empty canvas : wondering mindempty canvas : wondering mind wildsight – the innocent eye betty...

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empty canvas : wondering mind

an artisan's workbook

compiled and written by miriam louisa simons

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www.wonderingmind.net

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for all the extraordinary students I have been privileged to work with and befriend

you asked for it: here it is

may it nurture your own creative questions as they form the ground beneath your feet

Blind Men on a Log bridge By Hakuin Ekaku

(The Gitter Collection)

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empty canvas : wondering mind an artisan's workbook

compiled and written by miriam louisa simons

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3 wildsight – the innocent eye

the zen of seeing 2 moving into the body 5 attending to now and this … 7

observer, observed, or observing? 9

enigmatic emptiness, magical marks 12 on the edge 13 the enigma of emptiness 17 the art of relationships 21 light, lighter, lightest … 26 getting with the gestalt 35 revisiting intimate observation 37

references 41

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empty canvas : wondering mind wildsight – the innocent eye

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The purpose of 'looking' is to survive, to cope, to manipulate

… this we are trained to do from our first day.

When, on the other hand, I see, suddenly I am all eyes,

I forget this me, am liberated from it

and dive into the reality that confronts me.

Frederick Franck

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WILDSIGHT – THE INNOCENT EYE

the zen of seeing Be absolutely alert and make no effort. J. Krishnamurti Many years ago when I was living another story in America, I was enrolled in classes in

painting, drawing and sculpture at the University of Cincinnati. The professor of art was a

twinkly-eyed chap with a mop of chestnut curls, an old pick-up truck, and a soft southern

drawl. I'll never forget the day he gave me a copy of Frederick Franck's The Zen of

Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation (1): "This is the only book on drawing you'll ever

need," he said. That precious gift was my 'bible' for years, not because it told me how to

draw or how to see or how to meditate, but because it allowed me inside the artist himself.

Very few artists have been able to, or have chosen to, share their creative insights so

openly and so exquisitely as Franck did. He touched the often trembling and terrified artist

in thousands who participated in his wonder-full workshops. Years later, I was privileged

to spend an English Easter in the Devon countryside finding out for myself some of the

secrets of this great teacher. Franck's emphasis was on creating a sacred atmosphere

where the perceptual intelligence of the entire body was free to express itself.

We worked in silence for three very demanding days; it was like a retreat into a silent inner sanctum.

Stopping our external verbalizing seemed to slow down the inner mental chatter. Franck's input was unobtrusive, gentle, and perceptively accurate.

He would quietly observe our working (we were seated well apart so that we couldn't see each other's work), and simply point with his pencil to a spot on the drawing. "You weren't present here, were

you?" or "This, where the leaf joins the stem, this is a point of meditation. Have you really been there?"

(Notes from my X-file)

Franck taught me that the human body – and even my own version – knows how to draw

exquisitely. That there is an invisible direct line from eyeball to the tip of the pencil – a

line that doesn't seem to go anywhere near the neo-cortex. I learned that the key to what

J Krishnamurti called "seeing without shadows" was a kind of ruthless relaxed attention – a

seeming paradox.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - On the final day of the workshop, I chose to draw a clump of mosses – or rather, it chose

me. Never, never would I have contemplated choosing such a complex fragment of the

universe, but we were instructed to select from the table the object that reached out to us.

The clump of fresh, dew-dropped, springtime moss with a tiny primrose cradled in its

softness was all I could see on the crowded table.

Where to begin? It was an awesome assignment. I had no choice but to proceed as we

had during the previous days: to sit with my mossy clump in silence until the cerebral

chatter died down – and then to sit longer. Then, to allow my eye/hand to caress its every

precious lineament without looking at my paper – and to do that again, and again, and yet

again until the moss, my eyes, my pencil and the paper were one thing being.

At that point I was ready to draw the moss, or rather it drew itself. Perfectly. Franck said,

"You have just done your first truly authentic drawing." And it was true.

The first group of activities in this e-book experiment with the kind of looking our group

explored with Frederick Franck. Then we'll experiment with other different 'looking

strategies'. For many ideas and activities and for rich inspiration, I am indebted to Betty

Edwards. In Drawing on the Artist Within (2), I found ways of looking that I had wondered

about for years, ways that short-circuited my lightning-fast label-producer and critic.

Ways that had nothing to do with copying. As I worked with the activities it felt as though

curtains were being pulled back from the windows of my perception. And I noticed that

there was a tangible but very subtle 'shift' when my eyes were really seeing. When it

occurred, I could actually feel it physically in my head.

It seemed to be a kind of looking where one was intensely attentive, and yet not knowing

what one was looking for. Marion Milner's words about the "wide" way of seeing quoted at

the close of believing is seeing describe it beautifully. That interested me very much,

because I had begun to be deeply curious about J. Krishnamurti's ideas about looking

freshly, looking without memory or recognition, looking without describing or assigning

value. (3)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Betty Edwards' thesis is founded upon neurological research which indicates that the

actions of labeling, remembering, defining value and so on happen in the left hemisphere

of the brain, while the actions more usually associated with the way an artist 'sees' happen

in the right hemisphere. Electroencephalographic research by Robert Ornstein and David

Galin at Langley-Porter Neuropsychiatry Institute, San Francisco, reveals a measurable

increase in right-hemisphere activity when the subject is performing a visual-thinking task,

and a similar increase in left hemisphere activity when the subject is performing a verbal-

thinking task.(2) Both functions cannot operate simultaneously (just as we found it

impossible to hold both interpretations of the ambiguous pictures in believing is seeing),

and wherever they might actually take place in the brain, it seems we cannot analyze and

look in this way at the same time. To analyze is to take apart, to fragment, whereas to

look 'globally' implies perceiving both big and little pictures at once.

Because our education systems clearly foster verbal thinking, the need is evident for

increased awareness of the activity and potential of visual thinking. We need to cultivate

ambidextrous thinking, to be able to switch at will, and, perhaps even more importantly if

we are concerned about genuine creativity, to find a place of poise between the two.

Edwards sets out to give the brain tasks which will outwit what she calls 'left-brain

function', thereby allowing the right hemisphere with its more global way of perceiving to

operate. While there are those who argue that such a function-specific division of the

brain areas is simplistic and even inaccurate we can experiment with some of these

activities, and will probably notice the way they flow on naturally from the puzzles of the

last e-book. For as far as our eyes are concerned, all optical input is a puzzle to decode

and interpret.

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moving into the body Readers may be surprised to find that our activities to foster direct seeing begin with

relaxation. I have become convinced over the years that relaxation and attention are two

sides of the same paradoxical coin. Every skill we possess is enhanced by relaxation (think

of the way professional athletes make their actions look so easy), and both learning and

perceiving are no exception.

Relaxation is important to our thinking generally, because we think with our whole being, our body as well as our brain. (4)

The role of the body is largely ignored, and yet it is fundamental. We move, think, feel,

and imagine with it. We all know how our ability to cope with even minor mental tasks is

impaired when our body is 'out-of-sorts'. And the energy required for wondering and

making is significant, so it is clear that attending to stress and weariness in the body plays

an important part in the artisan's life. Many great creative thinkers have left us stories of

how their insights often came during times when they were relaxing or playing, rather than

burning the midnight oil at their desks, easels, or microscopes.

Frederick Franck's way of ensuring that workshop participants were relaxed before

beginning their 'seeing/drawing' was to have us all spend a quiet time simply breathing in

and breathing out. Watching the flow of the breath – the classic Zen approach. Then,

when settled with our selected natural object, we would again sit with it for many minutes

before beginning our contour tracings. In the space opened up by simply being with first

oneself, then the object, mental and physical tension melted away. I have used this

approach in my own workshops for many years now, and on the odd occasion when it is

forgotten, or there isn't time, the difference in the quality of attention brought to the

session is noticeable.

