Drawing :: Static :: Kinetic

Like on Like (or like likes like?)

2012-01-15T20:20:00.000-05:00

http://the43usesofdrawing.blogspot.com/

More on Dancing and Drawing

2011-11-21T14:50:00.004-05:00

It seems to come up at least once a year, more often when I'm looking and listening more closely, this explicit connection between the danced and drawn mark. The latest on the radar is Dance/Draw at the ICA in Boston. Positing the connection of the body, mark, and space, this exhibition points to how bodily expression carries across mediums, taking us from the 1960s onward.

Thank you, Amy L. Powell for the ICA point!

A New Look at/for TRACEY

2011-10-24T19:16:00.003-04:00

Visit the new TRACEY - the center for Drawing and Visualization Research.

Doodling Data, at long last!

2011-09-28T19:49:00.011-04:00

Sunni Brown takes us on a five minute redemption campaign for putting pen to paper in the midst of meetings - not only do we retain nearly 30% more information whilst adoodle, we are more likely to integrate ideas while making marks.

I Am Still Alive (until tomorrow)

2011-09-18T11:26:00.003-04:00

No, not a dire personal proclamation of any sort. The MoMA's drawing exhibition, I Am Still Alive: Politics and Everyday Life in Contemporary Drawing closes tomorrow, September 19. What better time to highlight the MoMA's outstanding online resource for drawing, contemporary and modern? I am getting link happy, but the searchable collection is a wonderful thing.

Insight ala Classic Crumb

2011-09-16T12:58:00.001-04:00

Woodward at the EAM

2011-09-13T22:23:00.006-04:00

Chicago artist Matt Woodward's graphite drawings inspire me to look up - to find the features at altitude, to savor the moments of care and intricacy that grace our facades, to cherish fading light and passing time.

Woodward's latest exhibition opens this Friday at the Elmhurst Art Museum, in The Tremendous Alone.

Of Zoetropes and Transiscopes

2011-09-09T09:04:00.003-04:00

I harbor a deep and abiding love for raw animation, the grittier the better. A new gritty high (and low) for me, as seen in the Masstransiscope, Bill Brand's 228-frame work from 1980, which fills the tunnels from Dekalb Avenue into Manhattan (lucky B and Q!). Video and full project information is here. Thank you Heidi Rae Cooley!

Dancing with Lines

2011-08-25T19:05:00.006-04:00

Sarita Chouhan (Mumbai) and Lucie Betz (Frieburg, Germany) bring together the concerns of dance, space, bodies and the line in their collaborative drawing performances. Threads, the video featured here, was shown at the Paris Butoh Festival, in June 2011. See more on their project here.

Baptiste Debombourg

2011-07-28T09:16:00.001-04:00

The delightful payoff of a closer look...

More Blog-on-Blog Action

2011-07-24T17:49:00.004-04:00

If you are Facebook-friendly, Blogged has a running compilation of reviews of the top drawing blogs in the current mix.

For the FB-hostile, here's the Blogged list of drawing and illustration faves.

Both are an excellent way to navigate the ever-expanding flow of goodness (and not-so-goodness).

2011-07-21T10:41:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Jane Nodine for sharing this video of Jeri Ledbetter in conversation about observation, reaction, and image making.

Cut as Line, Arboreal Version

2011-07-19T11:19:00.002-04:00

Thank you, Craig Crossley, for sharing these gorgeous bits of cut line work, executed on leaves. See more at Lorenzo Duran's website.

Sketchbook Project 2012 - October Deadline

2011-07-18T08:12:00.004-04:00

Art House Co-op is doing it again - last year's tour featured 10,000 unique hand-drawn sketchbooks, globally made, compiled in grand style. Join in for the 2012 round by signing up by October 31st - $25 gets you a blank sketchbook and a spot on the tour and in the archives. Finish your sketchbook and post it back to Brooklyn by January 31; the tour begins in April.

Full registration details and project info can be found here.

Direct from State Lunatic Asylum No. Three...

2011-07-17T18:02:00.005-04:00

The Electric Pencil Drawings were rescued from a Missouri trash heap in 1970, but date back to the early 1900s. 142 drawings, bound in a hand-made book, have found their way into contemporary folk art culture, and give a glimpse into a sustained impulse to recollect, record, and imagine.

The identity of the Electric Pencil has yet to be discovered.

Thank you, Ellen Zev Siebers, for the link!

DRAW International

2011-07-17T09:39:00.007-04:00

I had the extreme pleasure of spending a month this summer at DRAW International, a residency centre dedicated to intensive drawing practice and research. Located in Caylus, a small medieval village in southwest France, the centre is run by John and Grete McNorton, two artists and educators who understand the value of experimentation and sustained focus in the studio.

Their website profiles the work of the residents and of the centre, including how to submit an application for a residency - www.drawinternational.com

A sample of the work I did while in Caylus is here.

Wall of Fame

2011-07-17T09:17:00.007-04:00

So I have never quite mastered the art of drawing with my index finger pushing on the Mac trackpad, but this inspires me to try (or to just use a proper mouse, or get a stylus!).

http://wall-of-fame.com/

Wall of Fame is a sprawling, real-time, collaborative drawing which lets you draw with (and on top of) others on-line, using a range of Edding markers. The sound effects alone are worth the visit! Thank you Kathy O'Connell for the link! And let it be noted that the image is but a wee sliver of all there is to see... it doth sprawl!

Drawing at the Morgan

2011-06-30T16:00:00.006-04:00

One of my favorite places in the world has gotten even better, as the Morgan Library and Museum announces the launch of the Morgan Drawing Institute.

Comprised of a program of exhibitions, institutes, and research fellowships, the Drawing Institute will be overseen by Linda Wolk-Simon.

Waiting for Hockney

2011-06-27T15:46:00.002-04:00

I'm curious how an awareness of technique can influence the viewing of this film (what happens when your heartbeat interferes with a mark?), but regardless, it's 90 minutes of interesting questions about labor, authority, intention, and (of course) drawing.

http://www.waitingforhockney.com/

Line by Line

2011-03-15T14:22:00.003-04:00

In case you missed this spectacular twelve part series on drawing and perception by James McMullan in the New York Times, I direct you now, with all haste and excitement:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/line-by-line/

Drawing in Spain

2011-01-19T15:53:00.002-05:00

Looking toward spring, and seeking drawing and travel opportunities both?

http://drawinginspain.blogspot.com/

Scaling Up

2010-12-20T13:39:00.006-05:00

See more of Jim Denevan's freehand earth drawings at jimdenevan.com

FIELD work

2010-12-15T10:34:00.002-05:00

British tech-drawing collective "Field" brings together code, gesture, interactivity, color, light and more, to create drawings in space.

