There is a long established connection between books and art in the form of the familiar graphic illustrations that give visual life to a written concept and help to illuminate elements of a story or poem with colour, shape and form. The skill of the illustrator is one of interpretative inspiration and, not wishing to push alliteration too far, also one of personal insight, sentiment and experience.
Books create pictures in the human mind – complex scenes of imagined places, times, conversations, memories and images are conjured into being through the power of words to create cognitive landscapes that are as much about the reader as the writer and the life experiences that shape the individual. This article is a little about the creative use of text in the drawing (Guided Drawing) and the opportunities that brilliant words create for people to explore their innate artistic skills and a lot about looking at peoples’ beautiful artworks.
Library Educator’s Course – Old Goa, 2018
The Guided Drawing and its use of words, stories and poetry to inspire imagery, is simply one method of many that allow people a way into making art and is very obviously compatible with book enriched surroundings. Even professional artists can find the endless blankness of a white sheet of paper, canvas or plaster an uninviting and unforgiving space on which to make those crucial first marks that begin the creative process and many use specific techniques to cross the threshold of non-engagement to full commitment – (see Drawing on the Right side of the Brain – Betty Edwards/Harper Collins 1995). This notion of “threshold” is useful in my own workshops and I often compare it to the activity of jumping into a deep pool of water – either you are on the edge of it contemplating the plunge or you are in it, part of the element and hopefully swimming. One is a concept, the second is real.
M Ward Teachers – Habitat – TISS, Mumbai, 2018
So……..what is this process? How does it work? Why do it? How do You, the Reader become your own illustrator? And what are the basic elements that bring it all together in time and place?
The basic format of a good creative arts workshop should be unpreten- tious, clear and inviting. A simple motivational narrative will delineate a flexible and interactive process that encourages freedom of expression with careful attention paid to the warp and weft of the group experi- ence. A responsive facilitator will shape this experience around the par- ticipants so that every workshop is unique to the occasion and reflects that specific time, place and outlook.
Participants bring their imaginations and open minds – a love of colour- ful hands helps – as does a box of soft chalk pastels, the most glorious of crayons best described as the Queens of Colour!
Preliminary games and apparently simple art tasks are introduced to lead people gently into the wonders of their own unique imaginations and it is at this point that the text-led guided drawing is so useful. Artistic expression is a visual language and the use of text, rich with figurative imagery, can bring vivid impressions to life, firstly in the mind before being drawn on the paper. The choice of text, whether story or poem, is typically brief with distinctive characters or dramatic contexts. It can reflect specific concerns, cultural interests and issues or simply be a familiar or favourite narrative that has significance and meaning to a group. While the text and the creative approach may be simple there are many opportunities to add complexity as these guid ed drawing sessions unfold and this complexity is nowhere more evident than when looking at the completed drawings themselves. Using the same source material (the text), the same materials, in the same place, at the same time and with the same directions – no two drawings are ever alike.
The striking images below were drawn by young students of the Nirmala Institute of Education in Panjim, Goa as part of a two-day arts skills training workshop. The activity used an evocative tale of a lost calf, helpful fireflies and the sublime Sembar tree to inspire a single drawing from each person that depicted distinctive responses to the story and exercised each person’s natural drawing ability.
Student Teacher’s Guided Drawings – Nirmala Institute of Education – Panjim, Goa, 2018
The students then went on to make a set of group portrait murals using the confidence gained through the individual drawings and their growing mastery of technique and materials. The supportive format of the guided draw- ing session with its positive affirmation of skills, developed the scaffolding on which the larger, more complex murals could be conceived and drawn.
Student Teachers Guided Drawings – Nirmala Institute of Education – Panjim, Goa, 2018
This progression from private ideation to collaborative sharing is hugely aided by the strengthening of personal perception and the willingness to allow the flow of creative work to happen. I have frequently found that the use of suitable texts in guided drawing sessions brings people closer to that critical point of engagement with ideas more quickly and with greater ease than other introductory activities. It is an invaluable part of my workshop practice and a perfect combination of word and image.
Nhoi Big Draw Librarians’ Workshop Guided Drawing – Central Library – Panjim, Goa, 2018
And now…..please join us in a library….somewhere on Planet Earth…we have books….we have a facilitator….we have the Queens of Colour and we have people. The raw ingredients of an exciting, fun-filled and rewarding creative experience. Maybe we will start getting to know each other by flinging a ball of string across our circle and connecting ourselves in an intricate knot of colour or we’ll play some games that make us laugh and relax together as we remember the joys of simply spending time with others doing things that are seriously fun. Possibly we’ll do a short exercise using charcoal to draw a picture of our ideal library… school…town…portraits of each other or we’ll make a HUGE charcoal sketch all together at once using our whole body to make the marks.
Nhoi Big Draw First Panel – Sandipani Library – Sattari, Goa, 2018
Nhoi Big Draw Librarians’ Workshop – Central Library – Panjim, Goa, 2018
From there, with the group feeling newly skilful, enthusiastic and curious to find out more about their talent for invention we will move into the creative task of the Guided Drawing. After being given the details of the task and gathering their art materials together, the group will listen in silence to a short text before settling down to draw their own most immediate images in response to the reading. The drawings will begin in silence but gradually, as the impressions take shape, little conversations will spark up until there is a general dialogue about the experience as it reaches its conclusion. Usually soundtracked by a lot of laughter!
Guided Drawing Session – Library Educators Course – Old Goa, 2018
Some people will generously share their experience afterwards and de- scribe how they came to find the im- ages they drew and why. It is fascinating to see how vivid connections be- tween word and image come into existence in someone’s mind and to hear a little about how they chose what to draw, what to leave out, what meanings the text had for them and how the essence of the story or poem emerged more clearly as their drawing developed.
This is illuminating on many levels and I am always impressed by how articulate people can be when de- scribing their own work in relation to the source material and how much the act of drawing deepens under- standing of both the writer’s ideas and their own. It is also a testimony to the power of personal expression and what self-belief it brings to enable people to publicly share their imagination as the special kinds of artists they are. (“Artists are not special kinds of people but people are special kinds of artists.” Ananda Coomaraswamy). The guided drawing makes artists of us all.
Scribble Mural, Library Educators Course, Old Goa – 2018
Guided Drawing Workshop – Centre for Lifelong Learning – TISS, Mumbai, 2016
And in vibrant demonstration of this last statement, the mural depicted below is the final artwork made during the Library Educators’ visual arts workshop in April 2018 in Old Goa. This group portrait, evolving out of the personal significance of the preceding guided drawing activity and developed into a work of collective sub- stance, says everything about the power of art, imagery and imagination to link us with each other and the world we share. Words can shape images that shape words…that speak of human experience and imagina- tion. This is a connection made in heaven – or, more conveniently, your local library – and it is waiting there to be explored and used by us all.
