Drawing and the design process

Introduction

In teaching a product design course, I was concerned by the lack of drawing skills. I decided to examine the current deficienciesof art education and take action to correct what I found to be neglected. The result is the offer of a framework of knowledge to augment and animate the student’s intuition.

The following topics are discussed: Gradual decline in education for drawing Building a practice The process of drawing

Adapting the drawing process for product design

The evolution of Greek sculpture, source of so much classical thought, coupled with the research of the Scottish educational theorists Jan Meyer and Ray Land provided the inspiration for this analysis.

The transformation in sculpting from the prevailing stylised Kouros figure to the anatomically observed Kritos boy is separated by roughly sixty years. In the Kouros figure the artist has incised or drawn the anatomical features onto the form. By contrast Kritos boy is all convexities; his chest seemingly filled with air. In a draughtsman’s development, this leap forward in drawing from incising to expressing volume, is also a pivotal stage or ‘threshold’. Jan Meyer and Ray Land in their study ‘Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge’ describe theirconcept of a threshold:

“It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which thelearner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view.” (Meyer & Land, 2003, p1)

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Figure 1 Egyptian (left), Greek Kouros figure (centre) and Kritos boy (right)

The gradual decline in education for drawing: Atrophy of drawing skills

Today, through the neglect of drawing in art and design schools, we have lost touch with the most powerful tool in the ‘inventive tool box’. Drawing is reflected in the design process so directly, that learning to draw ought to be seen as a practical rehearsal of the design process.

Drawing has been undermined by converging forces; suffering from the advent of photography and more recently the computer age. However, the shift of art and design schools to university curricula has done more damage and this needs to be examined. What was seen as vocational or craft training has been wound downas universities have supplemented the curriculum with theory and criticism. Where universities have employed the modular system, they frequently advertise a wide choice of advanced courses whichare unlikely to run due to the lack of numbers. Students tend toavoid advanced drawing classes as they feel unprepared and fear they will not achieve sufficiently to support their grade averages. Thus, the atrophy of drawing training in Higher Education is further undermined where difficult knowledge is seenas a barrier to learning and as a result the curriculum suffers. Meyer and Land refer to this in their article where they

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interview diverse departments investigating the need for studentsto navigate ‘conceptual thresholds’ in their studies.

“Veterinary Sciences, informed us that where students encountered severe conceptual difficulty such areas of the curriculum were quietly dropped. In this sense the conceptual thresholds served to trim the parameters of the curriculum.” (Meyer and Land, 2003, p5)

Current drawing classes emphasize expressive quality, where once practical and empirical knowledge, such as the study of anatomy, provided the basis for scientific enquiry in art and design. Clearly, the ultimate goal is expressive invention, but this willonly be fully engaged when the student has a fundamental vocabulary to ‘play with’.

Decline in education: Practice requires time

Given that the practice of drawing is severely curtailed, teaching in this subject area must make efficient use of limited time allocated. Accelerated learning of drawing strategies can be introduced, recognized and practiced but the necessary deeper learning through habitual practice is no longer sustained. Such lack of sufficient practice to work intuitively means that students may ‘know’ the theory without being able to implement its practice.

The intuitive, subconscious ability is the enduring road to invention. Bruner’s ‘spiral of learning’ (based on the idea of returning to a subject repeatedly until a deeper understanding can be sustained), suggests that by engaging the subconscious through playing intuitively, we engage and stimulate that part ofthe brain involved in invention (Clabaugh, 2009). Robert BeverlyHale, revered teacher and author of several books on drawing and artistic anatomy explains:

“Drawing is like studying Greek and Piano – you can’t speak or play in your conscious, which is clumsy.

