HOW TO DO IT
Preliminary Drawing and Writing •• Step One: Warm-up Exercises, Blind Contour and Regular Contour •• Step Two: Basic Shapes •• Step Three: Light-Medium-Dark •• Step Four: The “Perfect” Whole •• Step Five: The Composite Abstraction
The Dakota do not have a literal translation for the word art or artist.... Wakahwayupike, the word for artist, comes from wakaga, to make, form,
cause to be or be the author of, to execute; and wayupika, to be expert,
skillful, dexterous.
Yvonne Wynde, Sisseton-Wampetan art teacher, 1920-72
Museum of the American Indian, Battery Park, New York City
Drawing is the most universal human activity for organizing what we see. The visual grammar that allows simple marks to stand for complex visual information is already in our brain. It can be used to raise the level at which we can see and transcribe that experience.
Drawing is the principal means by which we organize the world visually. We use it to work out ideas of all sorts, collect information and analyse the way we see things in order to plan, instruct or speculate. Through drawing, we are led to ‘see’ and to understand.
Ron Bowen, Drawing Master Class
Overview of the Five Steps
Preliminary Drawing and Writing
Jennifer Welden, Preliminary Drawing and Writing
of an immersion heater, Continuing Education, Westfield State
To provide a pre-test sample for the evaluative tool Rescore, students draw their object for ten minutes and then write about it for ten minutes. They do this without any suggestions or instructions. In a multicultural classroom, students may do this preliminary writing in their own language with the understanding that they will have to translate this sample into English at their current skill level. After this preliminary step, all students must write in English. If skills in the target language are very weak, the student’s mother tongue is used as a bridge into the new language. Starting with what students know is a cardinal constructivist rule. It is also sound neurobiology; the brain scaffolds new skills on existing structures.
In my experience, ten minutes is about the length of time most untrained students are productively able to draw or write about an object. Although students will be able to draw and write for longer periods of time after training in Drawing/Writing, the same ten minutes is allotted to the closing sample. The choice of a new object for the closing sample determines to what degree there has been a “transfer of skills.” Skills learned by drawing a hammer, for instance, should transfer to a drawing of a geode. The goal of Drawing/Writing is the development and transfer of thinking skills into other content areas and into life beyond the classroom.
Michael Cooper plays bass guitar in a rock band and teaches in a technical school. He wrote, “ I wish I could give more on how it really is through my eyes. Not similar, but good! If or when things progress I might be more strong about my work. I think the ideas are good but my skills lack.”
Step One: Warm-up Exercises, Blind Contour and Regular Contour
Jennifer Welden, Blind Contour drawing
of the immersion heater, Westfield State College,
Continuing Education, 1996
The warm-up exercises are based on research with feral children and blind language learners, as well as on information about Chinese teaching methods for writing. Empirical observation with young Drawing/Writing students contributes to these warm-up exercises, too.
Touch helped children raised by animals in the wild—feral children—raised without early language learning, to speak. Touch helps the deaf to make spoken sounds and touch helps the blind to read. Young Chinese students first draw calligraphic figures in the air with their arms and bodies. They trace the broad gesture of the character. Then, they learn to write the character. This gestural exploration introduces the Drawing/Writing student to the shape of the object, too.
First, Drawing/Writing students close their eyes and touch the object. Next, students stand and gesture the shape of their objects in the air. Then, they trace the object on a piece of paper, literally feeling their way around the object, learning it by touch. Touch is a direct, early and natural way to know about things. As babies, our sight is highly informed by touch, but we lose track of touch when we enter school. Drawing/Writing re-introduces direct touch to knowledge.
The warm-up exercises are followed by the first drawing exercise. This outline drawing, called the “Blind Contour,” establishes the critical distinction between “figure” and “ground.” “Figure” stands for the subject in a work of art, and “ground” stands for the space around it. The Blind Contour drawing provides practice in this distinction, which is in itself practice for defining the scope of a subject, creating a boundary between what will be studied and what will not be studied. Making a Blind Contour drawing is analogous to defining a research topic.