Gestures On Sound from FIELD on Vimeo.

Poke through the Vimeo archive to find the amazing sidewalk campaign for Target in Union Square.

On Line Interactive

2010-12-03T14:54:00.002-05:00

The interactive component of the MoMA On Line show is yours for the exploring - deep and broad, with great features.

MoMA Drawing/Dance Performances - On Line

2010-12-03T13:13:00.002-05:00

Lifted directly from the MoMA website, as their text is superb - be sure to check out the five live performances as webcast from the MoMA in the weeks ahead.

MoMA’s Performance Exhibition Series presents a program of live performance and dance in conjunction with the group exhibition On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century. The dancing body has long been a subject matter for drawing, as seen in a variety of works included in this exhibition. These documentations show dance in two dimensions, allowing it to be seen in a gallery setting. But if one considers line as the trace of a point in motion—an idea at the core of this project—the very act of dance becomes a drawing, an insertion of line into time and the three-dimensional space of our lived world.

About On Line (through February 7, 2011)

On Line explores the radical transformation of the medium of drawing throughout the twentieth century, a period when numerous artists subjected the traditional concepts of drawing to a critical examination and expanded the medium's definition in relation to gesture and form. In a revolutionary departure from the institutional definition of drawing, and from the reliance on paper as the fundamental support material, artists instead pushed line across the plane into real space, thus questioning the relation between the object of art and the world. On Line includes approximately three hundred works that connect drawing with selections of painting, sculpture, photography, film, and dance (represented by film and documentation). In this way, the exhibition makes the case for a discursive history of mark making, while mapping an alternative project of drawing in the twentieth century. The exhibition includes works by a wide range of artists, both familiar and relatively unknown, from different eras of the past century and from many nations, including Aleksandr Rodchenko, Alexander Calder, Karel Malich, Eva Hesse, Anna Maria Maiolino, Richard Tuttle, Mona Hatoum, and Monika Grzymala.

Chalkboard Gorgeous

2010-10-24T20:17:00.001-04:00

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

Delineate in Columbia

2010-10-23T15:31:00.003-04:00

A national invitational drawing show has just closed here in Columbia, garnering much praise! A review of the show, which raises some good questions about drawing in general, can be found here.

Participating artists included: Anila Agha, Barb Bondy, Melissa Cooke, Laura Ferguson, Sanda Iliescu, Heidi Jensen, Clive King, Zach Mory, Julie Püttgen, Carla Rokes, Elin O’Hara Slavick, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Barbara Campbell Thomas, and Jason Watson. An online catalogue of the show is here.

Featured image is by Anila Agha.

Kentridge Countdown

2010-09-17T01:21:00.002-04:00

Countdown - 4 nights until... (directly quoting from the PBS website):

William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible gives viewers an intimate look into the mind and creative process of William Kentridge, the South African artist whose acclaimed charcoal drawings, animations, video installations, shadow plays, mechanical puppets, tapestries, sculptures, live performance pieces, and operas have made him one of the most dynamic and exciting contemporary artists working today. With its rich historical references and undertones of political and social commentary, Kentridge's work has earned him inclusion in Time magazine's 2009 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

This documentary features exclusive interviews with Kentridge as he works in his studio and discusses his artistic philosophy and techniques. In the film, Kentridge talks about how his personal history as a white South African of Jewish heritage has informed recurring themes in his work—including violent oppression, class struggle, and social and political hierarchies. Additionally, Kentridge discusses his experiments with "machines that tell you what it is to look" and how the very mechanism of vision is a metaphor for "the agency we have, whether we like it or not, to make sense of the world." We see Kentridge in his studio as he creates animations, music, video, and projection pieces for his various projects, including Breathe (2008); I am not me, the horse is not mine (2008); and the opera The Nose (2010), which premiered earlier this year at New York's Metropolitan Opera to rave reviews.

Between Blade and the Wall

2010-08-19T22:42:00.003-04:00

The Slash exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design has long closed, but the online presence is still most definitely worth a visit and a linger, especially when you poke through the complete exhibition archive and find the interviews with the artists involved. On my end, my pink utility knife has become the summer's favorite marking tool, supplying endless edges.

http://collections.madmuseum.org/html/exhibitions/485.html

Andreas Kocks, Paperwork #935G, 2009
Photo by Ed Watkins

Gesturing across the field

2010-08-16T10:31:00.003-04:00

I am finding myself ever on the lookout for new marks, and new ways of gesturing so as to leave a nuanced trace of experience. The works of Hiroshi Sugimoto inspire on several levels, from the ethereal to the fully fleshed, raising the question of what one can discover with light as a medium.

Art, in and of Combat

2010-07-17T08:54:00.005-04:00

From the New York Times (July 13, 2010), an article on the US Marine Corps' art program. Carol Kino writes that the Marine Corps's combat art program "is not the only one of its kind in the United States military, but many regard it as the one most deeply committed to its artistic mission. Like those in the other services, it began after the attack on Pearl Harbor and scaled back after Vietnam. Somewhat unusually, however, it has kept at least one artist in the reserves ready to deploy."

In my first university-level class I taught, there was a student recently returned from deployment in the Middle East. He showed me some of the sketches he made while serving. They were heartfelt, smart, reflective (in every sense), and they have stuck with me ever since. Since its inception, the number of teaching artists in the Marine Corps has gone from 77 to 1. I am glad one remains, and hopeful for more.

Sgt. Jack Corillo's work is pictured above.

Nu from Blu

2010-07-12T08:32:00.002-04:00

So exciting to see the now-familiar cast of replicating hedrons, tentacular pods, and crustacean crawlies joined by all new marks and visions (including a dino-devouring-van and a solid political sentiment)! BLU has just completed production on Big Bang, Big Boom, “an unscientific point of view on the beginning and evolution of life … and how it could probably end.”