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You must get it into your subconscious, which is graceful. But that takes time.” (Hale 1983, p 15)

Decline in education: Teaching

Where conceptually based contemporary art was championed at the expense of handing on practical and empirical knowledge, specialist skills atrophied and we lost the interpreters of the field. Their students remember part of what was emphasized but can no longer assemble the whole story or framework. Concepts such as the contrapposto stance in classical figure drawing have been so stripped of meaning that the student can be forgiven for doubting its significance. Jerome Bruner, the educational psychologist, emphasized the need for the student to ‘understand the structure of the subject being studied’ (G.K.Calabaugh 2009)

Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education in the United Kingdom noted teachers’ anxiety when coaching drawing:

“Drawing can take many forms, can be used for a range of purposes and can be taught. It is an aspect of learning frequently returned to by artists throughout their lives. However, many of the primary school teachers surveyed lacked confidence in drawing. This detracted from their effectiveness as teachers and from their pupils’ achievements. This raises concerns about the limited professional development opportunities provided to help primary teachers overcome their fear of drawing.” (Ofsted p.14)

Such lack of confidence is not limited to primary school teachers; most drawing teachers working today received inadequateguidance in their studies.

Building a strong enduring practice: Diverse strategies

Unlike dance or music training where the students begin their preparation at a young age, within a disciplined environment (necessary to prevent injury and lay a foundation for the development of a life’s work), drawing today is set apart by being a solitary, self-guided activity in childhood. As a resultthese self-taught students are often overly dependent on the use of ‘outline’ and it is surprising to realize proficient students are also the most reluctant to attempt new strategies, due

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naturally to their considerable investment in a personal method. They are more attached and thus more limited by their approach.

For students to advance, it is necessary to work outside their comfort zone and witness the value of assimilating diverse approaches to drawing. Kinaesthetic or tactile based exercises are offered to stretch the learner’s method. Those with linear drawing skills struggle with kinaesthetic drawing exercises, where the form is built up tonally as if modeling with clay (fig.3). Students lacking linear skills, grasp kinesthetic exercises more readily. If these two approaches are not persuasively imposed, students will choose one and leave the other undeveloped, effectively crippling their own progress.

Such difficulties need to be shared and struggled over openly. If identified as ‘thresholds’, they present a challenge and signal an approaching level of achievement. Otherwise the student is left to quietly absorb and judge their difficulty as a personal failure.

Figure 3 Kinesthetic drawing exercise Source: Nicolaides, K. (1941, p 38)

Practice: Observation and analysis

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Meyer and Land in their research on threshold concepts offered a number of disciplinary observations with which to compare teaching experience. One of the more meaningful passages near the end of the article was provided by an unnamed economics interviewee:

“We have to instill in students a kind of acceptance of modeling… You get them to formulate, if not explicitly at least implicitly, some kind of formal analytical structure or model that simplifies things but then allows someone to think through a problem in a very structured way… [students] don’t see the link between them and the real world they tend to put models into one box and then the discussion about the policy issues in another box. They don’t necessarily see that the two must be linked.” (Meyer and Land, 2003, p.11)

A vital concern in teaching drawing is getting students to see the link between the analytical model and their observations in the real world. When integrating the constructed approach (expressing volume and function) with the observational drawing, students are inclined to protest: ‘do you want me to draw what I see or what I know?’  Of course the answer is both and eventuallywe hope their drawing will be inspired by what they feel. This ‘integration’ of perception and knowledge is one of the major hurdles or threshold concepts confronted by the student draughtsman. 

Practice: Tackling complexity at an elementary level to support intuition

By removing the stress and anxiety about how to draw from the students’ practice we are able to encourage intuition. Learners may tackle complexities of a drawing strategy at an elementary level by performing warm up exercises to provide the much needed playful and intuitive element. These warm ups also present an opportunity to go through the motions prior to introducing the more challenging structural element of the second stage. In thisway students experience a degree of achievement in intuitive use of the drawing tool / media and an insight to the process of construction.