This drawing is “blind” in the sense that the student looks at the object and not at the paper. In this way the student is forced to observe the object carefully, without assumptions. The line drawing and any subsequent writing about it will be based on direct observation, not on guessing, incomplete memories or vague associations.
Michael wrote, “My Blind Contour tells me that my object is OK because along with my last drawing it will give me future information. It resembles the object more than I thought. I can see the future of this object stuck all over! The lines curve through. My drawing is like an outline of a person standing strong. The large foot lets it stand. The strength comes from the large arms and armor-like shoulders. The head of the object has facial features of hair, forehead, nose, lips and chin as in a side view.”
A goal in Drawing/Writing is learning how to see accurately and thoroughly. Careful scrutiny of “what is there” is part of learning. Through careful seeing, the mind learns not to rely on old assumptions or irrelevant bits of information or guesses, but to explore a subject with full attention. For instance, it is inaccurate to assume that apples are red, bananas are yellow and trees are green. Color may be determined by time, or a moment in the life of the fruit, or time of day, or even the emotional life of the artist. An apple that is red at noon may be blue at dawn. In the case of the Blind Contour drawing, students focus on line quality alone. The outline of the object carries a tremendous amount of information. Depending upon how the student places the object, very different shapes and profiles emerge. Think about drawing a wood plane head on; you could be drawing a semi-circle, a series of tiny vertical lozenges, a very narrow, horizontal rectangular plate, two narrow, upright, elongated triangles sitting above a very small, central semi-circle, sitting on a slender horizontal rectangular plane.
Sketch, plane, head on, profile, SRS
Photo of wood plane, in profile and from above, SR Sheridan, 1997
From the side, a wave-like shape sprouts a cobra-like hood which nearly touches a bottlecap-like section above a slender disk, screwed to a vertical trapezoid.
As students construct a clearer picture of their objects through the Drawing/Writing program, they make associations. Michael Cooper compares the outline of his object to an armored man with one large stabilizing foot. Associations are only as strong as the observations on which they are built. The Blind Contour drawing supports the future construction of the fully realized drawing just as framing supports a building. The ability to recognize what is and what is not the subject of an information search is an important skill.
The next Drawing/Writing step reinforces this skill by asking students to describe the physical characteristics of the Blind Contour line. From whatever angle the student chooses to draw the object, this Blind Contour line describes the object’s exterior, providing information on the physical properties of that outer edge or surface. The student writes, “My Blind Contour drawing tells me that my object is straight, curving, bumpy, jumpy, jagged, smooth....” These words describe some of the characteristics of a drawn line.
After the student writes about the physical characteristics of the outline drawing, he or she is asked to look at the line drawing in a new way from any angle. A freely associated image will pop into the student’s head. The teacher asks the student to write a simile based on that free association. Looking at his Blind Contour drawing, a student may see a pterodactyl. The student writes, “My Blind Contour drawing of garden shears looks like a pterodactyl because the blades of the shears are like long, skeletal wings.” The word “because” forces students to explain the simile. The simple word “because” provides a cognitive nudge from the nest, encouraging fledgling logic systems.
From the beginning, the Drawing/Writing program encourages logical associations while teaching students to move from rigorous description of the physical world of tangible appearances to equally rigorous associations. Each additional step in the Drawing/Writing five-step adds new kinds and levels of analyses to the brain’s mental repertoire, while structuring neural capabilities at the same time.
With every step, the Drawing/Writing teacher promotes student discussion through questioning. A Socratic approach continues throughout the program. In connection with the first step, the teacher asks: What is the purpose of the Blind Contour drawing? Students realize through discussion that the contour line creates
a boundary between what is and what is not the subject of inquiry. Questions encourage the construction of knowledge.
The Blind Contour drawing is followed by the Regular Contour drawing; the student looks at both the object and the paper. Spatial relations become more accurate. The work continues to be done with markers, heightening the visual effect of the work. Psychologically, the use of markers encourages risk-taking behavior, commitment, and courage.