A New Website for the DRN

2010-06-28T22:14:00.001-04:00

The Drawing Research Network has a new look, and a new website.

http://www.drawing-research-network.org.uk/category/drn-network-news/

Your Summer Drawing Assignment

2010-06-21T12:08:00.003-04:00

There are many viable fusions of drawing and video, and I like to think I've been good at dabbling with several in the past few years. A new one this past weekend involved being filmed while working on an extended drawing (a new experience, not posted here - great for private consumption, however!), and I highly recommend it. You have the opportunity to see how your body and the page interact, how decisions are paced, and the treat of noticing a whole set of gestures that may escape you from your standard vantage point.

If you don't have a cinematographer in the house, the next best thing is to record yourself. Timelapse drawing has come up in several conversations lately, and is also a great way to see how you make visual and kinetic decisions on the page. The video below is a random grab from YouTube. Make your own and see what happens. You have until July 1 - go!

Drawing Antarctica

2010-05-30T19:44:00.003-04:00

Nick Hutcheson is making time-lapse drawings of the Antarctic Landscape; they can be viewed here: http://www.vimeo.com/album/231684

About the project, Hutcheson states: "In 2008 I spent 8 weeks as an Artist in Residence for the Australian Antarctic Division drawing frantically as I journeyed in and around the continent. On my return, the challenge has been to try and capture some of the Antarctica I experienced. Out there, you have a constant awareness of movement and time. Some of it is so slow - gigantic icesheets flowing towards the sea at seemingly imperceptible rates but then, you can also
watch the sea water become ice, and weather fronts moving across the horizon. And the majority of what makes up the landscape is frozen water. It's defined by this ever-creeping whiteness in compositional terms, a mass of negative space. How to deal with this in the drawings I was making? At the start of the year, in response to this dilemma, I began to play with making very short animations, sort of time-lapse drawings of the landscape."

His animated works are fluid, short, and powerfully evocative.

Are you a Drawing Canadian?

2010-04-14T16:29:00.003-04:00

Enviable position, you! Submissions are now being accepted for the DRAWN Festival in Vancouver, BC, with full information found here.

Opening Sequence :: The Pacific

2010-04-06T13:13:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Brian D for pointing the way to the opening credits of the HBO miniseries, "The Pacific."

EU Gender Equality Drawing Competition

2010-03-22T12:33:00.002-04:00

For the fourth year in a row, the European Commission is organising an international drawing competition on Gender Equality, which will be launched on the International Women's Day – 8 March 2010. Eight to ten year old children in developing countries are invited to express in a drawing their vision on the theme of gender equality. This year's theme proposes to reflect on how girls and boys, women and men, can together make the world a better place.

The deadline for entries is May 14, 2010.

For more information, please visit the EU website.

Inscriptive Science

2010-03-22T12:26:00.003-04:00

The International Graphonomics Society is dedicated to investigating how marks are made, be they semiotic or less so... I am more and more interested in thinking about how inscription *happens* especially as mediated through digital technologies. Any resources, please let me know!

More simple gestures...

2010-03-20T11:50:00.001-04:00

Gestures by Koki Tenaka

Sai Hua Kua - Very Kinetic!

2010-03-20T11:33:00.004-04:00

I like that this "space drawing" by Sai Hua Kua has the potential to inflict rope burn on innocent bystanders. Two versions, with and without thrill-seeking audience.

Studio Show at the MCA Chicago

2010-03-14T22:11:00.004-04:00

The City of Big Shoulders (that sticks with me for some reason - I see them everywhere!) was host to a whirlwind art tour this past week, with a highlight being the first floor of the MCA, as nine artists take on the ethos of The Studio. In my solipsistic way, I considered it a drawing show, foremost, with studio explorations from Kentridge, Tacita Dean, Andrea Zittel, Nikhil Chopra, Amanda Ross-Ho, and more. Deb Sokolow's wall drawing for the lobby is hysterical and brilliant.

Full details on the show are here on the MCA website.

Kentridge at the MoMA on the Web

2010-03-03T09:44:00.002-05:00

William Kentridge has been my hero since I picked up a piece of charcoal, and the current exhibition at the MoMA is once again testament as to why. The online resource has some of the highest-quality video footage of his animations I have seen online, combined with interviews and excellent text. If you've tried to get any HD footage of Kentridge animations from YouTube, you know how frustrating it is to have to weed through people's handheld camming attempts, well-intentioned though they may be.

http://moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/williamkentridge/flash/index.html

Delicious.

Rembrandt Resource

2010-02-26T08:02:00.002-05:00

http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/ An excellent collection of image and word, used by Heidi Jensen at Clemson in teaching self-portraiture. Any other good self-portrait resources in the mix?

Of Bodies in Motion

2010-02-21T08:02:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was art-magical in Columbia, SC. Not only was it 68 degrees and sunny (thank you, latitude!), but an inspired collaboration occurred between dancers and draw-ers, yielding sparky insights and open declarations of mutual love.

On the dance side, high school dance students and their teachers joined up with USC dance students and professors to learn a 3-minute etude that the HS folks will take back to their schools to perform and teach to other students. On the drawing side, three of my students and I spent three hours recording, through drawn gestural line, this experience of dancers learning the etude. What emerged were drawn signatures of danced phrases - 10 - 20 body positions conspiring into single figures.

The linkage between drawing and dance is in many ways easy and obvious - one makes a physical move that conveys direction, speed, intensity, pressure, duration and space. But it was truly exciting to have dancers look at abstracted marks on the page and recognize themselves in them; as well, for those drawing to feel like we were dancing as we moved and left material traces of vision. The immediacy and intimacy of the experience was inspiring (and thus highly recommended - go draw dancers! Hurry!!!).

Xenakis on AIR

2010-02-17T08:57:00.004-05:00

Curators Carey Lovelace and Sharon Kanach speak to their exhibition Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect and Visionary, running at the Drawing Center until April 8.

AIR's David Weinstein speaks with Lovelace and Kanach here.

And morning synesthesia yields a very happy combination - a video of a Xenakis percussion piece - listen/watch/envision a drawing... delicious.

Sketchbook Project Exhibition Tour

2010-02-10T21:22:00.003-05:00

The Art House Co-op's Sketchbook Project is now on tour for 2010, giving viewers the chance to ogle and handle hundreds of sketchbooks crafted by artists from around the world. The collection will be traveling to major cities in the US before finding repose in its Brooklyn home.

Call for Papers : Drawing and Technology

2010-02-08T20:43:00.003-05:00

Tracey has announced their 2010 Drawing Research Topic - Drawing and Technology, and is now accepting papers for review and publication.

