samples