After his second attempt at the Regular Contour drawing, Michael wrote, “My Regular Contour drawings tells me that my object is drawn fast because of the messy and over-lapping lines. My Reg. C is an E.T. impersonation because of its long neck and long arms. It has a body-like shape with straight lines giving legs to body shape, a curved rib, huge straight arms and cupped hands leading to a jagged shoulder-like shape. My Reg c. looks like an army soldier parachuting to the ground because the shape of the overall object appears to be free-falling, head towards the ground with its arms spread.”
Michael wrote, “My Regular contour is not the most appealing to me. It does not look the same on paper as on the desk. But looking beyond that....” Michael did not finish his sentence. The contour drawing is accurate. One wonders why Michael was dissatisfied with it. One thing is certain: his mind is growing in entirely self-directed ways.
Note that Drawing/Writing students will reflect on the process of drawing, as well as on the quality of their work. They may find the process challenging and their work inadequate. As students’ observation skills and patience increase, negative comments turn into critical analyses.
Jennifer Welden, Euclidean and Fractal Basic Shape drawings of immersion heater, Westfield State College, Continuing Education, 1996
Step Two of the Drawing/Writing program is called Basic Shapes. Students look at their objects and re-draw them as geometric shapes. While the Contour drawing provides practice in establishing outlines and boundaries, Basic Shapes drawings provide practice in form and structure. The word “basic” suggests “simple,” or “fundamental.” Students break the object into—or build the object from—a series of geometric shapes. First, they use Euclidean geometry, then fractal geometry. Squares and triangles are part of the language of Euclidean geometry. Self-similar shapes characterize fractal drawings; otherwise, there are no rules for the shapes employed.
Michael wrote, “My Euclidean BS drawing tells me that my object is full of semi-circles, circles, triangles, rhombuses, rectangles and trapezoids. The object is a shattered toy gun because of the overall shapes of where all the Euclidean shapes lie. The object looked shattered because the shapes do not touch and have no connection.” Note Michael’s jump into metaphor. Note also how the word “because” forces increasing precision with language.
Michael then wrote, “My Fractal BS drawing tells me that my object is very mobile. A semi-circle has a sleek curve but yet it can be straight as a board. This shape is very versatile because this shape is curved and straight at the same time. One side is a C-like shape with a line on the other side to keep one side flatter. I felt this shape gave me the most options: straight and curved, what a combo. My object is a person who just overcame a very large obstacle because I can see him with his hands raised and I can hear him call out a dream.”
Inga Small wrote, “My fractal basic shape drawing tells me my object is very bat-like, because the shapes that I filled the inside with have horns and structures that look like wings. I have a headache now. It is an oddly shaped fruit stabbed through with a curved sabre because the point on the end of the bottom could be the end of a knife. Therefore, it’s going through something, possibly a squishy fruit of some sort. This looks like a submarine or a shark seen from the front because the long thin thing on top looks like a dorsal fin and the two long ‘arms’ could be fins.”
Part of the theory undergirding Drawing/Writing is that thought is naturally multi-modal: note how Michael hears and sees his metaphor. Another part of the theory is that concrete thinking and abstract thinking are related enterprises and that the move between them is not made in one direction only. The mind moves back and forth between concrete models and abstract theories: between a person and, in Michael’s case, a dream. The ways in which we learn to construct and manipulate physical models—either two-dimensional models (drawing, painting, collage, print-making, graphing, photography, computer-simulation and manipulation) or three-dimensional models (sculpture, holographs, Fourier transformations, MRIs, dance, theater, snap-on chemical models, Julian Fleron’s wood and wire models describing calculus functions)—determine how we will be able to think about ideas. The ability to move between concrete models and abstract theories constitutes intelligent thought. Julian’s three-dimensional models expand. The Harvard Consortium’s Rule of Four (Smith, 1994) to a Rule of Five; not only do Fleron’s students describe calculus problems using written language, algebra, graphs and numbers, they also explore calculus problems tactilely using physical models.
Evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould observed that both artists and scientists use form and structure in problem-solving. For instance, the biologist Jim Watson, of Crick and Watson fame, extrapolated the formal structure of the genetic code by constructing a 3-D model of a double helix. Through a Tinker Toy-like model, Watson better understood the chemical sequence of DNA. Gould writes, “Watson succeeded by hard work and false starts, all guided, step by step, through an artist’s central vision that we live, at all scales, in a universe of structure”.15 He quotes Jim Watson’s comment about the physical model of the double helix, “A structure as pretty as this just has to exist.” A “pretty” physical model guided an elegant theory. By combining an aesthetic intuition about a model with a theoretical conviction, Jim Watson was able to extend his thinking. Basic Shape drawings provide practice in two-dimensional model-building, mobilizing the strategies of the artist/scientist. Compared to the spareness of the contour line drawings, Basic Shape drawings are complex and beautiful. They allow students to conduct formal inquiries using elegant forms.
Young students can be taught how to construct theoretical understandings in a variety of physical ways through drawing. They may wonder about the relationships among different systems of geometry as well as the connections between geometry, art and science. They may ponder the distinctions between the real and the ideal. For instance, does the idea of a triangle exist independent of actual triangles? These questions are not too sophisticated for young learners; speculations like these excite the mind. It is easy to open students’ minds through geometry. A Euclidean triangle, for instance, when used in a Koch Curve (see figure below), is a step toward a circle. Once a triangle is rotated around a point or is used to decorate itself at intervals, the connections between circles and triangles becomes clear. These kinds of startling relationships attract children’s attention and engage them in the overall enterprise of learning as well as in the specific fields of mathematics and geometry.
A snowflake may not actually be made of triangles, and a curve may not actually consist of straight lines. But a curve may be approximated using straight lines, and a snowflake can be built from triangles. Using triangles to create a circle opens the mind to the interchangeability of forms, and, by extension, to the fluidity and plasticity of meaning. Shapes are malleable and transformational. So are words.
Practice with Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry provides several ways of looking at structure—from snowflakes to brains. Fractal geometry expands our understanding of geometry, providing more descriptions of form. Euclidean geometry and fractal geometry are partial explanations. Instead of “rightness” and “wrongness,” we can learn through the study of geometry to accept or reject explanations for their completeness, their elegance and for their applicability. The most powerful explanations often include several ways of looking at things.
Guidelines for exploring a series of explanation systems—like fractal geometry—are provided in this book. The journeys of discovery will differ from teacher to teacher and from student to student. One aspect of the journey will remain constant: the usefulness of drawing to thought. The art historian and critic E.H. Gombrich states that the tools we use to draw determine how we see; even if we use the same tools, our individual visions will vary. Each artist decides how much of his actual observations to layer over stored formulae. “The familiar will always remain the likely starting point for rendering the unfamiliar.... You cannot create a faithful image out of nothing”.16 The schemata we store and the models we use influence how we see and how we represent new information. By introducing students to several approaches to geometry, we broaden their range of tools and, thereby, their vision.
Jennifer Welden, LMD drawing of immersion heater,
Westfield State College, Continuing Education, 1996
In the LMD drawing, light, is the distinguishing element. To simplify an object in terms of one element without losing its identity is a challenging exercise.
The Basic Shape drawing paves the way for the Light-Medium-Dark, or LMD drawing. As students draw basic shapes, their minds, at least subliminally, are aware of the shapes created by lights and darks. Learning how to see lights and shadows and to reproduce them is one of the tricks of illusionary drawing. How to recognize the obvious while attending to the subtle is a useful transferable skill.
In art studio terms, light and dark have “value.” The side of an apple on which the sun shines has a certain value of light; the side of the apple away from the sun has a certain value of shadow. The area in between is said to have “middle” value. These areas of light, dark and middle value are determined by the eye. A value drawing using markers is “hard-edged.” The outline of each value is sharp and clear. A value drawing using pencil or charcoal can be soft-edged if the transitions between values are smudged. Because the LMD drawing is done with markers, it is hard-edged. It is a natural follow-up to the hard-edged, marker-drawn Basic Shape drawing.