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Practice: Declarative versus procedural Demonstrating procedure can be a challenge. It raises questions of generosity and limitation in the tutor’s own performance. Onefrequent objection involves the learners’ tendency to mimic theirinstructor’s approach. This objection has more to do with anxiety over our own inadequacy, rather than concern over students’ individuality. Looking back at successful artists, early work usually reflects their learned process, prior to a personal artistic breakthrough. The positive, real value of demonstration is seeing how something can be done, offering up further possibilities, rather than limiting the student. Often just witnessing how a movement is executed provides the learner with an approach, attitude or way of behaving at the drawing board. As a result they are less tentative, becoming more workman-like in their efforts. Without a ‘way’ of working, the development of their individuality and work ethic and is limited to random fortunate accidents. Writing about demonstration in teaching Richard H. Van Eck states:

“This is the same kind of distinction that is implied by declarative vs. procedural. Declarative knowledge is akin to verbal information-- it is things that you can state aloud. Thisis NOT the same as being able to DEMONSTRATE it. This view of learning and human performance is very effective precisely because it explicitly defines and makes visible what ALL good instruction has done since we first began teaching. By making these things explicit, everyone has the opportunity to use and apply them.” (Van Eck, 2006)

The good news for teachers is that it is unnecessary to produce highly developed drawings to provide a useful demonstration. Simply by showing the basic hold of the drawing tool and the fundamental motions of a given drawing strategy are sufficient togive the students a ‘way in’ to the task.

The process of drawing: Finding a framework

Although students excel at quick gesture drawing, sustaining a longer work is more difficult. There seems to be an echo of thisdifficulty in the design process where the student leaps to a fully formed idea prematurely, rather than wrestling with work bygoing through the process. Where the student is encouraged to make adjustments to their work and the piece is subsequently abandoned, with the student showing an entirely new work for

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final assessment, is a familiar scenario and issue in higher education. In drawing this is usually the result of ignorance ofa process.   

Sustaining a long duration work is demanding since the student must begin to put together the stages which make up the process. The tendency to abandon a drawing

rather than adjusting the existing work is a common weakness thatseparates the beginner from a more advanced student.   In drawing, the failure of a work is often the result of the beginner starting with no workable overview or framework. Without this, they proceed to make an inventory of all visible detail (and no sense of priority), at the expense of unity, rhythm and proportion.  Such work usually comes to a halt when the outline has been heavily reinforced, effectively shutting down opportunity for ambiguity. 

In this case the student has been too declarative too early, thusforced into a premature finish.  As the resulting drawing is embarrassingly flat, of doubtful proportions and somewhat rigid, understandably the student is keen to abandon the work.  However,if the drawing can be softened with simple adjustments made by the instructor and provisos imposed, such as: develop the framework, avoid detail and address the focal points and implied line (or underlying abstract), the work will be successfully salvaged.   

While the beginner leaps to the end of the process omitting the authentic exploration needed to support a solid design, the experienced student wrestles with the process, understanding that such struggle provokes creative ideas. Thomas Hetherwick, designer of the flaming caldron for the London Olympics addressesthis issue:

“At the root of what we do is rationality … finding a design solution is like solving a crime. We’re a bit like an investigative team. We analyse. We explore lines of inquiry. Then we eliminate things until we’re left with the solution. Only very occasionally do we go: 'Aha, that’s it!’” Sooke, A (May 2012)

The process: Deferring attention to detail

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Another key stumbling block is students’ habitual attraction to detail. This difficulty is common to other disciplines, drawing is not alone. A surgeon attending night school commented on my frequent reminders for the class to stand at arm’s length from their easels. He recognised this as a familiar problem with students in dissection class, who gradually leaned closer and closer to their work, effectively losing sight of the whole. Instructors at the Glasgow Infirmary were obliged to wind the dissection table down to knee level, forcibly creating the necessary distance for students view their work in context. Keeping an overview distance from work is central to learning.

