Back to School Update: Drawing 211 - Media and Techniques

Drawing 211 was a really interesting course with a very experienced instructor. Unlike most of my other courses that had a small number of bigger assignments, this course had a piece due every week - so beware - lots of pics and a long blog. Each class started with a critique of the previous week's work and then on to the next assignment. I learned a lot from listening to the critiques and experiences of other students and I particularly found it helpful to listen to the instructor's opinions on each work in terms of what was working or not working. He also did demonstrations on air brushing, photoshop, and photo transfer as well as giving me invaluable tips on canvas preparation.

The first project was to be about a room we remember and why it is important to us. We were to make two drawings. A few years ago I had the opportunity to go back to the Museum of Natural History in Ottawa. I have many fond memories of visiting there as a child with my family and one of my earliest memories is looking down a very long way over a gallery railing and experiencing the thrill and terror of vertigo (and the panic of my poor Dad who caught me doing this). This was a very tough perspective to draw but I gave it a go. The second piece was a doodling version of what I remember seeing there as I wondered the galleries as a child. I came to realize how big an influence this experience was on shaping who I was as I took my more recent look over the railing decades later.







The original intent was that the fabric would overlay the drawing, but it was too opaque.







The second assignment was about landscape (yay!) with emphasis on why it is important and inviting the viewer in. This is a combined view of the pond behind our home and the mountains to the west. It's hard to see but there is an exit sign in the foreground. This is the place that I go to when I want to exit the craziness of civilization.

For the third assignment, we were instructed to listen to a number of Ted talks and create a piece inspired by one or more of them. I was amazed by many of them, but particularly by Evelyn Glennie's talk and musical performance about how to listen. I highly recommend listening to it - she is deaf and brings new meaning to appreciating a sensory experience even with an impairment. I've had a few visual scares over my life and a recent one was particularly frightening, not surprisingly because of how important the visual arts are for me. Listening to her lifted a weight off my shoulders and I decided to create "Feel." It was about creating a visual piece in felt that focuses on the sense of touch and incorporates braille. Using "felt" seemed particularly appropriate because its name is a homonym of the sense I wanted to engage and creating and touching felt is such a luscious sensory experience.
However, getting people to touch a visual art piece is tricky because this is generally taboo. Even though I encouraged it by a number of means (e.g. placing a mat in front of it within touching range, a sign with the title in braille), people were reluctant to touch it and there was discussion about the potential of long-term wear and tear and its visual impact.
I plan to do more with this piece, but not sure what yet.

The fourth assignment was to be a self-portrait (boo hiss!) and include an excerpt from a relevant lyric. "Tapestry" by Carole King has always been a favorite of mine and the first verse pretty much sums up how I feel about my life. I decided to experiment with layering with different water colour and chalk pastel techniques. I hate drawing myself so chose to tape mylar to a mirror and quickly outline my face in different poses - a relatively painless experience. I then created essentially a chalk pastel version of carbon paper and traced my face outlines onto the paper. Generally it does feel like a pretty accurate reflection of me although I expected the colours to be more intense.

For the fifth assignment we were instructed to sit with people, share food, take a walk, and make work - the latter in no more than four hours. Coincidentally I spent the weekend with a friend at the Banff Centre and saw Tanya Tagaq's "Nanook of the North" performance. I was drawing and sketching all weekend waiting for an epiphany and then the morning after the performance, just before heading home, we were sitting in the Three Ravens restaurant enjoying the panoramic view. There were ravens soaring around outside the window and it felt so analogous to the Tanya's performance in its celebration of life and life style that I couldn't wait to get home and paint it. I've never painted a piece this size in such a short time and it was a challenge, but the whole experience was amazingly celebratory and spiritual.

For the last six weeks we developed a project idea for six works relating to a concept of interest to us. I chose to explore living simultaneously in the real and virtual world, considering both intended and unintended consequences of computer technology.

 This piece, "Adam's Creation" is a surrealistic riff on Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" and reflects on what we have created with the development of technology and artificial intelligence. I wonder what Michelangelo would think of the world we live in?

 "Caught in the Web" is a devore piece. Devore is a silk screening technique that eats away natural fibres while leaving synthetic fibres. Stitched lines of of polyester thread held the humanoid forms in suspension once the surrounding cotton fabric was eaten away.

 One of the weeks I indulged in doodling to create "Consequences." I haven't spent this much time doodling since a data processing class in high school. The little fellow in the centre is texting on his phone.

I did a fair amount of research on technological impacts for inspiration and came across the Google books project - yikes! I essentially destroyed a book entitled "Sun and Shadow" to reflect some of the consequences of this project - apologies to Ake Edwardson, but your book's title was just too appropriate. While I came across a lot of frightening unintended consequences of technology, I am pleased to know that I am not alone in having concerns.

"Lines of communication" was another medium experiment. I embroidered and adhered thread to the canvas and am pleased with the tension it creates.

Ultimately, after 6 weeks of thinking way too much about this topic I was left with wondering "Who's driving the bus?" The answer: nobody and everybody. This is a collage and ink piece.














Overall, I really enjoyed this course and experimented with a lot of different techniques - the upside of not being tied to only traditional drawing techniques. While I like this opportunity I guess I was expecting to be required to become more proficient at more traditional drawing techniques - something I have a hard time motivating myself to do independently.