The Artists’ Toolbox: Drawing from Improvisation

Pre-requisites for enrolment

Some basic drawing skills and experience of art and design required.

Optional pre-course work:

Read or browse the recommended reading and web sources. Start keeping a sketchbook to make a series of improvised quick drawings while responding to listening to a speech on the radio, watching TV, in a darken room or wearing a gauze over your eyes with music, talking to someone on the phone, at a lecture or talk.

Special Information

Essential materials and equipment students must provide themselves:

• A range of dip pens

• A range inks and gouaches

• A range of small and wash brushes

• Kitchen towel

• Putty rubber

• Masking tape

• Sketchbook

Materials available to purchase during course:

• Papers and card

Optional materials and equipment students may provide:

• A camera

Content of Course

Overview: The course will use a series of set workshops and exercises to enable students to feel able to improvise within parameters. The teaching throughout the course will be fluid and dynamic and will include stage managed and improvised interventions as the character and meaning of the work takes shape.

Course Content:

1. Introduction to practical exercises and range of drawing techniques.

2. Slide talk looking at how artists and art use improvisation and stream of consciousness as means of developing ideas.

3. Group discussion.

4. Introduction to intuitive and subconscious responses to the ideas revealed and interpreted meaning from previous classes as a starting point.

5. Collaborative group drawing on a large scale either unplanned or improvised installation with other members of the group.

6. Exploration of working with monotype print, using overhead projectors, drawing with wire and thread.

7. Opportunity to reflection and decision making before moving onto the next steps.

8. Opportunity to present drawings as studio installation followed by a group critiques and visual recording of the finished installation.

Teaching method(s)

The course is delivered in a large art and design studio with access to a range of traditional and experimental drawing, mixed media and multi-media equipment and materials. Teaching is led by the tutor through group introductions, demonstrations, discussion and one-to-one discourse.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a critical and contextual awareness and practical understanding of the ways contemporary drawing can be used to reveal hidden meaning.

• Make a series of related drawings from stream of consciousness using both traditional and experimental medium in response to set briefs and as part of a collaborative experience

• Present and reflect the hidden meaning and value of drawings undertaken.

Sources

Core Readings

Recommended:

• Craig-Martin, M., 1995. Drawing the Line: Reappraising Drawing Past and Present. First Edition Edition. Distributed Art Pub Inc (Dap).

• Langer, S. William J. W: 2001 ‘Art and the Dynamics of the Stream of Consciousness’,

• The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol.15(4), pp.272-285 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/18187

• Treib, M., 2008. ‘Drawing/thinking: confronting an electronic age’ London ; New York : Routledge

Web Sources

https://feltmagnet.com/drawing/Unconscious-Creativity

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/surrealism/tapping-the-subconscious-automatism-and-dreams

http://www.drawing-research-network.org.uk/the-inner-self-drawings-from-the-subconscious/

http://www.buckleynow.com/streaming-accessing-flow-states-stream-of-consciousness-drawing-workshop/

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00119253.1969.9938231

http://www.themindfulword.org/2014/making-marks-open-imaginations-floodgates-stream-drawing/

Queries

If you have questions regarding the course or enrolment, please contact COL Reception at Paterson's Land by email COL@ed.ac.uk or by phone 0131 650 4400.

Student support

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or health condition which may affect your studies, please let us know by ticking the 'specific support needs' box on your course application form. This will allow us to make appropriate adjustments in advance and in accordance with your rights under the Equality Act 2010. For more information please visit the Student Support section of our website.