For the LMD exercise—if possible—the teacher turns out the artificial lights. Students place their objects where the natural light strikes them. Then, using squinting as a filtering technique, students figure out exactly where an object is highlighted and where it is dark; the area in between is the middle value. The LMD drawing teaches students how to filter out extraneous information, recognizing strong contrasts and subtle distinctions.
The brain filters information constantly. Because we cannot pay attention to everything, our brains select and prioritize. If it did not, we would be overwhelmed. Culture and experience train our brains to “squint.” Squinting is a filtering technique that blurs outlines, texture and form, making lights and darks obvious.
Elizabeth wrote, “My LMD drawing tells me that my object is mostly dark when I squint my eyes because the lit is bonsing on the tip and it lands on the midel in an ovel shap. And the lit is shing down like it is coming from heven.”
Continuing Education student, Michael Cooper, wrote, “My LMD drawing tells me that my object looks like a mask because of the two eyes and straps to hold it on our head. The mask looks to be very long and terrible. The LMD drawing is space trash because it seems to be drifting apart and not staying together like compacted space trash.” Notice that Michael does not comment on light reflectivity and materials; he moves directly to simile.
Leslie Arak wrote, “My LMD drawing tells me that my object is smooth and shiny over most of the surface because there are large patches of light or medium over the curved bits. This looks like a mountain with snow and large patches of evergreens.” Leslie connects the shapes and amounts of light with surface texture and materials.
Students learn to identify highlights and deep shadows and to reproduce a range of values. The Drawing/Writing rule for representing middle value is that all shapes with that value are represented by the same pattern; for instance, a student may choose parallel lines or cross-hatching to fill in the shape of the middle value. The student could choose to represent a range of middle values by adopting a range of intervals between dots or parallel lines.
Nate Gorlin Crenshaw wrote, “Metela, pelasteck.”
Maria Grigoryeva wrote, “My LMD tells me that my object is darkest on its bottom left side because that is where my darkest values are. It also tells me that my object is rather matte (using a new word, expanding my vocabulary; mom would be so proud).”
Students learn to value filtering. In addition to learning a drawing technique called chiaroscuro, or light/dark rendering, students are learning to distinguish the dramatic from the subtle. This analytical skill will prove useful in studying literature as well as in evaluating media events, like political speeches.
Step Four: The “Perfect” Whole
Jennifer Welden, “Perfect” Whole drawing of
immersion heater, Westfield State College, Continuing Education, 1996
For Step 4, the “Perfect” Whole, students switch from markers to pencils. Pencils have two special advantages besides erasability: the lead creates soft transitions between values, and erasers can be used for “lift-off,” creating accents of light in the midst of a darkened area.
The quotation marks around the word “perfect” are ironic. Ten years’ experience proves that even very young students know that no drawing is perfect. They easily understand that this drawing is “perfect” in terms of completeness, not flawlessness. The idea of perfection as flawlessness is daunting. Trying to create a perfect drawing is an unachievable goal. On the other hand, achieving a more or less complete drawing is possible. Drawing the “Perfect” Whole teaches students that they are responsible for deciding when a drawing or a piece of writing is complete. Step 4 encourages experiments with freedom and choice while avoiding the pitfalls of rigid expectations about excellence.
Students are urged to look carefully at the surface of their objects for details to add texture to their drawings. Step 4 brings together what students know about line, form, and value. Because it is both inclusive and accurate, the drawing looks “real.” Students appreciate the fact that their “Perfect” Whole drawing will include elements another student might omit, and that every drawing, no matter how detailed, remains approximate.
Michael wrote, “My ‘Perfect’ Whole drawing tells me to slow down and check size, shape and angle of my object. My object could be used with a fine wine, served with chicken amaretto by candle light.”
Kimberly Deverry, another Continuing Education student, wrote, “My PW tells me that my object has two parallel sides and that its form can be represented by Euclidean shapes. The lines are in varying thicknesses and spacing to produce tonal qualities. My PWD is like a family measuring rod because each line represents a hope, fear, creation, expiration, exhilaration, declamation, gift, rift etched into the surface.”
