On Drawing

Rhode Island School of Design

from: LUIS ALONSO
subject: CLASS FOCUS
Drawing is a process rather than product.
Drawing is asking questions. investigative.
Developing a drawing procedure suited to seeking an answer to the not-understood.
Learning to recognize and reject the assumption of knowing.
Drawing as visual thinking.
Drawing as analysis, whether of the seen or of the conceived.

The need for imagination and its use in objective analytical drawing.
whereas students usually assume imagination is pertinent
only to expressive or symbolic work, to subject matter.
That observation is not passive and not about the surface.

Learning to separate and prioritize issues and properties of subjects
under investigation. Abstract issues from rendering issues: proportion
gesture, direction, balance, space, alignments, etc.,...
From Volume, modeling, anatomy, etc....

Use the skeleton, particularly its joints as spatial references,
as indicator of variable but always highly specific spatial ordering.

Drawing as mapping, as surveying, not only space but form as well.
Whether separated from each other or integrated.

A lot of attention given to the first minute of drawing, which is the most highly critical stage.
The stage that is often given less than adequate attention in the rush to render form.
Extending the early stage of drawing into the duration so as to rigorously deal with and research the larger abstract issues, the large frame of reference which directs the forms.

Drawing with the eye rather than the hand. Learning to recognize and separate
The input of the hand from that of the eye. learning to value the eye more highly
and be aware whether it is leading or following.

Critical self-awareness:
Learning to recognize technical habits, pictorial habits and above all; observational habits.
Lightness and sensitivity of mark.
Freedom and appropriateness of mark.
Flexibility of mark.

The KnowMadz Logo