Drawing, Movement & the Built Environment
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Cambridge
1.6.14-1.10.14
In this week-long workshop, we will approach the tenets of observational drawing through protocols, scores and other generative programs adapted from the fields of dance and movement awareness. This combined practice enhances perception and opens up possibilities for drawing by nourishing the connection between vision and our other senses. We come to experience what we see in the context of what we feel, hear and smell, what we can remember, imagine and depict.
In traditional life drawing, we are often asked to imagine our pencil traveling as our fingers or a little ant over the surface of things. Over time, we become attuned to the sound the tool makes, which depends on the texture of the paper and the pressure we apply. Eventually, we see through form, through the wall of a brick building, let’s say, because we’ve walked around it, leaned against it, tried to draw it, and can remember what it felt like on every side.
By attending to the quality of our movement, we further expand what we can know of our interaction with thebuilt environment. Dancing and drawing in Cambridge, we will actively engage our kinesthetic sense and peripheral vision; practice finding plumb lines and tipping points in our own bodies and other objects; practice line-weight control; experiment with measuring techniques; consider the shape of the sky from various locations and try out different approaches to conceptualizing form. Group movement and group drawing will neither dilute nor buttress one another in our practice but rather run in parallel, demanding both rigor and open-mindedness.
Sessions:
Day 1: Plumb Line, Tipping Point; Negative Space, Sky Shape;
Day 2: Twisting, Counter-twisting; Volume and Mass Conception;
Day 3: Flow v. Zoom; Heat; Inside-out + Upside-down;
Day 4: Up-and-down; Undoing; Apostle/Disciple; Following following following;
Day 5: Simile v. Metaphor; Form & Visual Measurement; Insidedness; OUIJA
M-F, noon-6pm. Charcoal + newsprint, puzzle mats, chairs, rollers, kickballs, skeleton, building, streets.
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
GSD Course Bulletin – January 2014 – 00032: Drawing, Movement and the Built Environment