Because no drawing is ever complete, students who draw the “Perfect” Whole learn that no drawing skills, even photographically accurate skills, record all available information. Drawing requires selection and therefore elimination, or editing skills. A drawing is as complete as the artist’s skills and choices allow.
Joanne Krawczyk wrote, “My PWD tells me that it is incomplete because some areas have been left unfinished. My PWD tells me that my object is a tool because it has two pointed blades that remind me of an open pair of scissors. The handle of the tool hides the mechanisms that control the blades. My PWD tells me that my object is old and neglected because, due to their (low) range of values, the blades appear to be rusty instead of polished and bright. If my PWD is held vertically, it is like a caricature of a coyote because of the distortion of the long ears, nose and open mouth. If my PWD is held upside down horizontally, it is the head of the famous pair of crows from the well-known Heckle and Jeckle cartoon series because of the exaggerated open beak and the misplaced, comical eyeball at the top end of the bill. There is also a pencil mark towards the tip which resembles an (air?) hole typically found on birds’ beaks.”
Inga Small wrote, “This bone feels like wave-worn stones because both the bone and wave-worn rocks are smooth and so is the vertebra. This bone looks like the
x-wing plane from Star Wars because the lengthier extensions look like wings and there is a crest on the top that resembles the top of the spaceship. This bone smells like pencil shavings because there is the faint odor that you get when you smell a newly sharpened pencil.”
The goal in the “Perfect” Whole drawing is to include enough detail to suggest the illusion of the object as fully three-dimensional and trompe l’oeil, or “fool-the-eye”-real. By Step 4, students’ drawing skills are equal to the challenge of optical realism just as their writing skills are equal to the challenge of the expository essay. At this stage of the program, increased drawing and writing skills fine-tune attention and boost confidence, making it possible to present a considerable number of writing exercises at this time. Some of these include similes, metaphors, analogies, predictions, and hypotheses constructed on concrete and abstract levels.
Equipped with a range of verbal strategies, students learn to construct increasingly rigorous explanations. Because these constructions are abstract as well as concrete and negative as well as positive, students’ minds are stretched and challenged. When a student writes, “My object smells like dust because it reminds me of the choking dryness of the attic,” the student has constructed a statement in a positive mode. When the student writes, “My object does not smell like dust because, although it reminds me of the dry, choking atmosphere in the attic, it also smells faintly like sand, which I associate with the dampness of the beach,” the statement is negative, requiring more extensive justification. Forced to justify their verbal constructions, students may discover one apt explanation that edges out all the others.
By placing a premium on personal decision-making, the “Perfect” Whole encourages tolerance. It becomes clear in group critiques that each “Perfect” Whole drawing is different not only in content but in emphasis from other drawings. Each drawing is as complete as it needs to be to represent that object for that student. Because each student knows that all Drawing/Writing students go through the same comprehensive analyses, all Drawing/Writing solutions are respected.
Contemporary calculus education expects students to express problems using four explanation systems: words, arithmetic, algebra, and graphs. Drawing/Writing trains students to use two explanation systems—one visual (drawing) and one verbal system (writing)—to express meaning. Two is better than one. More are even better!
Step Five: The Composite Abstraction
Jennifer Welden, CA of the immersion heater,
Westfield State College, Continuing Education, 1996
Step Five provides a procedure for abstraction. To create a Composite Abstraction, students examine all of their drawings from Steps 1-4. The floor may be the only surface large enough for these displays. Choosing one part from each drawing, students recombine them in any way they choose to, creating a new whole. The instructions for the CA are:
The criteria for choice include aesthetics and accuracy. There are no instructions or constraints on the writing except that it must spring from the drawing.
While the optically accurate “Perfect” Whole drawing is like a descriptive essay or an instruction manual, the Composite Abstraction is like a poem or a theory—minimal, metaphorical and essential. This student-created transitional visual “language” has profound implications. The CA is the “cognitive kicker” of the Drawing/Writing program.
Michael wrote, “My CA is small. I see gears turning and parts drilling. Man has a hand in all machinery. My object has grown, advanced and changed for the better. Like my car I wish I could trade up for a ‘97. The sound of clunk in my car. The sound of gears turning. We can hear man’s advance.”