From their website: "Tracey is a peer reviewed electronic journal dedicated to drawing and contemporary issues. It is varied and diverse with a fast growing readership of academics, students and practitioners representing a wide range of drawing interests including fine art, architectural design, graphics, product design and visual communication, ideally any activity in which drawing is essential."

The Tracey website is a great collection of writing on a wide range of research topics, from the syntax of mark, to the state of drawing education, to mapping and memory. The questions raised are vital, and the coverage thoughtful.

Schjeldahl on Bronzino

2010-01-30T20:29:00.005-05:00

Peter Schjeldahl (my favorite, and I think one of the smartest and most accessible art critics in the mix) writes about drawing, Bronzino and Mannerism (and echos of Mannerism today) as manifest in the new exhibition of such at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A short spoken analysis of a few key drawings can be heard here; the article appears in the February 1 New Yorker.

The Drawings of Bronzino will be on exhibition at the Met until April 18, 2010. See images from the show and hear interviews with curator Carmen Bambach here.

Lekker Bloggerie

2010-01-20T12:50:00.003-05:00

I just ran across a great drawing blog by Renata Petrakova, a student at the London College of Communication - excellent graphic resources amassed therein! Thanks, Renata.

Kassan - Drawing Closer to Life

2010-01-20T10:38:00.004-05:00

David Kassan's new drawing DVD, "Drawing Closer to Life," documents the artist's studio process in a way that offers a smart and exciting look at how a sharply-rendered observational drawing unfolds over time. Kassan talks viewers through every step of the process, from choosing paper to bringing the piece to a satisfying close.

The DVD will be available this spring. Sign up for an availability alert via Kassan's website.

Manifest INDA - Deadline Extended

2010-01-05T19:33:00.003-05:00

Greetings! Happy new year and holiday season in general - I hope it was good for all.

Manifest Gallery has extended its deadline for submission to the International Drawing Annual. 48 hours remain, so act fast. The INDA features drawings, and writing about drawing, from artists the world over, and is an excellent venue for exposure and exchange. Details about how to submit are found here: http://www.manifestgallery.org/inda5/. Entries must be postmarked or emailed by January 7, 2010.

While you're on the Manifest website, check out the PDFs of all their catalogues - a fantastic offering! http://www.manifestgallery.org/manifestpress/catalogs/index.html

Change of Scenery

2009-12-14T14:30:00.003-05:00

I am the first to acknowledge that academia affords some incredible bonuses, one being the time to travel and recharge between semesters. Regardless of circumstance or geography, I think it's vital to see and work from new material as often as possible, activating the visual spark that keeps drawings vitalized. Is this all a rationalization for being on vacation? Nonetheless, I recommend the coral...

Happy holidays and enjoy the new year ahead!

http://www.realcolorwheel.com/colorbook.htm

Watercolor Disaster

2009-11-28T18:37:00.003-05:00

No, not a studio tale of terror, but a link to a Australian film from 2005 that uses watercolor and drawing in a decidedly dark and therapeutic manner.

Global Drawing Feel-good Yummy Time

2009-11-21T21:40:00.004-05:00

Hopefully you spent the day drawing with others who love it as much as you do! The SketchCrawl here in Columbia spanned four hours and three locations, with good will and fine lines, all in abundance (and leaves, lots and lots of leaves).

You can see highlights from the local tour here and be sure to click on to the next level up to see results from cities around the world.

Columbia SketchCrawl this Saturday

2009-11-17T08:00:00.003-05:00

A local plug for a global phenomenon! If you are within reach of Columbia, South Carolina, please join us this Saturday, November 21, at 10:00 in front of the McKissick Musuem as we launch our first SketchCrawl. SketchCrawl is a network of simultaneous drawing events - people from 150+ cities assemble and draw together, then post the results to www.sketchcrawl.com. Go to their Forum section for the list of participating cities, and get your crawl on!

Nikhil Chopra at the New Museum

2009-11-11T14:31:00.003-05:00

Whilst enjoying your tea and scone in the cafe at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, you can also enjoy freshly-shorn piles of human hair, slowly decaying histories (and produce), and the artist Nikhil Chopra drawing high and low (and often in his underwear). "Memory Drawing IX" is a drawing performance that unites mark and theatre, chronicle and memory, allowing for viewers to physically enter the space of making (pictured, me, physically in the space of making).

From the NMCA press release: "Nikhil Chopra combines approaches associated with theater, portraiture, landscape drawing, photography, art actions, and installation to chronicle the world through live performance. As the Victorian draughtsman Yog Raj Chitrakar, Chopra haunts bustling market squares, forgotten old buildings, city streets, and museum galleries to make large-scale drawings. Within the performances, daily actions—washing, eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, shaving, and observing—are transformed into ritualistic spectacle. While an ambiguous past collides with an unstable present, Yog Raj Chitrakar reveals the process of documenting what he sees while exploring self-portraiture, autobiography, history, fantasy, and sexuality."

More information about Chopra at the New Museum is here.

Compass in Hand at the MoMA

2009-11-09T23:06:00.004-05:00

Christian Rattemeyer introduces the exhibition "Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection." A stunning collection of work - do do do see it if you can, or the catalog is available from MoMA for $60 USD. Click below for video.

Quick Link to a Great Idea

2009-10-27T21:47:00.002-04:00

This just in from Patrick Nugent, an inspiring union of drawing and digital projection.

Drawing Voyeurs Needed

2009-10-27T21:39:00.006-04:00

From now until Friday, you can watch artist Stephen Wiltshire draw a 20' panorama of the New York City skyline while in residence at Pratt. Yeah, okay, you say - what's so interesting about that? Wiltshire carries a combination of autism and photographic memory - he does photorealistic renderings of cityscapes after seeing them for a short period of time. For this project, he was flown in a helicopter over NY for 20 minutes, enough time to lock the image in his mind, enabling him to render it in striking detail.

See the article and live webcast of the drawing-in-progress here.

Thanks, Jane!

Acquire FUKT

2009-10-25T12:11:00.003-04:00

Well, it wouldn't be very polite to say 'Get' now, would it? Southern civility reigns. FUKT, the German contemporary drawing magazine, has just released its latest incarnation at the NY Art Book Fair earlier this month, and I gather that it is available at Printed Matter in Chelsea (yay for Printed Matter!!).

