I've started working on a book about drawing. It's more about ways of approaching the task of drawing and ways of thinking about drawing than a 'how to do it' book. I'm going to start to post parts of what I'm putting together to get some feedback from an audience. I want it to be a bit confrontational and a little bit funny too, if I can make that work. We'll see. Meanwhile here's a manifesto to start with!
The Manifesto (first draft)
We, the undersigned, are artists, teachers and designers who have been raised in a world in which the process of drawing has been presented as something that is difficult and mysterious.
Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief, the market rewards it, a tide of media and publications reinforce it.
The media is saturated with commercial messages in the form of social media marketing campaigns, books, magazines, educational tools that endorse the view that drawing is hard, that drawing is a highly specialised skill, that drawing takes a long time to learn.
It is a harmful code of public discourse that promotes the idea that we are not able to draw properly and then attempts to sell you a product or technique that has the answers you've been wishing for.
But there are methods more worthy of our time and effort.
We propose a reversal of prioritities in the approach to learning to draw. Away from fake formulae and the 'tricky' towards a more expressive and personal interpretation of the world and our experience. A shift away from copying from photos, a shift away from ’techniques’ that will produce ‘realistic’ results. An active engagement with the real world and real experience. To eradicate sophist ideas that propose, for example, that we need to draw with a differnt side of the brain! Ha!
So what is to be done? How do we re-connect with our ability to draw and draw on our creative potential? Read on…
The Manifesto (first draft)
We, the undersigned, are artists, teachers and designers who have been raised in a world in which the process of drawing has been presented as something that is difficult and mysterious.
Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief, the market rewards it, a tide of media and publications reinforce it.
The media is saturated with commercial messages in the form of social media marketing campaigns, books, magazines, educational tools that endorse the view that drawing is hard, that drawing is a highly specialised skill, that drawing takes a long time to learn.
It is a harmful code of public discourse that promotes the idea that we are not able to draw properly and then attempts to sell you a product or technique that has the answers you've been wishing for.
But there are methods more worthy of our time and effort.
We propose a reversal of prioritities in the approach to learning to draw. Away from fake formulae and the 'tricky' towards a more expressive and personal interpretation of the world and our experience. A shift away from copying from photos, a shift away from ’techniques’ that will produce ‘realistic’ results. An active engagement with the real world and real experience. To eradicate sophist ideas that propose, for example, that we need to draw with a differnt side of the brain! Ha!
So what is to be done? How do we re-connect with our ability to draw and draw on our creative potential? Read on…
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