There are numerous ways to voluntarily let go of tension. The problem is that often we

aren't aware of our stored tension. You may already have a pet routine of exercises that

effectively bring areas of body stress to your awareness and melt them away. If not, try

taking a walk or doing some yoga.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Julia Cameron, in The Artist's Way (5), talks about how most blocked creatives are cerebral

creatures (left-brainers) who "need to move out of the head and into a body of work. To

do this [they] must first of all move into the body." (Cameron's emphasis.)

Walking is one of the best ways I know to move into the body. It saves my life, time after

time. When I walk I connect with a world outside of myself, outside of my self-referenced

preoccupations. I am filled up with the wonders of nature, and I take home with me

inspirations that spill over into my work. Going for a wonder wander is a great way to

begin a class: assign an observational task if it's appropriate, or just walk without

speaking. Back in the studio or classroom, take five minutes to relax on the floor then

write about what was experienced when walking and/or relaxing, in your X-file.

Yoga brings our conscious awareness to our body, and if you are wondering what that has

to do with our work here, recall the questions about the multi-faceted nature of perception

that we considered at the close of believing is seeing.

If you move your body without awareness, passivity takes the place of learning. Biceps, heart, lungs, endocrine glands, and immune system eventually lose function instead of gain it.

… When you start to assert control over any bodily process, the effect is holistic. The mind-body system reacts to every single stimulus as a global event; i.e., to stimulate one cell is

to stimulate all. There is a parallel in quantum terms, since a reaction anywhere in space-time, including past, present and future, causes a shift in the entire quantum field. …

"If you tickle the field here, it laughs over there." (6) The effect is holistic: it therefore includes the effect on perception. Bohm and Peat, in

Science, Order and Creativity (7) take the quantum view further and explain the

importance of yoga in clearing the "misinformation of false conditioning" from the

blockages in the body/mind. There are many good books on yoga, but for serious practice

it is essential to find a qualified teacher.

Music has the power to release stress and also to create the kind of quiet, contemplative

atmosphere so vital to our way of working. How could it be otherwise, when music is

crystallized droplets of the same energy that we see as light and color? But the kind of

music is important. Our preference is for the Largo and Adagio movements of classical

Baroque music, some kinds of ethnic music, and also some contemporary contemplative

music.

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attending to now and this and here To attend means to 'be with.' But often we can 'be with' something or someone without

really being there – we are there in an absent-minded way. Our attention, our awareness

is absent. So perhaps to attend is better stated as meaning to 'be fully present with' –

present with full attention. We need this kind of attention in order to look with wonder –

to look inquiringly, as well as to look with marvel.

Before we begin to look this way at the world 'outside' our bodies, we'll experiment with an

activity that requires our attention to be placed at points within the body.

Written down, this looks arduous and time consuming, but in fact it only takes about

fifteen minutes to 'do the circuit,' and one can, if necessary, do a shorter version. The

objective is to observe our capacity to hold attention in a relaxed way, on one spot.

• the body circuit (6)

Sit with your eyes closed in a comfortable chair or lie down. (Be in a room that is free

of distracting noises.)

Place your attention on the toes of your right foot. Curl them down until they feel

tense, then release the tension and feel the sense of relaxation that flows into them.

Don't rush either the tensing or relaxing; take time to feel what is happening.

[Stay present!]

Now let out a long, deep sigh as if you are breathing out of your toes, letting all stored

fatigue and tension flow away with your breath. Don't puff or blow; just let the sigh

release itself in one long exhalation, like a sigh of relief, without holding back. If you

let out a moan or groan – all the better – that is a sign of deep release.

Now repeat this procedure with the top of your right foot, first placing your attention

on it, then tensing the muscles (by arching your foot backward), and finally relaxing

them. When the top of your foot feels relaxed, let out a sigh as if you are breathing

out through your toes.

Cont …

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Once you have this basic technique down, take your attention to all parts of your body

in the following order. Remember that this is not just a muscle relaxation technique:

your attention needs to linger comfortably at each body location.

Right foot: toes, top of foot, sole of foot, ankle (two stages: flexing back, then flexing

forward) Left foot: same as for right foot.

Right buttock and upper thigh. Left buttock and upper thigh

Abdominal muscles (diaphragm)

Lower back, upper back

Right hand: fingers, wrist (two stages: flexing back, then flexing forward)

Left hand: as for right hand

Shoulders: (two stages: flexing forward, then flexing upward toward neck)

Neck: (two stages: flexing forward, then flexing backward)

Face: (two stages: screwing face into a tight grimace, then tensing brow and forehead)

Milner writes that a mind/body relaxation similar to this one was vital for her 'connection'

with what she called the "answering activity" and understood to be her body's own

intelligence.(8) The side benefits are a bonus, creating a natural bridge between

observation of something intimately familiar (one's 'very own' body), and observation of

the world outside our body.

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observer, observed, or observing? what is looking and what looks back?

• one object, intimately (4)

Select an object that pleases you. See how long you can spend finding out something

new about it. Look at it from many angles. Explore it with all your senses. Imagine

how it is made. Think about its constituent materials, the kinds of people involved in

its creation. Compare its qualities with like qualities in other objects (if it is red,

compare it with other red objects). And so on. Make notes and sketches in your X-

Have you noticed the part played by memory when a task like this is undertaken? Did you

wander off down its winding lanes? Read your notes with awareness of those

meanderings. Then choose another object and attempt to repeat the exercise without

allowing memory to enter. In other words, activate your imagination without bringing

your personal past into the picture. Is this possible?

Is it possible to meet each other or to meet the flower, the bird, or the new day without anything

interfering? And if the past does come up, to see that it is memory coming up? And not be ruled by it, not be compelled and narrowed down by it?

To see it and to wonder whether it has to interfere? Whether perhaps there is an energy of meeting, of listening and looking,

which can disconnect the belief that we think we know what he, she or it is? (9)

Matisse said that to look at something as though you had never seen it before requires

great courage. The following three activities are to be explored during the course of a

week, so courage will not only be needed to look freshly, but also to commit time to the

sustained daily observation. These activities come from the repertoire of that masterful

teacher, Corita Kent.

• shadows and soda bottles (10)

For one week look at the shadows in one place. Sit in the same place each day for

fifteen minutes and note everything you see about those shadows, and everything that

changes – color, size, shape – in your X-file.

Then take something that doesn't change, like a soda bottle.

Cont …

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Look at the top third of that bottle every day for fifteen minutes, and record all you see

there. Do this the same week you look at the shadows.

Also write about how it felt to do this patient observing. Did it tire you? Frustrate

you? Amaze you?

Try the same looking exercise with something that grows and looks complicated:

• tree project (10)

Look at a tree and its shape.

Look at the part the leaves play in making the shape you see and look at the part the

trunk and branches play in making the structure you see.

Look for patterns made when foliage is dense or light.

Look for dark and light and other color changes that come about on the leaves, which

are really all the same color but change with the reflections of light.

Look at the tree for one hour in the week you are seeing shadows.

Write every specific thing you see about that tree.

Make a list of other things that you think are related in structure to a tree: an

umbrella, a lamp, a broom…

When you get past making labels for things, it is possible to combine and transform elements into new things.

Look at things until their import, identity, name, use, and description have dissolved. (10)

• everything is itself (10)

Take two natural objects that are the 'same' – for example, two flowers from the same

plant – and look at them for five minutes, listing how they are different from each

other.