Featured artists include: Ante Timmermans, Charmaine Wheatley, Per Dybvig, Gert-Jan Akerboom, Heidi Linck, Jenny Mörtsell, Louise Hopkins, P. Nicolas Ledoux, Oskar Korsar, Stephen Marshall, Katja Eckert, Tina Jonsbu, William Powhida, and Björn Hegardt (ed).

See back issues and all other good info at http://www.fukt.de/index.html.

Prepare for SketchCrawl #25

2009-10-16T23:30:00.011-04:00

Drawing communities are everywhere, and the web provides for instant visioning across the network. SketchCrawl is based in San Francisco, but has satellites around the world. For one day, every few months, members of the SketchCrawl network spend the day drawing, then post the evidence of time well-spent and a world well-seen. The groups range from couples to whole drawing mobs, and they are always looking for more members.

The next organized SketchCrawl day is November 21, 2009. If you are interested in joining up, go to their website to see if there is already a group forming in your town. If not, start one yourself - all instructions for doing so are on the FORUM section of their website:

http://www.sketchcrawl.com/

Drawing, the Social Discipline.

PS - I've organized one for Columbia, SC - go to the sketchcrawl website for more info!

Perfect Circles

2009-10-12T22:40:00.003-04:00

Snipe Hunts and Freehand Circle Drawing Competitions (held in Vegas, annually) are both of enduring intrigue. The first time I heard of Pope Julius' request of young Michelangelo, I dedicated myself to mastering this performance of grace, with spotty success at best. Tonight, wonder was rekindled in the form of finding dozens of perfect circle drawers on YouTube. Starting with a math teacher from Ottowa who posted his circle (perfect!) in 2007, we are once again making the very best use of time and technology. A full page of circle vids can be found here, and the one that started it all is below. Circle on.

Blog on Blog Action

2009-10-11T22:59:00.006-04:00

I think I mentioned before that it feels incestuous to blog about blogs, or at the very least a bit too navel-gazey, but a few decent illustration-related blogs have come into view in the past days, and I must share.

http://www.rocketfiction.com/ and http://www.scientificartist.blogspot.com/ (both by Paul Rivoche)
http://www.drawn.ca/ (swap meet)
http://www.linesandcolors.com/ (resources abound)
http://www.dailymonster.com/ (utterly and totally for fun)

There are enough links in the blogs above to keep one going for quite a nested run.

Resistance Drawing

2009-10-09T14:36:00.008-04:00

I had the pleasure this week of being in a group drawing show with elin o'Hara slavick, an artist based out of UNC-Chapel Hill, whose series "Protesting Cartography" presents an expansive profile of the consequences of ongoing US military action at home and abroad. Slavick's artist talk further illumined the possibilities for drawing as a form of protest, be it quiet or screaming; many ideas from the talk can be found in the volume Bomb after Bomb, A Violent Cartography, which includes plates of her drawings, essays by Carol Mavor and Howard Zinn, and an in-depth interview with anthropolgist Catherine Lutz. Images of all the drawings can be seen here.

Working in a similar vein (and even a similar medium - gouache), artist Julie Weitz engages in terrorism-era social criticism via her abstract drawings of balaclavas. Reading the images of Weitz and slavick together offers a glimpse of powerful protest rendered through visually seductive drawings, both thoughtful aesthetic engagements with global issues.

Happy 10th Birthday, Big Draw!

2009-10-02T14:56:00.002-04:00

This marks the 10th year for the Campaign for Drawing's month-long event known as the Big Draw. With over 1000 venues in play across the UK, the events encourage drawing as a part of daily creative practice. Drawing is defined in ways both generous and inclusive, and participation is welcome at all levels.

Full details and schedule are located here.

Avidly Seeking Drawing Maxims???

2009-09-29T19:01:00.004-04:00

A storehouse awaits at http://quote.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=84&numcats=347 - one of 350+ categories of art quotations and observations maintained by Robert Genn, of the Painters Keys website. I have noticed some double attributions - could Balthus and Degas both have said, "One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil"? For that matter, I say that at least once a semester, could I get some credit as well? But seriously, the Genn collection is exhaustive, and great for inducing a quick "ah!"

Genn also is the force behind a twice-weekly email that often hits the nail on the studio head - http://clicks.robertgenn.com/ for archives and free subscription.

Drawing Conferences Abound!

2009-09-28T23:56:00.007-04:00

In London, or plan to be there next week? Excellent. The Campaign for Drawing and the Drawing Research Network are co-hosting "Thinking Through Drawing," a one-day conference on October 8 featuring a series of talks by practitioners in the forefront of contemporary drawing. Please visit www.simcoe.co.uk/drawing/news.htm for full schedule and registration information.

And given that you're already in a conference mood, you will no doubt be wanting to also spend time at the Campaign for Drawing's international gathering, "Drawing for Learning, Engagement and Enjoyment". Held October 7 - 11, the conference schedule is packed with opportunities for discourse, pedagogy, and practice, including The Big Draw (longer post on TBD to follow).

"Writing on Drawing" Book Review on Artmatters.info

2009-09-25T19:59:00.003-04:00

So, yes, this review is a wee bit dated, but I was thrilled to come across http://www.artmatters.info/, an art website based out of Nairobi. As a long-time adopted Capetonian, it was wonderful to see beyond the borders of ZA, and get a glimpse of Kenyan online art activity.

A book review of "Writing on Drawing" that weaves in the Kenyan perspective appears at:
http://artmatters.info/?p=1264

Arkansas Art Center

2009-09-24T18:38:00.002-04:00

If you're looking for a small but diverse collection of drawings online to use as a classroom reference or simply to flip through for personal pleasure, the Arkansas Art Center has a compact but well-presented online resource. Spanning the 17th through 20th centuries, it is an excellent survey of works on paper.

Show Your Work

2009-09-20T21:40:00.004-04:00

This may be basic information for most, but I have had several students ask recently how to go about exhibiting their work. Here are some good (free) listings of exhibition opportunities.

