Drawing: Translating an Invisible World

Drawing is an endlessly exciting art form that encourages experimentation and embraces mistakes. It naturally exploits the relationship between seeing and thinking. This course will challenge what you think of as drawing. You will learn about the tools of traditional drawing (paper, graphite, ink, charcoal, conte, etc.) and how to translate what you see onto paper. Simultaneously, you will begin to learn how to express yourself individually through drawing—how your drawings will be different from everyone else’s. We will begin with the fundamentals of drawing through observation (line, value, space) and move into more complex subjects and combinations of materials, even touching on collage and abstraction, and finish with a large-scale, independent project. Each week, we will work in new ways, continuing to build on what came before and often approaching similar subject matter in different ways. We will not keep our subjects at a distance but will try to connect with them, move around and through them, deconstruct them—really understand what we are drawing. Ultimately, what can your drawings reveal beyond what we all plainly see? While we may all be looking at and drawing the same thing, you will be asked to find your own solutions to problems, take your drawings in new and unexpected directions, and extrapolate from what you know and learn. This course will ask you to look at your world with intensity and to render the invisible on paper. Independent work outside of class is required. Studio practice will be reinforced through discussion, occasional written work, readings, slides, and gallery/museum visits. A studio visit with an artist in New York City will also be scheduled.