Take two leaves from the same tree and do the same thing.

Take two peas from the same pod and do the same thing.

Nothing is the same.

No thing is the same.

Everything is itself and one of a kind.

Cont …

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After doing this every day for a week, look at these pairs again and make a new list.

You will find more differences, because you have been exercising your powers of

observation.

The activities suggested so far have required written responses rather than drawn ones.

What is the difference between drawing words and drawing images? Later there will be

opportunities to combine both in creative play. However, as mentioned earlier, the brain

operations involved in visual thinking and verbal thinking are almost mutually exclusive,

and we are often more adept at the latter. Combining words and visuals in our inquiries

helps educate for ambidextrous thinking, so our activities here will require responses from

the whole brain.

Having experimented with the limited, conditioned, aspects of perception and having a few

new insights into its operations, we can move on now to explore possible ways of

expanding our perceptual capacity.

It just so happens, as all art teachers know very well, that people do not need to be taught

how to draw, they need to learn how to see. And paradoxically, one of the greatest blocks

to the expression of the creative spirit is the problem of drawing itself. We are often

convinced that a drawing should look like an accurate appearance of the subject drawn,

and when we fail to meet our own (and other's) expectations, we give up in frustration.

We need to somehow put aside the notion that we are trying to make 'artistic' drawings –

whatever that might mean – and instead see ourselves simply experimenting with mark-

making games. It is hard not to judge our efforts at first, but with playful practice it gets

easier to not make art. And one day, perhaps even by the end of this e-book, you'll

realize that real drawings are making themselves, drawings that you recognize as being

your very own – your authentic visual language in expression.

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enigmatic emptiness, magical marks learning to see what is really there

Now we begin to focus on noticing certain things about our subject – things that artists

have found essential when they come to use visual language to describe their experiences.

Exploring in this way will enable us to enter the world of the artist by the back door – and

there's a bonus as well. We just might find that we perceive the design of the big artwork

called our life more clearly. That's because the ways we've been educated to perceive

'reality' apply equally to our artworks and our lifework.

In believing is seeing we experienced for ourselves the shortcomings of visual

perception. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that the activities here call upon us to

activate more than our seeing muscles. We need to bring all our senses to the paper –

especially the kinesthetic sense. Kimon Nicolaides, in The Natural Way to Draw (11)

emphasizes that learning to see correctly "means a great deal more than merely looking

with the eye."

Seeing is encountering reality with all of your being. To encounter reality deeply, you cannot leave part of yourself behind.

All of your senses, your emotions, your intellect, your language-making abilities – each contributes to seeing fully. (4)

This attitude is so important that I'll risk repetition: rather than considering your work as

'art' or a drawing or painting of something, try seeing it instead as a newly-made thing in

itself. Let it be whatever it is. You will have a totally different relationship with it. Forget

about straining for true likeness, be absolutely loyal to the task, hold that intense attention

and you'll be amazed at what will appear on the paper.

My hope is to confront the picture without a ready technique or a prepared attitude – a condition which is never completely attainable;

to have no program and, necessarily then, no preconceived style. (12)

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on the edge what is happening at the meeting-point, the interface between one thing and another? For our purpose here we take the word edge to be the place where one thing meets

another thing. Perhaps that will be as obvious as an outline, perhaps it will be more subtle

– the edge of a shadow on the top of a hand, a wrinkle. Kimon Nicolaides devised the

following way of wondering about edges, an activity that effectively blends vision with

touch and kinesthesia.

Students always begin this activity somewhat nervously, and laugh about their early

attempts. However with daily practice they produce remarkably beautiful, vigorous

experiments absolutely alive with their own gestural marks and as unique as their personal

handwriting. And all without ever looking at the paper on which they were drawing!

In class we sometimes work with a model. But any object with enough surface interest

will do: your 'other' hand, your foot, your old trainer, a flower, a friend, your pet dog.

Place your drawing paper to your side, so that you aren't tempted to peek.

Before you start using a mark-making tool, spend a while just tracing the lines on paper

with your fingers to get the feel of the action.

Try all kinds of non-erasable mark-making tools – pen and ink, felt tip pens, charcoal, a

twig, all kinds of brushes with inks, pastels, crayons (and combinations) on a variety of

unusual papers. And when you've come to the end of the line, take another sheet of paper

and begin again at a different point on the surface of your subject. You can explore

everything you can see in this way – everything!

• 'not-looking' drawings

Look at your model (or other subject) and place the point of your drawing tool on the

paper at a point that matches a point on the surface of the model. Really feel that you

are touching the model at that point.

Now let your eye follow the edge with your hand moving at the same, slow, pace.

Cont …

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Don't take your eyes off the model, and don't look at the line you are drawing. Just

keep tracing the edges that your eyes see in one continuous line.

Keep the feeling that your marker is actually touching those edges. Go slowly, be

patient.

Not all the edges lie on the outer edge of the figure. Without lifting your marker, trace

those lines as well. Move slowly, searchingly, as though you are a tiny insect exploring

a new world. Keep looking for edges and interfaces you may have overlooked. Go to

them without lifting the marker.

Don't let either your eye or your hand get ahead, they must keep exact pace with each

other, or the line will lose its sensitivity.

Your line will look like a seismic graph line if you have been fully present. And your brain

will be humming.

A contour drawing is like climbing a mountain rather than flying over it in an airplane. (11) MORE 'NOT-LOOKING' IDEAS TO TRY:

• peeking allowed

Allow yourself to peek sometimes – only when your marker isn't moving. That means

you can lift your marker when you come to the end of an edge, look at your paper,

and start again. Once you are making marks again – no peeking!

• two-hands-on!

And at the same time, if your subject is something like a shell, a teapot or the face of

someone who doesn't mind, actually touch the edges as you draw them. So one hand

is really touching, and the other is pretending that it's touching … then switch hands.

• 'dem dry bones' (13)

Make lots of drawings of bones from a torso skeleton with the ribs intact. Feel the

edges with your non-drawing hand.

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• 25 versions of your hand (13)

Make no-peeking drawings of your non-drawing hand on 25 A4 sheets, each one filling

the space in a different way and done with a different medium and tool or

combinations.

• microscopic self-portrait (13) Using a magnifying shaving or make-up mirror, trace the contour details of your own

face. Take some hours to do this, looking for minute detail.

• life-size self portrait (13) Using a roll of paper and a hand mirror, make a full-scale drawing of yourself that

reflects (no pun intended!) the process of your exploration of your body's landscape.

• introduce speed Try some quickies. Set your timer for 1 minute and go! And again. And again … at

least 20 times. Use different tools each time.

• use a metronome Pace yourself to the beat – andante, allegro, largo – back and forth, allowing your

whole body to express the rhythm.

• limit your lines (13) Try allowing yourself only 5 lines to get down all the edge information. Then 4. Then

3, 2 and 1. Combine this line limitation with time limitation as well!

• ant antics Imagine you are an ant moving across the surface of your subject, but that you have

been instructed to scurry across the edges and contours rather than along them.

Cover your subject with ant tracks made by the tip of your pen – up and down the hills

and across the valleys…

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• more ant antics This time you are an ant who scurries along the edges. But instead of stopping at the

edge of the subject, you continue around the back! Now your pen will be wrapping the

subject up in a web of ant tracks the way a spider wraps up her meal to move it closer

to her dining table. When you have done that, try just half-wrapping from side to side

along the edges and contours. If someone can model for you wearing a sweater with

horizontal stripes it will make this exercise easier.

