Drawing outside

Drawing outside, in the cold, when we could have stayed inside - 26/11/09

During this week's seminar, we were asked to draw. There was no discussion, no introduction to the reason of the work we were asked to do. A brief was simply given to four teams of four. Our group studied the outdoors, a location outside, that we had to draw from different perspectives.

We went outside, to a location where the temperature was all but welcoming. We quickly decided on a spot where we would draw what we saw. Sitting down, I drew the background. I have to say, that as a designer, my drawing skills are very limited. I do not think I captured any of the "precious" essence of the location. This was more confusing than anything else. After drawing the area, drawing poorly I should actually say, we corded off a bit of the terrain we were representing in our drawings and focused on representing that on paper. Once again, my qualities in drawing did not seem to stand out, although I was told I was getting better. I felt very intimidated comparing my work to the one of the fine art students. Even Bianca had done drawing in first year of digital media.

Our representations of the corded location were very different, and the difference in our style only thickened when we went back to the studio and had to draw the location from memory. The only thing from the actual location I did want to put in my drawing from memory was a snail I created in the background of one of my drawings.

This seminar was most helpful to allow me to practice my imagination skills. Out of the most concrete situation, I created a stick-snail character which I hoped would distract from the rest of the drawing. This goes hand in hand with my comic book works. Comic books are a form of entertainment, and one of the prime roles of entertainment is to be distracted from reality, and taken into another world. The surreal of my Wally, the Evangelist snail, allows for those who would be bored by my drawings, or disturbed by my lake of skill to be able to be distracted from these harsh truths.

The seminar about nature and artistic interpretation of nature did not manage to get a lot out of me apart from my belief that all men need to be distracted from reality in order to be able to cope with everyday life. The possibility to be distracted for a bit from the cold of the outdoors, for example, allows stress relief and to be transported out of reality only to come back hopefully refreshed.