Even though the CA is composed of parts of previous drawings, the CA does not look like the object any more. Students understand that the CA still stands for the object. As Eric Soderstrom’s writing makes clear, this abstract drawing is fully intelligible to him.
Eric wrote, “My CA is a collection of lines and shapes most appealing to me from my drawings. Every line and shape shows true meaning, such as the triangle in the corner that depicts how a hack is an inter-changeably-shaped object. My CA drawing tells me I’m in a maze because I’m walking around in my drawing. I lie in a field looking up at clouds as a skyscraper leaves its mark. I travel down a long and winding road, walking happily and peacefully. Taking in every little bit of nature as I go. The road ends...in the distance I see a tidal wave of water crashing towards me. I grab a surfboard and lie patiently waiting for the onslaught of wetness. Hitting me like a ton of bricks I fly towards the sky. Free-falling I watch birds soar by. Plunging into the deep dark waters my arms and legs get wrapped up in seaweed drowning me. Entrapped forever under the sea the creatures get a treat. My soul is beginning to see the light as I reach the stars.” Eric is a songwriter. His CA’s provided some lyrics.
The writing that accompanies the CA is different from other writing in the program. It tends toward the philosophical and lyrical. The visual recombination provides cues which may seem removed from the original object. Because the drawing is abstract, the writing that accompanies the CA is unpredictable. Still, as the drawing carries hints of the object, so does the writing. Exercises in Part Two in connection with the CA bring these persisting connections to the surface in an exercise called Referential Writing.
The compositional elements of color, line, form and space can be manipulated to achieve the “right relationships” which are the hallmarks of a successful design. In Drawing/Writing, instructions for creating right relationships are simple: “neither too much nor too little.” These criteria make sense to students.
The CA is refined in the following way: Student #1, Jessica, holds up the Composite Abstraction of student #2, Sam, and then slowly rotates it. When a drawing is rotated so that the top no longer remains the top, nor the bottom the bottom, nor the side the side, Sam sees his work in new ways. Jessica directs Sam to look for places in the drawing where there is too much or too little: too many lines, too little form, too much color. This can also mean too much or too little positive space or too much or too little negative space. She tells him to signal by nodding when he has decided what needs doing: at that signal, she stops rotating his drawing. After nodding, Sam takes a new piece of paper and starts the second CA, using the first for reference.
Sam is now free to achieve an even more successful design. He can add, he can subtract, he can distort or embellish. With his CA drawing turned upside down, Sam no longer sees a hint of his object. Neither a pair of garden shears nor a pterodactyl remain. Sam is free, now, to focus on pure design, engaging in new levels of analysis, working directly with the formal elements of composition. The work is abstract. There is no objective content—no horse, no child. Still, the eye can get stuck if the artist persists in seeing the work as solved just because it is “right side up.” When turned upside down, the composition will most probably present additional problems. When working with objective art—images of horses, children—it is even more important to rotate an image to get away from narrative content in order to see how the formal elements are actually working together.
Andrew Lai wrote about CA#1, “My CA tells me it is a maze that is almost impossible. It is a fire hidrint. It looks like a sea dragon. It looks like a under water city. It looks like a UFO and it looks like a cannon.”
Deborah Arak, my neighbor, a parent, gardener and co-owner with her husband of a telemarketing business, wrote:
Deborah Arak, CA#1, CA#2, CA#3, mother, businesswoman, Amherst, 1997
Deborah’s son, Jefferson, drew and wrote the following about a child’s leather boot:
Jefferson Arak, age 11, CA #1 and #2, Wildwood School, Amherst,1997
About the CA#1, Jefferson wrote, “I sort of put pieces of all my drawings together in a clump, and then I put a circle around them to sort of frame them, when I did that, it looked too plain, so I made a series of odd lines inside the circle.”
For his CA#2, Jefferson wrote, “I changed my abstraction to this because I thought that the (here Jefferson copies one of the wavy lines) sort of looked like water, and so I put it at the top and I put the other objects in the ‘water,’ like fish or something.”
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