• manic magazine drawings (2) Use a magazine that has pictures on most pages, timing yourself to just 1 minute,

open the magazine and get down all the 'edge' information on an A4 sheet.

Do this 15 times, faster, faster, faster!

No details, no rubbing out, no time looking for a picture you like, scribbling like fury.

As you played with these experiments, did you notice yourself protesting, initially?

Wanting to take less time, get it over with? Or with the 'quickies' complaining that you

couldn't 'do a good job'? Wanting to take more time? You did well if you were able to just

keep it going in spite of mental chatter, and probably you are amazed at the energy

contained in those drawings, particularly the 1-minute ones. The last activity in this

section is fun for a small group.

• pass-it-on portraits

Find someone to model for you who won't mind having his or her head turn into a very

odd portrait.

Everyone has a sheet of painting paper, and they put their name at the bottom.

Begin a not-looking drawing of the model, starting wherever you like on the paper.

Draw without peeking for 2 minutes. Use a loose arm and don't worry if your lines go

off the edge – just hop back on again and keep going.

Pass your paper to the person on your left. Beginning at a point within the drawing

you have inherited, continue to follow the edges and contours without peeking for

another 2 minutes.

When the papers have gone around the group and returned to the original owners, you will

see an extraordinary portrait – rather like a cubist drawing. It's fun to turn these

experiments into paintings. Just take any colors you like, and follow your fancy.

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something out of no-thing: the enigma of emptiness what is happening in the spaces around a 'thing'? For some reason, someone sometime decided that within picture formats the space

occupied by the object or figure would be called the 'positive' space and the areas

surrounding those objects or figures would be called 'negative' space.

The implication is that negative space is secondary, contains nothing, is perhaps merely

decorative. Yet to the Oriental eye, space is definitely something. It is the "goes-with" of

object, as Alan Watts would say. In Zen, the essential character of a bowl is contained in

the part that is 'missing' – the emptiness that the vessel forms itself around. In Taoist

terms, space is the pregnant void from which objects arise, and to which they will return.

We are used to looking at objects, and need practice in seeing the spaces around and

within them as something. Once we become familiar with these enigmatic spaces by

choosing to draw them we find that the way we see the world changes. Nicolaides puts it

emphatically:

Seeing spaces can free us from deadly assumptions. (11) Wilde and Wilde agree with Nicolaides: "The idea of formulating an image by only

addressing its background changes the habitual approach towards seeing." (14) In

believing is seeing we experienced the phenomenon of ambiguous images and how it

felt to alternate between the two 'different' objects. What was happening was that we

were experiencing the reversal of the images' positive and negative spaces mentally – if

the vase was seen as positive, then the faces were negative, and vice versa. What could

be more enigmatic?

If you can remember that every outline is also an inline, you will have little difficulty

perceiving those pregnant enigmatic spaces. A favorite object for this kind of experiment

is a chair – preferably an old rocking chair with lots of spindles. Spinning wheels are ideal

too. My Bangalore students used something easy to find in their environment – an electric

pedestal fan.

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• outlines and inlines

Have plenty of paper available. No erasers will be used, so felt-tip pens are a good

drawing tool. Set up your subject and find the angle from which you wish to view it.

Begin by simply gazing at the object for some minutes. Then consciously gaze at the

spaces around and through and behind it. Select one of those space shapes and draw

its inline in the same way that you drew the contour lines earlier – really feeling that

your pen is touching the surface of the object.

Move to the next space shape, with as little mental commentary as possible. Try to

avoid telling yourself what the shapes remind you of; instead, ask yourself "how does

this connect with this?" and "Is this bigger/smaller than that?"

You may look at the paper you are drawing on if you like, but students who choose to

avoid doing so are able to perceive the spaces more easily, particularly in the

beginning. Try it both ways.

Did you experience a 'shift' when you moved from looking at the object to looking at the

spaces? Did the space jump out at you when you gave it your attention? Did it feel as

though you were working on a jigsaw puzzle, putting the bits into their proper places?

How did it feel to see the object defined by the spaces, rather than the reverse?

The next activity exploring 'negative' space does so not by outlining or 'inlining', but by

feeling into the space and filling it in with tiny scribbles.

• scribbles in space

Place the chair, or whatever you are using for a subject, in a corner, or some position

that creates a variety of depths within the negative spaces.

Again, gaze at the 'positive' spaces for a while (the object), and then shift your gaze to

the 'negative' spaces. Look at their shapes.

Then look at the depth of those shapes. Some will probably be deeper than others,

depending on your placement of the subject. Feel into the depth.

Cont …

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Using a fine pencil, begin at the very deepest part in the center of one of the shapes,

and with tiny scribbles, work out to where the shape meets the object. Your scribbles

will be denser where the shapes are deeper, and lighter where they are shallow.

No outlines thank you, just little squiggles like steel wool.

Continue in this way, filling in all those spaces. Try to feel yourself actually building up

the depth of space with your pencil.

Was the experience of feeling into the spaces different from feeling around them? Were

you surprised at the way the objects 'popped up' as you worked within the spaces? If, as

the quantum worldview leads us to understand, 'solid' objects are a result of a collapse of

the wave function, does that mean that when we observe and draw the 'empty' spaces

around objects, the 'negative' spaces, we are drawing the wave-filled quantum ground? If

that were so, our little squiggles might be oddly appropriate: have you ever seen

photographs taken inside a Bubble Chamber?

Do you think that looking at those negative spaces with the quantum view in mind would

change the way you saw them and drew them? Why not experiment with that?

• 'not-thing' images (adapted from 14)

Using the ways of looking and thinking we've tried in the last two activities, how would

you create images of your own without drawing anything but the 'not-thing'?

Choose 3 subjects from this list: Titanic, ice-cream cone, steam, ghost, blossom,

Jaws, alligator, clouds.

Do not draw images, just use black paint or ink to indicate the enigmatic spaces.

Make several versions of each subject you choose, and then select the one that you

feel is most expressive.

If you crop your images, you might be able to make them as enigmatic as the space!

Enigmatic spaces don't only exist behind and beside the object we are observing. Space

also lies between my eyes and the front of the object. How would you indicate the fact of

this space on your paper?

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• something out of no-thing (13)

Try oil washes for this experiment – some black, and a couple of earthy colors. Add

plenty of turps and try using large brushes. If you don't have oil paints, charcoal will

work well.

Without drawing any outlines whatsoever, lay down washes of color to indicate the

enigmatic spaces around your model (or subject).

Then consider the space between yourself and the model – how will you represent

these 'visual voids'?

Think about the depth of these spaces, and vary your lights and darks to match those

depths.

Remember, you are painting space, not the model!

Don't forget to record all the things you noticed while exploring these activities in your X-

file. Include any questions that arose, any struggles you had with your upstairs art critic,

and also little visual examples.

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similarities and differences: the art of relationships what are the similarities in the differences, and the differences in the similarities? We have already encountered some classic visual illusions that reveal how the brain

tampers with visual information according to its cultural and genetic conditioning.

Remember the Ponzo illusion and how tricky it became when incorporated in a picture with

'real' figures? We saw that the brain's need for concept constancy was predominant – in

that instance, its need for size constancy. It is clear that we simply do not see things in

their actuality in everyday life – a convention that probably evolved in order to make life

easier for us. But if we are curious about how things do look without the alterations

unconsciously overlaid by our particular perceptual programming, how can we experiment?

We need a helper. And we need not feel ashamed about that, for if we take a look at what

artists throughout history have had to say about the problem of accurate sighting, we'll be

comforted to know that they invented ingenious helpers, and used them without a trace of

guilt. Van Gogh's helper is well documented. Albrecht Durer's device is famous. He took

the idea from earlier Renaissance artists Leone Battista Alberti, Fillipo Brunelleschi, and

Leonardo da Vinci. We are in good company. Our immediate needs are simpler and we

will make a device that is commonly known as a 'finder.'

