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Annotated drawings/prints/paintings made during class time

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Annotated drawings/prints/paintings made during class time

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After engaging with Betty Edwards’ ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’ (1979), I understood the benefits of using drawing to perceive the world, as opposed to the verbal and analytical ‘L-mode’. By igniting one’s creativity and imagination through drawing, one can de-clutter their mind, thereby practicing mindfulness and inducing a sense of tranquillity. In this drawing, I completed a contour drawing of my hand in order to practice intense focus and employ a slow and meticulous style of drawing, ultimately enabling myself to access Edwards’ ‘R-mode’ and thus a cognitive shift when aiming to process aspects of the world. This will be extremely beneficial for the drawings I complete for my imaginary world as has helped me improve my observational skills, eye for detail and patience.

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Brew et al. (2013) explores how we can use mark making to perceive the world, whereby we employ free flowing gestural strokes as a projection of our observations, feelings and thoughts surrounding a specific object. By using gestural lines to explore aspects of an object, we are forced to deeply understand the mood of the subject. In this drawing I have sketched the outline of a mask using soft, sweeping lines to symbolise the comfort that the protection a mask has brought humanity during the outbreak of COVID-19. I have also however used thicker and darker lines to epitomise the negativity that is also associated with a mask, in that it is indicative of our loss of freedom during a lockdown. After learning how to use lines to evoke feelings, I believe representational mark making drawings will be an extremely effective technique for me to adopt in my imaginative world drawings as I am forced to deeply think about what the unseen elements of an object are. Whilst I have often found discomfort when drawing abstract traits, I have enjoyed engaging my emotions to perceive the world through drawing, and I believe it has enabled me to develop a personal drawing style.

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To extend on my observational drawing skills that I engaged with through mark making, I have practiced embodied drawing through the senses, as also discussed by Brew et al. (2013). Similar to mark making, drawing as a mode of embodied enquiry enables me to experiment with how I visualise the world around me. In this drawing I had a saltshaker in front of me and decided to draw what I smelt. I used sharp lines as I often associate the scent of salt as intense and often piercing. I decided to draw multiple lines to represent the thousands of salt granules that are in a saltshaker and did them as different sizes to symbolise how the scent of something can either be overpowering or almost impossible to smell, dependent on your environment. Initially, I felt anxious by the concept of drawing scent, however by accepting that it is okay for drawings to be non-representational, experimentational and abstract I acknowledged that the drawing was not going to be perfect, or even aesthetically pleasing. This is an immensely effective drawing technique as it teaches you to employ your senses to think what does this object sound or smell like, and how you can use shapes and lines to express this, thereby prompting you to play with how you can draw things you cannot specifically see.

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In these drawings I explored how hybrid thinking and drawing enables you to generate new possibilities and spark your imagination in diverse ways. By employing an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary mindset, it is possible to draw connections between both living things and objects, challenging reality and thereby creating an imaginary world. Patricia Piccinini’s exhibition ‘Curious Affection’ at GOMA and Donna Haraway’s theoretical work about multispecies kindship and eco-justice were great examples of using your animation to create ordinary creatures, but also what they can prompt us to think about. After gathering photos of things in my everyday environment and The Smithsonian Natural History Museum I made my own hybrid creatures/ objects. The first hybrid object combines fear from the hippopotamus’s large tusks and the beauty of innocence from the flower to possibly provoke reflection on the innocence of animals, despite dominant discourse. My second drawing replaces the branch of the second image with a flower to bring positivity to death of animals, acknowledging the circle of life is natural, just as the growth of flowers. Finally, the third drawing places a door at the centre of a globe to suggest the vast possibility of doorways, and thus opportunities, possible in the world. In reflecting in these drawings, I have realised that I was possibly a bit uncomfortable in being too abstract, however, I believe that this exercise will be crucial for my imaginable world as it has taught me that I can employ hybridity for inspiration for my drawings.

