Look for natural processes that produce a drawing, for example the opening of the gills of a mushroom to release its spores, the dropping of lily pollen, animals scratching against trees or footprints in wet mud.  Even the silhouette of tree branches against the sky can be read as a drawing.  Collect photos and sketches of nature’s drawings.  If you prefer, you can do the same thing for industrial or urban processes.

Part 1

Tree reflections on glass

My cat’s foot print after walking through charcoal

Tree silhouette

Tree shadows

Cracks on tree rings

Subconsciously, I’ve focussed on trees; reflections of their form, negative space between the lines of the branches, shadows of the branches, and the linear qualities of the rings in the trunk, interacting with angular lines of cracks.  This last image interests me the most.

Collect up all your found images and think about how you might use them either to inform your mark-making or as the starting point for a drawing.

The rings of the tree trunk remind me of finger prints; another natural found drawing.

This reminds me of some of the rose drawings I did for Assignment 2.

I’ve looked at other artists whose work looks as if it was inspired by concentric, or undulating lines, such as Daniel Zeller, Jill Baroff and David Connearn.

This inspired me to do my own spiral drawing.  I’ve always doodled making spirals and enjoy the precise control and concentration needed.

http://www.danielzeller.net/

http://www.galleryjoe.com/artists/baroff

http://www.patrickheide.com/artists.php?id=25&view=detail

Part 2

Following an enquiry with my Tutor I have decided to re-visit this exercise, focussing on my work place, the Jobcentre, with a view to this possibly feeding into my Parallel Project.

As part of my daily routine, I now have my eyes peeled, looking for found images; ‘drawings’; renderings, marks made unintentionally by the environment or my colleagues, or perhaps me.  These are photographs of ‘drawings’ I have found so far.

I hole drilled into a desk in the wrong place

The residue left by removing a sticky label

Another sticky label mark – these leave marks like maps

A water mark on the carpet where the air-conditioning was leaking

A red star sticker indicting that I have an alarm fitted to my desk

A tea? stain on the wall

A scrape on the wall (from moving furniture?)

A stain on a blind

Marks on the wall above the radiator

Without realising it, I have been doing this all along.  These are some photos I had already take at work, before reaching this part of the course.  I was drawn to the shadows cast by the dots on the Perspex dividers.

The dots, in particular, caught my eye, and the shadows they make when there’s strong sun light.

I used these ‘found’ drawings to influence these drawings;

On reviewing the ‘found’ images, I really liked the sticky marks on the desks.  I tried to replicate them and found the best way was to stick Sellotape to paper, then tear it off.  It lifted some of the top layer of the paper off.  To this, I rubbed a little charcoal dust.