• making a finder

An empty 35mm transparency holder is an instant finder. You can also make one from

a piece of heavy card. That way you can create different formats, for example a

square, a circle, landscape or portrait formats. Cut the hole with a craft knife, and

don't make the aperture too large.

The idea is to enclose portions of the world without being overloaded with content.

Use the finder in the same way that you use the lens in your camera – roving around

with it until you find the view you need for your task. The finder is a wonderful helper

for art students who are seeking unusual compositions for their work, but whatever its

down-line use, it first serves to teach us about how to perceive relationships and

proportions correctly. And we do this by noticing similarities and differences.

Take your finder on a wonder wander to any place where there is a lot happening: a

market, a political rally, a circus, or the theatre. Look at the world through it for half

an hour.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Write down in your X-file the ways in which you feel yourself beginning to see differently.

Does the elimination of surrounding visual information make a difference? Do you notice

more details about the shapes, colors, textures, when using it? Do you 'see' perspective

more easily? Do the shapes within the frame seem to have a more vigorous life of their

• finders and facades (10)

Find a building with an interesting façade, and rove over it with your finder.

Choose ten isolated views to draw in your x-file on the spot and make small drawings

with the barest information regarding shapes and lines using a pen. (So that you won't

be tempted to erase!)

You'll have noticed the advantages of being able to isolate areas of the big world for closer

study. The finder allows us to see something as one 'thing', one whole. But how can it

help us with seeing relationships and proportions more accurately?

When you were looking at the façade of the building and making those ten small sketches

did you notice yourself mentally referring to the horizontals and verticals of the 'frame'

formed by your instrument? Did you hear yourself saying things like: "This shape begins

about one-third down this vertical – it goes across there, parallel to the bottom – finishes

at that point halfway up that side"? Or, "That line is about the same length as this one"?

Or, "Those bits are different from these – they are longer/shorter"?

This is the second function of the finder. It provides constants – the vertical and

horizontal edges – which drive the brain "to accept perceptions as they are without

revising them to fit pre-programmed concepts." (2) In this way we can apprehend the

parts and their relationships to the whole and to one another. The finder enables us to

answer two questions that are never far from our awareness as we engage the drawing

process:

1 What relationship has this angle, this edge, this line, this shape, to the constants

imposed by the frame?

2 What relationship has this shape I now see from this viewpoint, to other shapes –

how big, how wide, how high, how long?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - And importantly, the finder allows us to see whatever we are observing as the thing-that-

it-is, independent of all other things. To seek out unusual compositions – compositions

that are a picture of a thing-in-itself – with your finder, make mystery drawings.

• mystery drawings (and paintings)

Using your finder wander around a place that is familiar to you and your colleagues (or

family). Look for views that consist of interesting angles and shapes – avoid things

that are easily recognizable. Get in close.

Make 10 little drawings, 10cm square, that you feel no one will be able to identify. No

need to shade or color – just use simple lines. Show them to your friends – can they

guess what you were looking at?

Select one that you like (why do you like it?), and enlarge it onto painting paper using

the same format. Now play with colors and tones within your lines – avoiding using

the 'real' or local colors. Follow your fancy!

Remember how we experienced the way our brain completed an image or pattern from

incomplete information in believing is seeing? Graphic designers often make use of this

tendency by suggesting an image rather than depicting all the details, because this draws

our attention – and that's what advertising is all about.

In the next activity we'll create images that are mysterious but just recognizable, images

that draw on a minimum of visual information to make a greater impact.

• less is more (adapted from 14)

Choose an object – animal, plant or man-made – and make a full drawing of it using

only flat shapes and lines.

Crop this design, but retain the identity of the object (use your finder for this).

Enlarge your cropped design, and crop it again, this time looking for abstract shapes.

You now have three designs.

Choose one, and reverse the blacks and whites. (Think of photographic negatives.)

Next, add one color. And finally, make the design in full color: 6 designs in total.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - An inventive student in Bangalore who was experiencing difficulty in both perceiving

relationships and maintaining a constant sighting point, made himself an even more

helpful device – similar to Durer's, in fact. He decided that more constants would make his

viewing more accurate, so he threaded a 'grid' of horizontals and verticals onto his finder

using black yarn. That gave him more sighting lines. To help maintain his constant

sighting point, he wore a baseball cap and hung the instrument from a stick attached to

the visor. It did the trick! (Incidentally, it was a short-lived inconvenience for him, for

after a week or so he could 'eyeball' the visual information he needed. His perception had

been educated.)

The next activity makes use of a similar device, but instead of having to hang it in front of

our eyes we'll draw it onto a windowpane. It works in exactly the same way as Durer's

device.

• windowpane drawings (2)

Find a window through which you can see an interesting view: rooftops, an avenue, a

wooded landscape, or a cityscape.

Outline a format (say, 18 by 24 inches) directly onto the glass with a removable felt-

tip marker. The windowpane is your 'picture plane' as well as your drawing surface.

At the level of your eyes when you are standing comfortably in front of the format, and

in the center, draw a little circle to use as your fixed viewing point. This point

establishes your horizon line, since a line extended from the eye level forwards will

always become a point on the horizon.

Close one eye. Line up the other eye, the circle, and a point within the view. This

establishes your constant, fixed viewpoint, to which you will always return if you

happen to move your position while drawing.

Imagine that the view is a picture pasted onto the other side of the glass, and that you

are simply going to trace it.

Draw what you see, regardless of what your 'common sense' has to say.

Draw the edges of the forms and the spaces, dancing back and forth with your marker

and giving equal attention to both.

Cont …

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When you have finished and you step back, you will notice that the scene has been

drawn true to perspective, without a single technical rule being applied.

All you did was draw what was really there.

If you can, place a sheet of paper on the outside of the window so that you can see

your drawing more clearly.

Now draw a grid of lines over your windowpane drawing, 5cm spaces will suffice.

Draw an identical format and grid on a sheet of drawing paper, and transpose your

drawing by locating the shapes within the grid lines and noticing their relationships as

above.

That's exactly what Durer did with his device, and the great sixteenth century Dutch artist

Hans Holbein the Younger, official portrait artist to the court of King Henry VIII of England,

used a similar glass device.

We are less concerned about accurate representation of figures or landscapes (although

I'm sure you will be astonished at the drawings you are making) and more interested in

the internal dialogue which is going on as we work. In your X-file make notes about that

dialogue, and about any perceptual surprises you may have experienced. Later, these

notes will be rich observations to share with others – for an important part of our

wonderings is to find out what experiences they are having, to notice the differences and

the similarities between us. And then to notice

… the similarities in the differences, and the differences in the similarities. (15)

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light, lighter, lightest; dark, darker, darkest … what is happening in the lights and shadows? In my early experiments with drawing and painting I often found myself musing, "Light

and shade, that's all there is to it. Why didn't anyone tell me that?" Of course, that isn't

all there is to it in the creation of a completely resolved work. But when it comes to

creating the visual illusion of form, space and texture, light and shade are the tools we

must master. How well we can utilize those tools will depend on the sharpness of our

observation of light and shadow in the world we inhabit. We have already made a good

beginning with these observations, and this activity will draw upon the insights noted in

your X-file.

• a list of light

Go back to the notes you made in your X-file when you were exploring sustained

attention, earlier in this chapter.

When you observed the shadows closely, what did you write about them, and the light

in which they played?

