Based on research, and grounded in experience, this book offers a view into the minds and hearts of people who draw. With technology at our fingertips that allows us to record and share what we see within moments, drawing seems a remarkably slow and difficult way to make an image. And yet, drawing from observation continues to be practiced by professional and amateur artists, a situation that invites the question: What does observation drawing mean in the lives of those who practice it?
The central chapters of the book explicate the structures of the lived experience of drawing, weaving phenomenological reflections into a narrative about the author drawing her sister on a train. With lively accounts of drawing from hobbyists, art students, contemporary and historical artists, Montgomery-Whicher considers how the act of drawing shapes place, time, the body and relationships with the world and with others. She addresses many facets of drawing, including the connection between drawing and thinking, the range of emotions felt when drawing a person and the experience of digital drawing. Montgomery-Whicher concludes that observation drawing warrants a place in general education as well as in the education of artists. She argues that drawing will continue to thrive because it is a human practice that deepens and enriches our humanity by giving us access to keener perception, greater understanding, empathy and wonder. This book will be of interest to anyone who has ever wondered about the appeal of drawing, including professional and amateur artists, philosophers, and educators.
Author(s): Rose Montgomery-Whicher
Series: Phenomenology of Practice
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 238
City: New York
Cover
Endorsement Page
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Practicing phenomenology and drawing
Beginning and ending in the lifeworld
Searching for a renewed contact
Seeing with attentiveness and wonder
A personal view reveals a shared meaning
A life-like rendering
Attention to form
Notes
Chapter 1: Everyone is a mark-maker
Daughter
Instances of drawing
The presence of drawing
Questioning the visible
Notes
Chapter 2: Places: The predictable and the unlikely
Sister
What makes a studio suitable for drawing?
What makes a place unsuitable for drawing?
The sketchbook as a drawing place
The tension between real and predictable drawing places
Notes
Chapter 3: Time: Holding, losing, seeing
Holding the moment
Losing time
Drawing in time and outside of time
Drawn to the present and into the past and the future
Seeing the familiar for the first time
Seeing the traces of time
Notes
Chapter 4: Finding time and making time
Finding time
Making time with daily drawing
Quotidian subjects: teacups and toothbrushes
Drawing fitness means daily practice
Notes
Chapter 5: Drawn into the world
To forget the name of what one sees
When a pear is not a pear
When seeing is not seeing
Drawing order out of clutter and chatter
Seeing relations among things
The ordinary becomes extraordinary
The world looks back at us, inviting us to wonder
Notes
Chapter 6: Drawn to others
The invitation of the other: being drawn to draw
Capturing a likeness, uncovering a likeness
Attending to the other: seeing oneself
Notes
Chapter 7: Withdrawing from others
Drawing as conversation, with oneself, with another
Drawing alone, drawing unleashed
A room of one's own: solitude as a place
Making time to draw: solitude as a time
Music creates a space: solitude as an atmosphere
Being focused: solitude as attention
Notes
Chapter 8: Drawing with others
Drawn together, drawing together
The look that responds
Drawing comparisons: the look that inhibits
Notes
Chapter 9: The drawing body
The body forgotten
The body extended
That feeling of drawing
Note
Chapter 10: The knowing hand
The work of the human hand
The hand searches for form
The hand enables our eyes to understand
The hand holds, lets go, holds back
To copy is to walk in the hand’s footsteps
Notes
Chapter 11: The body as drawn
Suddenly the person slips through the lines
Vulnerable nakedness
Our hand grasps the feeling
Inhabiting the body we draw
Notes
Chapter 12: The drawing as a body
Drawing creates a living body
Paper preserves our gestures and our seeing
Letting go of drawings
Saving drawings
Note
Chapter 13: Drawing disembodied
Ungainly finger painting
Into thin air
Virtual pens and pencils
Drawings made of light
Immediacy and intimacy
Notes
Chapter 14: Reflections on practice
Drawing to practice, drawing as a practice
Drawing as a marginal practice
Drawing as a focal practice
Enframing
Notes
Chapter 15: Living with drawing: The pleasures of work
Drawing composes and orders
Drawing engages mind and body in a material practice
Learning to draw takes a lifetime
Drawing renews wonder and unframes vision
An enduring practice
Notes
References
Index