Students incorrectly assume that a good drawing must be perfect from the start and are easily discouraged when their initial effort is awkward or contrived. It is essential to demonstrate how the initial lines of a drawing are the hypothesis, nothing more, and will disappear under the weight of the developing work. Once the sense of form has evolved, it can be reviewed and adjustments made in order that the drawing may advance with some coherence. Thus a more workman like approach is cultivated in tandem with the capacity to acquire aesthetic sensibility. Instead of itemizing every detail, students become selective. Their focus shifts to reinforcing what is meaningful and significant in their work.

These fundamental issues are more easily faced and surmounted in drawing than in other specialised areas of design.   In drawing, the design process is easily and efficiently rehearsed.

The process: Measurement and its place in the process

There are two approaches to setting up a drawing. One is relianton measurement and the other uses measurement in support of the drawing.  Where measurement is primary, every step in the work isinterrupted by checking. As a result the over-all flow is impeded.  Where measurement is secondary and the drawing is suggested in a general sense, much as a hypothesis is proposed, the work is more speculative and therefore capable of evolved advancement.

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This freer beginning is easily seen in a sport such as fencing.  Where the fencer is unsure of an adversary’s ability, they initiate a skirmish; getting a feel for the opponent, before attacking and subsequently leaving themselves open to attack. Similarly, in a beginner’s drawing the tendency to ‘attack’ or betoo declarative at the outset, frequently undermines the work.  The more experienced student will avoid hard lines, favouring fluid, uncertain, stray lines which over time coalesce and are emphasized where necessary.

An indefinite approach is effective in capturing authentic character and contributing to the second stage of the drawing process: the framework, when knowledge is integrated with observation to achieve structure and coherence.  Where the freehand stage of the drawing has energy and vigour, the construction stage provides a basis for ongoing development of the drawing, supporting appraisal and revision.  At this point measurement makes its contribution.

Throughout the process it is imperative to guard against distracting premature attention to detail.  All refinements contribute to the overview at the same time that they yield definition to the parts.  In this way we are looking for the larger relationships, for the harmony and rhythm of the parts in relation to the whole.  By developing the work in stages we are always increasing (rather than shutting down) the possible range of actions that will advance the drawing.

The process: analysis (seeing beneath the surface)

Overall, the intention is to realize the higher purpose of drawing, to move the student on from observational and imitation,on to analysis and invention. And to offer ways by which the student can perform at this level. Drawing from nature provides the student with a special form of seeing, a visual intelligence. Eckart Forster in his essay ‘Goethe’s Spinozism’ cites Goethe’s responseto this deep seeing, discovered while he was drawing plant forms:

“That my thinking is not separate from its objects; that the elements of the object, the perception of the object, flow into my thinking and are fully permeated by it; that my perception itself is a thinking, and my thinking a perception.” (Forster, E. 2012, p.96)

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The architect Gaudi, known for his morphology using nature stated‘This tree near my workshop is my teacher.’ (fig. 4) Similar statements were made by Leonardo da Vinci, about whom it has beensaid, that his greatest invention was his body of anatomical drawings. This deep seeing or analysis is not about copying surface detail but looks for purpose, function, meaning and understanding.

Figure 4 Casa Batllo Source: Lahuerta, J and Vivas, P (2003, p 233)

Adapting the drawing process for product design

To engage students with the design process a project, aptly entitled ‘Evolution’ was introduced, requiring the assembly of a folio of drawings and a collection of 3D sketch models. Initially students practiced drawing simple fruit and vegetable forms before moving to greater complexity. The project began in earnest with the distribution of human bones from Glasgow University’s School of Anatomy. Each student was supplied a human joint as a source for their drawings, in preparation for model making

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based on their chosen joint’s action. The brief was very clear that there would be no ‘finished’ final model. The following stages were set up to encourage students to wrestle with their ideas and avoid forcing a premature finish.

Observation drawing: Initially a beginner needs to work without self-judgment to avoid inhibition. ‘Gesture drawing’ is practiced as a warm up and its aesthetic value is found in the early indication of flow, rhythm and implied line. Although eachof the drawing strategies can be performed at a basic level, in amore advanced hand they can drive the aesthetic.