And the tree, the bottle, the 'differences and similarities' exercise – did you mention

light and shade?

Now review your notes about your experiences with edges, enigmatic spaces, and

similarities/differences.

Make a list of the ways in which you have talked about light and shadow using key

words that appear frequently throughout your notes.

You will probably have a rich vocabulary in front of you now, and if you'd like to expand it

even further, dip into a thesaurus or encyclopedia for further illuminating words. You will

need as many as you can find for this next activity.

• an en-lightened vocabulary (adapted from 4)

Find an object that has surfaces that reflect light and shade in an interesting manner.

Ask yourself, "How would I describe this to a person who has never seen it?"

Cont …

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With your normal, full vocabulary available, that might not be too difficult. However,

your task here is to describe the object only in terms of light, shade, and their shapes.

(NB – not the shape of the object itself!)

The shapes, qualities, and locations of lights and shadows, that's all. Be painstakingly

accurate. Write your description down in your X-file with a picture of the object.

If you are working alone, try to find someone to whom you can read your description.

Their job is not to simply guess what you are referring to, but to attempt to draw it

from your description without asking any questions.

In a group situation take turns to read your descriptions, with the others making a

drawing.

Did you discover subtleties in the qualities of light and shade that you hadn't noticed

before? Did you experience the feeling that you were actually seeing those qualities more

sharply? Working with light and shade is immensely rewarding, for the world can never be

seen in the same way again after opening the doors of perception to their nuances. And

that also includes our perception of color – for is there anything in the world without color?

Everything is alive with color, and color is alive with subtlety of tone and shade and tint.

Tone, shade and tint are the grammar of the language of color. Let's take a closer look at

If we look at a black and white photo we see a wide variety of grays plus black and white.

The range of grays – lighter ones and darker ones – are what we call tones. An excursion

into the world of subtle tones of light and shade is useful if we want to see how important

those elements are in the fabrication of our perceived world, and what we learn will also

augment our understanding of color. So let's begin by playing with making tones of gray

and noticing the way the presence or absence of light works to help our brain construct

images.

• ink and bleach

Use an old brush and household bleach diluted 50-50 first. Then try other ratios of

bleach-water. Protect your clothing.

Cont …

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You'll need a sheet of strong cartridge paper. The bleach will destroy the paper

eventually, so your work will be a truly transitory expression!

Using black drawing ink make any kind of marks all over the paper. Then take the

bleach and paint into the ink marks – try splattering, dripping, brushing. Watch the

way the bleach creates tones of grays as it 'fades' out the ink. Notice the way you

begin to 'see' forms and shapes appear out of the tones …

It has always seemed totally magic to me that simply by making darker or lighter tones

one can create the illusion of volume and mass. The next experiment involves observing

the density and volume of a subject rather than the lights and darks, but you end up

creating tones anyway! It might remind you of 'not-looking' drawings, because we will

again pretend, as we draw, that we are really touching the surface of the model (or our

subject) with the crayon.

• push-pull drawings (adapted from 13)

Use a half stick of Conte crayon held on its side. Set up your model or subject, or if

you want to explore a tree or a building façade, decide on your view using your finder.

Start in the center of your form – avoiding the temptation to put in any lines

whatsoever. Try to find the center of gravity and begin there. Push the crayon back in

the places that are far from your vision, and 'pull' or make lighter markings where the

surface is closer to you. Work gradually outwards to the edge of the form.

Take no notice at all of the lights and shades – we are simply feeling the volumes of

the form for this experiment. No need to smooth out the tones – irregularities can

make an interesting surface texture.

"Your drawing is the result of your imitating the movement of the surface in the manner of

a relief." (16) It is the record of the way your caress has passed over the surface of the

One of the most valuable exercises for heightening awareness of the subtleties of tone –

also called value – is to create a scale from dark to light. It might be frustrating to

construct, but the usefulness of both the effort and the end product make it well

worthwhile.

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• ladder of light 1

Using black and white poster paint or gouache, cover a large sheet of paper with

samples of as many tones of gray as you can mix. Make the samples about 5cm

square.

Then take a template 4cm square and cut out the samples. Select 10 that form even

steps from darkest to lightest without making any big jumps, and stick them onto a

piece of card to form a ladder.

• ladder of light 2 (adapted from 13)

Use a full range of pencils (6H being the hardest and lightest, to 6B being the softest

and darkest) to create a ladder identical in tones to the previous one. Use a razor to

sharpen your pencils, and be careful with dust – it can ruin your paper. Avoid erasing.

Expect to take 10-12 hours making this exquisite ladder.

If you find that too academic, here's a challenge – make your ladder into a visually

exciting composition. The squares must touch each other in some way, sequentially,

but they need not form a ladder. However, the tones should be rendered with just as

much care.

• ladder of light 3 (adapted from 13)

Try the same exercise in pen and ink! No, not diluting the ink with water, although

that might be interesting for another ladder.

What we must do here is to find ways of making marks with the pen that will indicate

the tones: stippling (dots and dot-like marks), hatching (fine parallel lines), cross-

hatching (lines crossing your original hatched lines at an angle.).

Since this is so much more demanding than making tones with pencil you could reduce

the steps in your ladder from 10 to 6 or 7.

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• figure-of-four (adapted from 16)

You'll need a model if possible. Use a calligraphy brush or watercolor brush, black

watercolor paint and inexpensive watercolor paper.

Look at the model and describe the surface of the body using only four tones –

darkest, medium, light and the white of the paper. This might sound difficult, until you

realize that you simply look for the shapes of the darks and lights and put them down

with the wash – the figure will then appear on the page without your further help!

As an extension of this, try using black watercolor paint for the darkest darks, umber

watercolor for the medium tones, and ochre watercolor for the lighter tones.

• 'dem dry bones' revisited

Find some large dried-out animal bones (the kind Georgia O'Keefe loved to paint) and

cover them with white acrylic paint. Arrange them on a table draped with a black

cloth, and if possible, hang more black cloth behind the set-up.

Do your studies after dark, or in a place that can be made very dark. Take a strong

lamp, and light the set-up from an angle that exposes interesting views of the bones

when you look at them through your finder.

Choose a view you like, and, applying all you now know about edges, negative spaces,

relationships and proportions, draw the shapes of the lights and shadows. Use white

chalk on black paper first. Then try charcoal on white paper.

Notice the way in which the tones of light give form to the bones. And importantly, notice

that the shapes of the shadows are determined by four things: the shape of the object, the

surface of the ground upon which the shadow falls, the direction of light, and your position

as the viewer. That may all sound obvious, but you'd be amazed how easy it is to

overlook the information provided by these little details.

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• paper bag scrunch

Another favorite set-up, devastatingly simple, is a scrunched up paper bag – white, if

possible, but brown will do fine. Place it in a position where strong daylight falls on it,

and use your finder to isolate a section of its wondrous surface.

Then draw exactly what you see.

take time to see what is really there

Have you noticed that texture is also made visible by the presence or absence of light?

Let's take a closer look at texture.

• the texture trail

You need a companion for this adventure, because you will be totally blindfolded and

your feet will be bare. Your companion will be your guide, taking you on a walk

around familiar – then unfamiliar – territory and asking you to feel and smell all the

textures en route.

Grass, stones, bricks, hedges, moss, carving, plaster, plastic, glass – how many

textures can you experience?

• texture hunt

After you return from the texture trail, start gathering up as many samples of different

textures as you can. Find natural objects with textured surfaces as well as man-made

objects. Make a texture page (or chapter) in your X-file.

• textured impressions

One of the best ways to get the feel of texture is to play with clay.