College Art Association:
http://www.collegeart.org/opportunities/type/3/

New York Foundation for the Arts:
http://www.nyfa.org/opportunities.asp?type=Opportunity&opp=OppArtist&id=95&fid=1&sid=54

Las Vegas Arts Commission:
http://www.lvartscommission.com/artist-opportunities/

Rhizome.org:
http://www.rhizome.org/

Chicago Artists Resource:
http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/visual-arts

Scaling Up the Dream Mark

2009-09-16T21:20:00.002-04:00

This is short, as the demon pneumonia has my attention (hack), but I wanted to link to the work of Matt Woodward, recently featured on spillspace.com. Woodward's scale is the one I am finding most intimate right now, as I'm looking at new drawings and how they're performed on the page. By intimate, I don't mean small, or precious, but inviting and enveloping. The drawings themselves are larger than life, but they feel like a whispered secret told by the body.

Classic Cinema! The Dot and the Line

2009-09-12T12:29:00.002-04:00

Thanks to Amanda W for sending this Academy Award-winning animation by Chuck Jones (1965), based on the book by Norton Juster (1963). I still feel sorry for the squiggle - he's just a hep cat doin' his thing.

Mass Gesture

2009-09-10T21:58:00.013-04:00

For the last two days, I've been coordinating a collaborative drawing project at Clemson University. Over 140 people participated in the making of the piece, which was framed as an experiment in accumulated gesture. Measuring 10x24 feet, the piece started with a texture rubbing of rice grains plus whatever people had in their pockets - change, keys, vitamins, headphones. The page was divided in half, and the two sides were developed very differently, each obeying a very separate logic of practice (one very formally controlled and systematic, the other driven by play and inventional gaming). The final act was to unify the entire piece in terms of both material and compositional flow.

Social metaphors emerged by the handful. The dyadic formal division was too extreme to be sustained if it were to remain one piece, so compromise was required. That took the form of a tenuous bipartisan drawing effort that was quickly buried by sea of heavier marks that indeed unified the piece but rendered it less nuanced. Tradeoffs occurred. Not everyone was pleased. Levels of personal investment and ownership varied radically, and the marks were an index of engagement. Moments of consensus were frequently reached, but then practice didn't necessarily follow from agreed-upon intention. Numerous parallels to the health care debate were drawn, in addition to thousands of marks. Many people drew big for the first time and loved it. It was a very good day.

Mouse Marks

2009-09-06T20:40:00.003-04:00

www.odosketch.com is one of many online (etch-a-)sketch sites, but its pleasing palette and array of simple tools kept me happy for longer than the usual sixty seconds. It may be that because the palette is relatively limited, it makes for an interesting gallery collection of completed works - given the same few tools, what is the range of possibility? Clearly, reasonably vast.

Leaving the Trace

2009-09-05T08:41:00.005-04:00

The temptation for a text-free post here is high, so I will partially indulge. Visit Lightmark. There is also strong temptation for puns involving a light-handed touch. No.

Hipster Drawing Circles

2009-08-31T09:32:00.003-04:00

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School is just one way in to the drawing+drinks+newartfriends circuit - options abound around the globe. 3rd Ward in Brooklyn hosts weekly "Drink N Draw" - they provide beer and models, you bring art supplies and $15 ($10 if you bring a friend); Word of Art in Cape Town has weekly drawing fiestas, culminating in a fundraiser in November (blog from last year's event); Fivepoints Arthouse in SF hosts weekly gatherings for the graphically inclined. And major events like The Big Draw in the UK and NYC are almost too good to be true for the dedicated drawer/draweuse.

Once again, drawing shows itself to be about something more than just putting lines on a page - it lends itself to organic forms of collaboration and sociability. If there is a social drawing night near you, please share via comments; I know they are everywhere!! Sidebar resource will ensue.

Pedagogy Puzzle

2009-08-28T20:17:00.006-04:00

This link takes you to one of several posts on a tucked-away blog that outlines (albeit vaguely) a course on creating your own systematic ways of generating drawings, or "drawing machines". I am assuming that "machine" here is more a theoretical construct, although there are also several drawings of machines in here as well. There is clearly an institution of higher learning involved in all this, but it's not clear who or how. What is here, though, are some interesting starting points for thinking about contemplative drawing practice, ala Marden and Yanagi and more. I found the post "on and on and on" to be the most interesting.

Brett Littman on The Big Draw, NYC

2009-08-26T20:43:00.008-04:00

Director of The Drawing Center, Littman shares insight into the main events of July's "The Big Draw", and says some Good Things About Drawing.

915 and Counting

2009-08-26T08:53:00.003-04:00

New York artist and animator Scott Bateman has undertaken numerous drawing-to-exhaustion projects, including the Bateman365 (creating one animation a day, for a year), and now the 10,000 3x5 drawings project. They pop up often in the grab bag below, and I just had to see more - the count is at 915.

Undertakings like Bateman's, and anyone else who creates daily, highlight the positive shift that can happen after initial discomfort. Yesterday marked the first studio session with the advanced drawing students at USC. Our goal was to draw to exhaustion, and I think we came close in the form of 50 drawings of one object over three hours. It may not sound like much, but to go from zero (summer) to 60 (school) in one class is enough to make anybody pant a little. It also opens up a sense of confidence in one's own capacity to do something hard. When was the last time you drew to exhaustion? Have you made a drawing today? Why not?

Daily Serving

2009-08-23T11:13:00.006-04:00

I have an image in my head of a stream I saw while camping in Yosemite - it would flow along, multiple small whirlpools would develop, combine, dissipate, and reform. Accordingly, blogging about blogs feels like the forming one of those small vortices - giving circular momentum to a particular informational bit.

Today's vortex is www.dailyserving.com. Self-described as an international forum for contemporary visual arts, they have been doing it daily since October 2006, and have since amassed quite an impressive cache of drawing-related posts. They take submissions of image and prose on a quarterly schedule.

Art School // Anti-Art School

2009-08-20T21:29:00.009-04:00

It is the first day of class at the University of South Carolina and the art department is abuzz. Drawing classes are full-up and all is well in the world of markmaking pedagogy. Institutional allegiances aside, I was thrilled to see a sexy poster in the hall for Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, right here in Columbia.

Born in Brooklyn in 2005 as a figure drawing cabaret, Dr. Sketchy has spawned over 60 branches around the world, bringing together figure drawing, burlesque, and cocktails. Bring your own art materials, pay the small admission fee, and partake in an evening of live modeling-cum-performance art. In my efforts to find a video trailer from a Dr. Sketchy drawing session, only this one from Glasgow qualified as appropriate for all ages:

New American Draintings

2009-08-18T09:03:00.007-04:00

Okay, so 'drainting' has the same ring as 'drawer', but 'pawings' doesn't work either. What am I talking about? The latest issue (#82) of the Open Studio Press' New American Paintings is out, and I was fascinated to find that about 30% of the content fits into what I perceive as the drawing category - dry mediums on paper, or ink, watercolor, gouache, also on paper. Charcoal and graphite are particularly well-represented. The introduction by curator Ron Platt of the Birmingham Museum of Art alludes to only 'a diverse range of materials' used to generate paintings today.

