BIG Drawings!

This project makes the students experience directly and systematically, the basic elements of a drawing; the marks, the spaces, the surface and the format, or shape. They also have to consider carefully the relationships between all these elements in order to complete the drawings effectively.

They are each given a small object constructed to contain a range of difficult markmaking problems. Here, I was also making the point that photographic reference is less helpful than one might think! Their subjects were deliberately degraded, re-copied photocopies of old photographs of people, and a community remote from their own personal experience, which were kindly lent by the Comunn Eachdraidh Sgire Bhearnaraidh (the community museum on Great Bernera, Lewis, in the westem isles ) Consequently, after observation, imagination has also to play a part in the drawing in order to invent the necessary marks. What begins as an observational process and ends as an excercise in compositional visual dynamics, therefore also involves a developing opinion about the subject.

The students are given a small randomly shaped window mask, and after cutting an A2 sheet of paper pro rata, they select an active area of the subject and draw quickly, in charcoal, the linear structure. (The mask therefore dictates the scale of their drawing.) They then remove the mask, and adding further pieces of paper as necessary, they explore outwards until they have determined the shape and form that their drawing needs to be. This is dictated more by their own particular growing visual dynamics than by strict realism or fidelity to the subject. The objective is to produce a powerful and compelling composition.

Being very big and made up of joined pieces of paper, the drawings soon get quite dirty from the charcoal and it is impossible to be precious about them. Process and change take over. Tone enters as the charcoal dust corrupts the surfaces upon which they draw.

There are psychological aspects also. The drawings are worked intensively over several days. After the first phase of hard looking and exploring, A period of frustration sets in as the difficulties emerge. The students reach the point of thinking "if I have to spend another day on this, I Shall go nuts!" Finaly, the boredom threshold is crossed and the last resolution period of the drawing becomes increasingly obsessive.

The end result is a photograph of their drawing (together with the student) for their portfolio - bringing the drawing back in scale closer to the original object which they were given, and demonstrating clearly the real scale of their drawing.

A selection of these completed drawings were rolled up like a carpet and sent back to Great Bernera where they ended up displayed in the commmunity centre, home of the original photographs used as the basis of the exercise.