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This week we used walking methodologies to connect with Rita Irwin’s ‘Walking to Create an Aesthetic and Spiritual Currere’ (2006) and her idea of the walking pedagogy of self. By using the ordinary act of walking in nature as an active pedagogy of self, I was able to reform how I perceived my surroundings to engage deeper with the traces of history, politics and cultures that I came across and utilise drawing as a mode of artful inquiry. I completed the ‘Idil Ali on the Carlton Housing Estate’ episode of ‘Six Walks’ by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. In the episode, Idil Ali, a Somali woman, explains the history of gentrification at the Carlton Housing Estate and her experiences and memories buried underneath an updated infrastructure. On the walk I was inspired by her storytelling to engage with my senses and the notions of freedom, sovereignty, and resistance. I therefore drew a locked gate I saw to depict how she felt trapped, a basketball hoop to show how the whilst the housing estate may look innocent from the outside it can scar people in different ways and a sign I saw on the walk that depicts how people like Idil were constantly under surveillance of the government.

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In week 4, we considered how we might incorporate sound, body movement and the practice of embodied drawing through tracewalking. Dr Kate Coleman and Dr Peter Cook explained how tracewalking involves embodied drawing with lines and movements made with the choreography from the body. The lines thereby become memories of movements from the body and an impetus for possibilities. After watching the provided youtube videos by Alyssa Coffin, Heather Hansen, Tony Orrico and Katie Sollohob, I completed the above embodied drawing with my hands, feet and charcoal, whilst listening to my favourite music. In reflecting on my traces, the marks I made were very messy and asymmetrical, however I believe they demonstrate that I attempted to fully connect with my body and the music in an abstract way, which would be an effective technique for my imaginary world as I am forced to use my own wonderings to inquire knowledge from the art.

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I completed this painting in Andrew’s painting studio session of exploring colour and line through paint. I was inspired by Child Hassam’s ‘Poppies, Isles of Shoals’ (1891) use of a pastel colour palate to use the above bright yet subtle tones. This workshop helped me improve my painting skills, which will be extremely useful for my self-directed inquiry as I am planning on using painting to engage with different colours and textures. I also employed line to express emotion, create movement and created detailed patterns, creating cohesive art that will be an important skill for all pieces I paint in my body of work.

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OBSERVATIONAL DRAWINGS AS A MODE OF INQUIRY

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OBSERVATIONAL DRAWINGS AS A MODE OF INQUIRY

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What do I see? I see two separate drawings that utilise two adjectives that exist in my world. The first, exuberant, of which someone is diving into pages of their life symbolises the excitement and cheerfulness that I continuously dive into. The second, shaggy, whereby I have drawn a chaotic and complex tree relates to parts of my life that are messy and not perfect. What does that make me think? These make me think about how you can draw basic objects that are metaphors for deeper imaginative thoughts. What wonderings does that lead me to? It makes me think how it can be difficult to express your feelings through drawings, but also how they don’t have to be perfect. Although there may be tension that exists between your drawing and how you perceive things, reflection and communication enable you to make sense of sketches that are ambiguous.

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My imaginary world explores the possibility of being able to wake up as somebody different, somewhere different, in the world. In turn, I aim to elucidate how by engaging with different human experiences, one’s preconceived beliefs could be challenged, resultantly sparking a more peaceful society. I have chosen this inquiry question for my body of work as “drawing is a way of working out ideas, it has an inherent quality of expedience and clarity” (James Esber, in Kantrowitz, Brew & Fava, 2011: 115), hence enabling me to unpack complexities of the world. Specifically, I aim to explore prospects such as cultural acceptance, environmental sustainability, religious tolerance, and empathy for diverse sexual identities. I aim to use a multitude of mediums, tools and techniques, such as mark-making, contour sketches and water-colour painting, ultimately fostering an understanding of how drawing “is the visible trace of our cognitive processes, the record of how we perceive, understand and process our experiences not just with our brains, but our hands and bodies as well” (Brew et al., 2013, 2),

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Annotated self-directed drawings/creative explorations your proposed imaginary world 

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Annotated self-directed drawings/creative explorations your proposed imaginary world 

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Continuous line drawing and sensory painting

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Continuous line drawing and sensory painting

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For this exploration of my proposed imaginary world, I have completed a continuous line painting of a leaf and sensory painting, by using my finger, of an ocean wave. The line drawing of the leaf is an effective technique for my imaginary world as it challenges my creativity and perfectionism, thereby enabling myself to be more comfortable with painting in a more abstract way. My use of finger painting for the wave is another powerful technique for my imaginary world as it enables me to draw on my own personal thoughts and feelings as a mode of art. I have also played around with layering the two artworks to spark thought on the layers of the earth, and hence the different flora, fauna, and landscapes that one could experience if they got to wake up somewhere different. However, within my line drawing of the leaf, I completed another line drawing using a black marker to represent darkness and violence, aiming to signify the current the decay of our environment, due to climate change.