You can use any kind of clay for this – freshly dug, or borrowed from a potter.

From your collection of objects in the last activity, experiment with those that will

leave interesting marks in the clay when you press into it.

Cont …

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Make a texture sampler on a slab of rolled out clay, using a wide variety of texture

making tools.

When your sampler is dry, you can use it to experiment with frottage – making

'rubbings' – on paper. Simply lay paper over the textured impressions and rub gently

with wax crayons, charcoal, or pastels. (This might spark an idea for a frottage

composition.)

• texture eyes 1

Take a wonder-wander with a sheet of black paper (you can cover a sheet of white

paper with black paint if there's no black paper to hand), and some white chalk.

Put on your 'texture eyes' as you walk, looking for a place that is full of different

textures – woods and parks are ideal.

Settle down with your paper and the task of drawing your chosen scene (your finder

will be helpful for framing the view) without making anything but texture marks.

Notice the way simply putting down the lights and darks of textures will bring your

scene to life on the paper.

• texture eyes 2

This time take a sheet of paper that is white or tinted, and a range of colored oil

pastels.

Work in the same way as in the previous activity – limiting yourself to marks that

express texture only. No outlines! Just build up the forms by massing texture marks

and noticing the lights and the darks.

• texture and wash

Make a 'texture eyes' drawing on white paper using the colored oil pastels.

Your marks will cover the majority of the surface.

Now use watercolor washes (very diluted) to build up a background of tonal color over

your oil pastel marks. Because oil and water don't mix, the colors of your drawn

marks will be unaffected by the watercolor washes.

Try making a composition that celebrates texture for its own sake!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Our considerations of light and dark have taken us deep into the territory of tone and

texture, yet only skirted that of color. Color occupies a vast and wondrous universe,

beyond the scope of this series – although we will part the curtains and peek! What we

need to do here though, is to notice the relationship between tone and color. And the only

way to find out about this is by hands-on experimenting.

The first task is to amass a huge store of color samples, a palette with which we can play.

Ross Parmenter, in The Awakened Eye (17) says that by playing with paint-chips we can

use "color matching to heighten sensitivity to the luxurious variety of color that eludes

lazy, workaday seeing."

• paint-chip hunt (17)

Collect dozens of paint chips or color sample cards from paint supply shops. Match –

as exactly as you are able – each paint chip with an object in your environment. Any

object will do: clothing, plants, furniture, building materials, supermarket products,

magazine advertisements.

Glue the chips into your X-file and list the matching objects as well as any notes.

Were you aware of the analytical nature of color matching – "this red is slightly more

orange" … "that green is a touch too dark"… "that blue is too pale"… and so on? Welcome

to the amazing world of color, with its infinity of lights and shades! The next activity also

calls on analysis, but this time we must match tones – regardless of color hue. (Hue is the

name that describes a certain color – blue, pink, gold, for example.)

• color in collage (16)

Find a colored photograph of an interesting rural scene. Then try to replicate the

appearance of the original photo by selecting color scraps from your stockpile.

Stick the scraps onto a sheet of card.

Remember, you are only matching tones – your color scraps are not necessarily the

same hue (color) as the original.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - What does this exercise reveal about the relationship between tone and color? If you're

beginning to think that this relationship isn't as simple as ABC, this next task should

confirm your suspicions.

• ladder of light 4

Take your first ladder of light and erect another ladder beside it that consists of hues

that perfectly match the gray tones. They will not be all the same hue – you will find

out why as you proceed.

For those with an appetite for expanding their perception of color, here is a project – one

that could take weeks of wonder-full time:

• color companion

Create or purchase a special book. Call it your Color Companion.

Design a title page worthy of the gorgeous contents.

On each spread of two adjoining pages, glue in as many shades, tints and tones of one

hue (for example, blue or violet or any of the spectral hues), as you can find. Use

scraps of fabric or yarn, paint chips, cuttings from magazines, anything.

Don't try to make an image or a picture; simply collage all the pieces down.

Include colored words too, and write your own notes.

This is best thought of as a long-term project, adding more samples as you find them. You

will be creating a valuable color reference for your future work, and at the same time

learning about the luscious language of color.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

getting with the gestalt what is it that communicates the essence of a person or thing, in this moment? We met this word gestalt earlier. It's a German word without an English equivalent.

McKim suggests "organizational essence." (13) The gestalt is the patterning force that

holds the parts (forms, configurations), together, in terms of sensory imagery. Perception

inherently acts as that force, employing the strategies we have explored so far.

We have already experienced the gestalt of visual imagery on several occasions,

particularly when solving puzzles and seeking for images amongst incoherent markings.

We have noticed the way in which perception, as the force towards gestalt, seeks patterns,

looks for groupings, meaningful solutions, and how it projects information from the

archives of our cultural and genetic conditioning. McKim uses a nice analogy from music

to help define the nature of gestalt:

The example of a six-note melody [can] clarify this notion. The six notes of the melody are its parts.

With considerable freedom you can change these melodic parts without changing the melody itself.

You can, for example, change key, move up an octave, modify the rhythmic phrasing from waltz to

bossa nova. Through all these changes, the melody remains the same.

The melody is the forceful "seventh part" that holds the six-note musical phrase together.

The melody is the phrase's Gestalt. (4)

To bring some kinesthetic action into noticing and wondering, let's get out the paint pots,

roll up our sleeves, and experience the whole-body feeling of entering into gestalt. Be

aware not only of the gestalt of the image in the paint, but also the larger gestalt that

relates them to the model. "… feel with the action of the model that you are viewing, and

bring that feeling directly into the finger-paint image." (4)

• finger painting (adapted from 3, 13, and 16)

Arrange for someone to model for you, or take turns. No expertise is required.

Protect your clothing and your tables, the floor, everything.

Pour a few tablespoons of dark commercial finger-paint (or dry tempera mixed with

liquid starch) onto a large sheet of butcher paper.

Cont …

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Explore the delicious messiness of the paint for a few minutes, using both hands. Play

music. Let go.

Ask the model to take action poses: kick, reach, bend, and so on, changing every 30

seconds.

Feel the action of the model in your own body, feel what you see - feel the inherent

weight, the gravity, the movement, the direction of the pose, and then make that

feeling with your paint-smeared fingers. Begin with 20 five second poses, then do 20 x

ten second poses, working up to one minute poses. Try using both hands at once. Try

using tennis balls dipped in paint or ink. Or scrunched up paper towels.

Draw not what the object looks like, not even what it is,

but what it is doing .. Try to feel the entire thing as a unit – a unit of energy, a unit of movement. (13)

Avoid outlining the model or fussing with details. Be concerned only with basic

relationships. Move your entire hand through the center of the image, quickly and

rhythmically capturing the gestalt of the pose – nothing more.

To preserve an image, place a sheet of newsprint over the painting, rub it smoothly,

and remove a 'mono-print.'

Next time you're sitting in a café or on the beach, or in a traffic jam, try using whatever

surface is at hand to explore gestalt drawings with your fingertips.

• 'not-looking' action drawings (adapted from 13)

Now that you have the 'feel' of working with the gestalt, go back to your 'not-looking'

drawing board and make lots of 30-second drawings of the model in action using

charcoal or crayon.

Then ask your model to stay in continuous motion for 10 minutes while you draw.

You'll be choosing a new edge to caress every second or so! Try this using pen and

ink, and let your lines cover the entire sheet of paper.

And finally, try asking the model to make a tiny shift in the pose every 5 minutes or so

during a 1 hour pose. Otherwise – no movement. Your drawing will record those

subtle changes – without your conscious awareness of them.