This excites me and also raises some questions - is it necessary to make a distinction between painting and drawing? Is that just so 'pre-mark'? Are these categories helpful? Where does painting end and drawing begin and vice versa? Is some kind of disciplinary integrity lost or gained when we shift to thinking of 'original 2-dimensional works' vs. the P or the D? My vested interest in the question begins on page 140 (shameless self-promotion).

Laying on the Sauce

2009-08-16T22:34:00.006-04:00

The last time I was in City Art, Columbia's fantastic independent art supply store, Randy brought out a box of Assorted Sauce for me to try. Given the regional propensity for barbeque, one might immediately assume a spicier offering, but what I encountered was a material between charcoal, conte, and China marker, water soluble and subtly shaded. It goes down with a smoothness that reminds me of talc, silky and light, but with an impressive permanence on the page. Add water, and it handles like ink. Distributed by Jack Richeson (as Yarka), these clay-based pastels originally hail from Russia, where they have been popular for decades. List price appears to range between $8 and 16 (USD) from major art supply outlets.

I am not giving up my charcoal (the elusive Demco, which I have only found in San Francisco and Montreal - any leads?) but there are new opportunities afforded by sauce which I am ready to explore.

Three Books (Justify my Love)

2009-08-14T08:15:00.011-04:00

Three newish books on drawing theory, purpose, and process are available from Intellect, a media-oriented publishing house in the UK. I have them in my queue and will be ordering just now.

A question, perhaps, may be "Is there anything new to say about drawing?" Most texts on drawing start with the observation that this is something we have been doing as a species for quite some time now, and that recent resurgence of drawing links us back to primal practice in the midst (and possibly in defiance) of the digital age, while at the same time being very now-friendly.

I, for one, am always keen to read rationales for why we draw, how we do it, and what drawing(s) can be. It is both empowering and strange to work at the heart of a discipline that many people in the arts still consider subsidiary to other mediums (I am feeling debate fatigue on this one - it's real, okay?). But these are still fresh times for drawing, and the more voices in the mix extolling the virtues of the discipline the better, I think, especially in this economic climate of eliminating art classes and programs from curricula. It's harder to put a discipline in the 'irrelevant' pile when there are well-informed people making good arguments as to why drawing is not just relevant, but constitutes a vital contemporary practice of thinking, understanding, and expression.

Of Humble Bic and Biro

2009-08-13T08:26:00.005-04:00

It's morning in my office and I can't find a pen. Charcoal, yes, twelve hardnesses of pencil, yes, and even a cattle marker, but nothing of ballpointed genus. Which leads me, of course, to look to the virtual.

Il Lee keeps Office Depot in business. His obsessively rendered texturescapes carry layers of ink, conspiring into dynamic forms and vibrant monochromatic miasma. Recent shows include the San Jose Musuem of Art, the Queens Museum of Art, and a compelling group show this summer at Art Projects International in New York. Lee has been drawing with a ballpoint for over 25 years.

An NYT review of the QMA show goes into a fair amount of detail regarding his process:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/arts/design/10lee.html

A question emerges from the article: How deeply does the drawing material impact your perception of the value of an artwork, especially when it comes to works on paper? Is there a heirarchy of drawing materials at play, with the lowly biro on the bottom? What is at the top?

Draw, Canada! Part II

2009-08-12T09:13:00.004-04:00

Vancouver, BC's DRAWN Festival, a three-week city-wide celebration of drawing, reaches its conclusion with a wrap party on the 13th. In addition to artist talks, public performances, draw-ins, collaborations and classes, seventeen Vancouver galleries hosted drawing exhibitions for the month. Just looking at the shows makes me once again think of Canada as the Promised Land.

An interview with co-organizer Robert Kardosh in the National Post provides a short-but-sweet summary of what makes contemporary drawing a public good.

Silvia Bachli and Susan Hefuna

2009-08-11T08:26:00.006-04:00

Recent posts have mentioned how drawing (especially while on vacation) slows and refines the act of seeing. While poking about the web looking for drawing's presence this year in Venice, two artists stand out as presenting the opportunity to look slowly at drawings (also while on vacation). Silvia Bachli, in the Swiss Pavilion, and Susan Hefuna, of Egypt, in the Italian Pavilion. Both artists present line works, diagramatic and gestural, and in such quantity that one is able to navigate the space of their ideas through serial unfolding. Shown both under glass and raw on the table (Bachli), the drawings offer up multiple entries for slow looking. Although, if you watch the video from Vernissage.tv, you'll see that the walk-past is still the standard viewing procedure for most.

Bachli:
Bachli Stills from Swiss Pavilion
Bachli Video

Hefuna:
Hefuna Stills from Italian Pavilion

City Drawing at Home and Abroad

2009-08-10T20:18:00.009-04:00

A student once said 'now that I can do gesture drawing, I don't need a camera any more - hello, Paris!' Seattle journalist and illustrator Gabriel Campanario started a fantastic drawing blog that takes this sentiment to heart - www.urbansketchers.com.

USk features a Flickr group where anyone can upload drawings they have done of their urban surroundings, and the blog features selected drawings/artists from the larger pool. It offers the best of travel journaling combined with some fantastic drawings from all over the world. Look around, draw what you see, and join up!

On Gesture - I

2009-08-10T07:45:00.006-04:00

Matisse said, “Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.” The gesture has long occupied a central role in how I understand the act of drawing, as it affords a theoretical and practical intersection of body, vision, instinct, and material. A question that continues to fascinate me has to do with cathexis, or a mark's ability to transmit emotional content - how do marks 'speak' (to) experience?

Carrie Noland and Sally Ann Ness, in a co-edited volume called Migrations of Gesture, assemble essays that speak to gesture's ambition and capacity, from performance, to language, to drawing. Of particular interest is Noland's discussion of the work of Belgian artist Henri Michaux, who set out to create an iconic emotional language of gestural form.