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In this painting I aim to explore the spiritual realm of society, of what I propose will be a significant part of my imaginary world as when one wakes up somewhere different, it is highly likely they could belong to a world religion or even a minor religious group. Through different techniques however, I have attempted to explore both negative and positive aspects of the religious domain of society. My use of mark making with splatter painting and bright, vibrant colours is aimed at imbuing an energy and vibrancy to the painting, symbolising the happiness that religion can provide humanity, namely through its sense of community, connection to tradition and comfort through its attempts at answering our existential questions. However, in stark contrast to this symbolisation, I have painted a church solely in black with sharp lines and angles to draw connections between religion and fear. Religion has undoubtedly sparked a great degree of stress in human history due to the presence of fundamentalists, discrimination of minorities and suppression of freedoms.

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After engaging with mark making in class, as detailed by Brew et al. (2013), I thought that it would be an effective technique for my imaginary world as it enables you to use gestural strokes as a projection of your observations, feelings and thoughts. In this painting I used soft, light sweeping colourful lines to signify the sense of comfort one receives from experiencing freedom. I used a combination of small, large, messy and neat lines and shapes such as the spirals, as well as a diverse range of vibrant colours, to symbolise the liberating and exhilarating nature of freedom. In regard to my imaginary world however, I have contrasted this gestural drawing with the rigid, thick and dark lines of a prison cell to explore how having the opportunity to wake up somewhere different could enable you could either escape your lack of freedoms, say if you were a prisoner, or experience greater or different freedoms.

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Contour line drawing and sensory painting

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Contour line drawing and sensory painting

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In this contour line drawing I was inspired by Patricia Piccinini’s exhibition ‘Curious Affection’ at GOMA and Donna Haraway’s theoretical work about multispecies kindship to construct my own hybrid creature. I decided to firstly sketch two old men kissing each other by only using thin and light lines, without shading, to ensure the outline of the hybrid creature is clear and defined. I then decided to make one of the men a cockatoo and the other a lorikeet to produce an abstract creature that is even somewhat uncomfortable to comprehend. I ultimately created this hybrid creature to compare homosexuality with the sense of liberation that birds represent in order to provoke thought on the diversity of 21st century society, namely due to LGBTQI+ identities, and thus how my imaginary world offers the opportunity to wake up in a new identity and experience their mindset, values and opinions. I also decided to use sensory painting/ finger painting to suggest the impact that this could have on humanity, as if we had the opportunity to understand the experiences of others, we would develop a sense of empathy and thus foster a state of acceptance.

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Contour sketch and water colour painting

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Contour sketch and water colour painting

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In this piece, I have completed a contour sketch of an eye to symbolise the fundamental idea of my imaginary world; that one is opening their eyes to a new world. I have also used it however to represent the significance of senses when engaging with different environments. I have additionally sketched a map of the world in the eyeball to represent the territorial boundaries of experiencing different cultures and a hand stretching out of the eye to emphasize the challenge of escaping your own worldview due to certain aspects such as language barriers. However, I have juxtaposed the negativity associated with these challenges, and the gloomy presence of the lead, with colourful stick figures to suggest the importance of uniting humanity, as my imaginary world underpins. I have also experimented with the medium of watercolour painting to create abstract world flags to symbolise the various cultures present in our society, and thus the cultural possibilities one could wake up to. Embracing different cultures enables one to break down cultural barriers and foster a place of acceptance, of which is crucial amongst the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity present in certain countries, such as Australia.

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Here, I completed a blind drawing with my left hand of a multitude of love hearts to symbolise the universal nature of love, whereby wherever you wake up, the emotion of love can be found. The purpose of completing a blind drawing was to avoid my perfectionism and try to spiritually merge with my imaginary world, drawing what I felt about the ubiquitous concept of love. I also employed the technique of layering by using words that related to this idea of my imaginary world, elucidating how love often can’t be explicitly seen, it can be found everywhere, and it can’t be escaped. I also experimented with texture by using glitter as rough textures are known to be visually active spaces, thereby embodying the energetic nature of love. I additionally used colour symbolism within the red glitter to emphasise to my audience that the drawing is centred on love.