Remember – only look at your paper when you are not drawing a line!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

revisiting intimate observation With some new perceptual strategies in hand (or eye!) you might find it interesting to go

back to the activities at the start of this book, and look at them with new eyes. Then

commit some time to the next three projects, which will enable you to put into conscious

practice your new strategies for looking.

• 10 + 10 + 10 drawings (adapted from 10)

Find a large (at least A4 size) photograph that contains interesting information and

contrasts. Using your finder, roam over it and find ten views that you like.

Do ten drawings, one for each view. They should each be the same size as the whole

photo. You can use whatever mark-maker you like, but try to resist erasing. Look

carefully and put down what you see, even if it looks strange.

Now take the ten drawings you have made, and use your finder on each one to find

one view per drawing that interests you.

Draw that view. You will have one new drawing from each of the originals – ten

drawings, each being the full size of the photograph.

Repeat the last step, using your finder to locate one view from each drawing in the

second set.

Draw those views as before. You have made thirty drawings.

Lay them out on the floor, and write some notes in your X-file, referring to the

strategies for looking and how you were able to sense yourself using those strategies

as you worked.

Write down anything else you noticed about the process of becoming further and

further removed from the 'real' picture.

Did you feel yourself projecting things onto the drawings? Or did you feel more attuned to

the now abstract configurations, sensing angles and textures and tones, rather than things

with labels? (Keep these drawings safe for later use.)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There is an exercise I've learned lately, and that is to be quiet and look at an object or space directly ahead of you.

Keep a soft focus and also allow your attention to reach past your peripheral vision, left and right.

All of these directions – front, right, left, above – being looked at with a kind of diffuseness. You try to have a clear moment when you are empty and open to things around you.

You see them new – your vision is cleansed and you can make contact with what is really there,

uncluttered by old thoughts and prejudices.

Always be ready to see what you haven't seen before. It's a kind of looking where you don't know what you're looking for. (10)

• befriend a native neighbor (10)

For ten minutes a day look at a plant that is native to your area.

Write about the plant in your X-file for fifteen minutes every day, describing visual

details, the feel, the fragrance, and the sound made when the wind blows through it.

Do ten drawings each day of the leaves or other foliage and ten drawings each day of

the whole plant.

This is a wonderful way to combat the habitual.

It is also the way to find yourself falling in love with the world. Imagine what a different

relationship we would have with the mundane objects of our daily lives if we spent time

quietly with each one, doing the above activity?

That is precisely what the masters of Zen painting would do – they called it painting the

ten thousand things, and they delighted especially in drawing and painting common

vegetables, such as pumpkins and leeks. In this Zen-like activity, make the acquaintance

of another common plant – a dandelion.

• the de-light-full dandelion (10)

Look at a dandelion as it first begins to push up its stalk. Make a drawing.

A few days later look at it again as it begins to make a bud. Make another drawing.

A few days later draw it in full bloom.

When it begins to wilt, make another drawing.

When it develops its downy crown, draw it again.

Cont …

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Write about the experience of being so intimately present with a live being, a plant, as

it moved through its life cycle.

And – anything else that needs writing about.

Our explorations so far have concentrated on the world 'out there,' the world external to

our bodies, the world as experienced by our ordinary senses. We have noticed, however,

that "there is more to seeing than meets the eye." (2) How do we explain the way that

two, or six, or seventy people will each make such different drawings of a single subject?

How do we explain the way that our own drawings of the same subject will never be

identical, and will change significantly from day to day? Readers interested in these

questions and their implications for creative work will find that the Bibliography in notes &

anecdotes contains books that could be worth dipping into.

Perhaps the mystery of what is actually 'going on' in our brains and bodies as we interact

with the world by way of our perceptual capacities will forever remain an enigma – an

enigma ever-receding from our wondering minds. What does seem apparent is that the

relationship between ourselves as observers and that which we observe is an inextricable

one. It cannot be severed at any level, in spite of all our efforts to be 'individuals.' Alan

Watts writes:

From the viewpoint of your eyes your own head seems to be an invisible blank, neither dark nor light,

standing immediately behind the nearest thing you see.

But in fact the whole field of vision 'out there in front' is a sensation in the lower back of your head, where the optical centers of the brain are located.

What you see out there is, immediately, how the inside of your head 'looks' or 'feels'.

So too, everything that you hear, touch, taste and smell is some kind of vibration interacting with your brain, which translates that vibration into what you know as light, color, sound, hardness,

roughness, saltiness, heaviness, or pungence.

Apart from your brain, all these vibrations would be like the sound of one hand clapping, or of sticks playing on a skinless drum.

Apart from your brain, or some brain, the world is devoid of light, heat, weight, solidity, motion,

space, time, or any other imaginable feature.

All these phenomena are interactions, or transactions, of vibrations with a certain arrangement of neurons.

Thus vibrations of light and heat from the sun do not actually become light or heat until they interact

with a living organism …

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In other words, it 'takes two' to make anything happen. (17) It takes two to make anything happen. Observers and what they observe, particles and

waves, yin and yang, space and object, light and shade. And it takes two kinds of seeing

to move from copying, or even innovating and inventing, into the action of creation.

Every incoming image is met with an outgoing one, and at the meeting place of the two,

odd things happen. We have noted that often those outgoing projections are the product

of our cultural and genetic conditioning, but that sometimes there seems to be more at

work. Sometimes we are astonished at the rich and often fantastic imagery generated

from some source within ourselves; perhaps it reminds us of the realms of dreams and

fantasies.

To explore that font of inner imagery we need to use different senses – senses that are a

little uncommon. outside-in & inside-out, the next e-book in this series, offers some

ideas about doing just that.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - references 1 Franck, Frederick (1973) The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation. (New York:

Vintage/Random House) 2 Edwards, Betty (1986) Drawing on the Artist Within. (New York: Collins) 3 Krishnamurti, J. (1978) Krishnamurti's Notebook. (New York: Harper and Row Perennial) 4 McKim, Robert H. (1972) Experiences in Visual Thinking. 2nd ed. (Monterey, Ca:

Brookes/Cole) 5 Cameron, Julia (1992) The Artist's Way. (New York: Tarcher/Perigee) 6 Chopra, Deepak (1993) Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. (London: Rider) 7 Bohm, David, & Peat, F. David (1987) Science, Order and Creativity. (New York: Bantam

Books) 8 Milner, Marion (1987) Eternity's Sunrise. (London: Virago Press) 9 Packer, Toni, quoted in Bancroft, Ann (1989) Weavers of Wisdom. (London: Arcana) 10 Kent, Corita, & Steward, Jan (1992) Learning by Heart. (New York: Bantam New Age) 11 Nicolaides, Kimon (1941) The Natural Way to Draw. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin) 12 Tworkov, Jack, quoted in Moorehouse, Paul (1998) Albert Irvin (London: Lund Humphries) 13 Kaupelis, Robert (1992) Experimental Drawing. (New York: Watson-Guptill) 14 Wilde, Judith, & Wilde, Richard (1991) Visual Literacy. (New York: Watson-Guptill) 15 Bohm, David (1996) On Dialogue. (London: Routledge) 16 Cooper, Douglas (1992) Drawing and Perceiving 2nd ed. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold) 17 Parmenter, R. The Awakened Eye. (Wesleyan University Press. Quoted in (3) above) 18 Watts, Alan (1973) The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. (London: Abacus)

FAIR USE NOTICE This document may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my attempt to share understanding of, and promote inquiry into, the workings of human perception and its relationship to creative thinking and artisanship. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those whose interest in the subject is for research and non-commercial educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html. If you wish to use any copyrighted material from this paper for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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