I am curious, in the broadest sense, how gesture factors into your work - how do you conceive of gesture, and how does it manifest in your drawing? Do you think the gesture carries extra-semantic content? How does this operate? Theories and examples are welcome.

Simone Berti in Venice

2009-08-08T10:59:00.008-04:00

In visual addendum to the conversation re: legitimacy below, please see Italian artist Simone Berti's drawings currently showing at the Biennale. Graphite and watercolor on paper.

Simone Berti website

Look Down

2009-08-07T21:14:00.008-04:00

If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you'll see what Flickr-posters have labeled 'drawings', randomly displayed - everything from an Ohio 2nd grader's notebook sketches to elaborate Dutch murals.

The grab bag makes me happy - it has turned up unexpected humble treats, many on lined paper with a coil on the side. It reminds me of 8th grade social studies notes, the margins filled with the doodles that kept me listening to Mr. Moe's lectures. It reminds me of students in Cape Town who taught themselves to draw by meticulously copying magazine photos. And it reminds me that drawing is an intensely personal, often secret, pleasure, globally enjoyed. Please look down and see what's in the mix.

David Kassan's "Portrait Anatomicae"

2009-08-06T23:46:00.008-04:00

Figurative artist David Jon Kassan sets the realism bar high with his richly drawn portraits and paintings. His attention to surface and structure is translated into traditional figure studies as well as work that combines abstraction and figuration.

His self-published "Portrait Anatomicae" is a teaching aid for drawing the human head (with and without muscle, skin and personality), and my students have found it to be an extremely helpful resource. Kassan also provides an excellent benchmark by which to measure realism, i.e., "You want it to look 'real?' Keep going."

Portrait Anatomicae is $10 (USD) and is downloadable from his website at http://www.davidkassan.com/drawings.shtml .

Also worth seeing is a time-lapse video of a three-hour portrait session by Kassan, collapsed into eight minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84s3I-1SZHo

New PBS Series is Draw-Positive

2009-08-05T22:22:00.007-04:00

Colin Campbell, the host of Time Team America (which seems to be on every time I turn on PBS - please quiz me on the Clovis Period - I am prepared), provides an excellent role model for drawing enthusiasts. Moreover, he gives a wide audience running exposure to someone drawing in the field (literally), positioning himself between observation and imagination, not to mention providing a great running account of what is happening with that week's archaeological dig. If you haven't watched TTA yet, tune in to watch how smart and vital Colin's drawings are.

http://www.pbs.org/opb/timeteam/about/campbell.php

Please note I am still lacking a suitable label for someone who draws, and I can't bring myself to use "drawer". Please help.

Legitimacy Questions that Linger...

2009-08-05T18:33:00.001-04:00

Joe R in Canada writes with : "Do you find that art galleries in the main stir clear of drawings? The prevalent attitude, at least in Canada, is that anything behind glass is a no-no. It is disheartening, the mindless attitude that somehow "works on paper" is less of an art form than paintings. Anyway, just some negative thoughts I can't shake."

My response at the moment it a bit skewed, as I just came in from hanging a gallery show of all drawings. The gallery owner is very open-minded and embraces multiple forms of image-making, but at the same time acknowledges that her buyers are less likely to pay the same for a drawing as for a painting (alas, the drawings going for about half of what a similarly-sized painting would sell for).

I have had the best luck showing my drawings in academic settings, versus commercial galleries (the most recent show being the first exception) - there, drawing can occupy the role of 'thought experiment on paper' and raise questions about the process of ideation and production. Selling isn't the goal, so it takes the heat off.

On a visit to New York last fall, I think it's safe to say that every 10th gallery I went into had drawings on display. Zak Smith stands out as a brilliant poster child - hundreds of his small drawings, posted right on the wall, nothing under glass, in the heart of Chelsea. I take inspiration from this, and keep doing what I do (without glass).

Other thoughts on commercial galleries' attitudes toward drawings as legitimate exhibition fare?

August is Drawing History Month?

2009-08-03T20:00:00.001-04:00

Yes, why not. Two excellent exhibitions in New York, looking at what was hot 700-200 years ago in drawing.

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘LIVING LINE: SELECTED INDIAN DRAWINGS FROM THE SUBHASH KAPOOR GIFT,’ through Sept. 7. This almost supernaturally beautiful exhibition presents 40 mostly small drawings by Indian miniaturists of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Rendered with amazing skill, the subjects include bearded aristocrats and bejeweled women; hunting scenes; wild animals and mythic beasts fighting; and gods, goddesses and demons ascending and descending. The art of drawing does not get much better than this. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org.

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘PEN AND PARCHMENT: DRAWING IN THE MIDDLE AGES,’ through Aug 23. This quietly ravishing exhibition ventures where few shows have gone before, with 50 rarely seen works. They prove medieval drawing to be vital, diverse and essential to the medium’s Renaissance blossoming. They reveal the medium untangling from manuscript illumination and Christianity in general — although not without first reveling in some astounding Psalters, gospels, epistles and a saint’s life or two. It re-embraces antiquity and provides a framework for speculative (read, secular) thought. The show ends with the visionary drawings of Opicinus de Canistris, a 13th-century Italian cleric who diagrammed his own notion of the relationship between the earthly and spiritual church. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org.

(NYT 7/30/09)

Drawing = Longer, Better, Looking

2009-08-03T08:27:00.001-04:00

Michael Kimmelman, in today's NYT

"Recently, I bought a couple of sketchbooks to draw with my 10-year-old in St. Peter’s and elsewhere around Rome, just for the fun of it, not because we’re any good, but to help us look more slowly and carefully at what we found. Crowds occasionally gathered around us as if we were doing something totally strange and novel, as opposed to something normal, which sketching used to be. I almost hesitate to mention our sketching. It seems pretentious and old-fogeyish in a cultural moment when we can too easily feel uncomfortable and almost ashamed just to look hard. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/arts/design/03abroad.html?em

Interview with Jason Franz of Manifest

2009-08-02T09:51:00.000-04:00

An interview with Jason Franz from Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati. Franz is editor of Manifest's International Drawing Annual, and has done amazing work to promote contemporary drawing.

http://www.aeqai.com/articles/082009.htm

Hugo Crosthwaite Video

2009-07-31T20:23:00.000-04:00

Draw, Canada!

2009-07-31T12:47:00.000-04:00

City-wide drawing festival in Vancouver, BC - July 18 - August 8

http://drawnfestival.ca/