Analytical drawing: The most effective freehand strategy to forecast the third dimension is ‘Cross contour drawing’. Here the internal contours are used to imply volume. This strategy ismost applicable to inventive drawing.

Simplification: By the use of planar studies students make the first step in abstraction, to support their model making. Simplification is also used to clarify function in the joint, by examining and drawing the articulating surfaces.

At this stage in the process a number of students insisted they had committed to a final design and were drawing up specifications for their 3D model. These students had to be persuaded to engage with the struggle of producing more work, rather than settling for a premature finish.

Drawing from memory to stimulate modification: After the first session in the workshop making sketch models, students were askedto put away the models and draw them from memory. They were encouraged to make some modification to their remembered work. Eventually they were able to modify their original model more freely as ideas occurred to them. Here was the first step into speculative drawing.

In addition, creative interventions were used to stimulate speculative drawing. Students were given cards with suggestions as to how they might transform their original form such as

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flatten, rotate, slice, zoom, invert and break apart to reassemble.

Further diversions were introduced to spur on the project and provide some relief and fun. As an example of ‘flattening form’,students were asked to design a logo, using their anatomical joint, based on the Tsuba (a Japanese sword’s hand guard). Here, the students were able to take the work to a degree of finish.

Group work: To help students break up their solitary practice, the class was encouraged to work in small groups. They enjoyed the diversions which were a source of healthy competition and gradually the students themselves began to recycle the process. Using the shared language of the drawing strategies, they were able to encourage each other’s efforts and share suggestions for the potential development of their individual projects. In short, they began to play. By having established a routine practice they had found a way to work, a work ethic.

Jerome Bruner’s ideas of ‘Scaffolding’ and his ‘Spiral Curriculum’ have described this process, his thoughts are most appropriate to drawing where the ability to ‘play’ is fundamentalto the design process.

“One of the three major considerations in the ‘Process of Education’ deals with the structure of knowledge. Bruner maintains that the important things to learn involve how an ideaor discipline is put together. “The idea that in teaching a subject you begin with an “intuitive” account that is well within the reach of a student, and then circle back later to a more formal or highly structured account, until, with however many more recyclings are necessary, the learner has mastered thetopic or subject in its full generative power.” (Jerome Bruner’sEducational Theory, G.K.Calabaugh editor 2009)

In their conclusion Meyer and Land introduce Palmer’s concept of ‘liminality’ describing this state as follows:

“Difficulty in understanding threshold concepts may leave the learner in a state of liminality (Latin limen: ‘threshold’), a suspended state in which understanding approximates to a kind ofmimicry or lack of authenticity.” (Meyer, 2003: p10)

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This state is often a necessary interval in the training of an artist / designer, a plateau which can release a stage of rigorous activity using the above strategies to drive the work forward. Unfortunately, students see their ‘lack of authenticity’, (particularly damning in art), as confirmation of failure and concede defeat prematurely. But Bruner would suggestthis is just the beginning, the opportunity to learn through rigorous practice and ‘evolve through active experience’ (G.K.Calabaugh editor 2009).

Once we begin to apply what is known as a framework to what we see, perception joins with knowledge to support intuitive response. Finally, in the third stage the student’s understanding of form allows them to work inventively, challenging both structure and perception and embracing the inevitable revisions. Herein, craft becomes art, as in Robert Beverly Hale’s succinct verse:

“First we draw what we see; then we draw what we know; finally we see what we know.” (Hale 1983, p 48)

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References

Clabaugh, G.K. Ed. (2009) Jerome Bruner’s Educational Theory. (Online)

Available at : http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Bruner.html Accessed: 1 January 2010.

Forster, E, and Melamed, Y (2012) Spinoza and German Idealism. Cambridge University Press Hale, R.B. (1991) Master Class in Figure Drawing Watson and Guptill Publications. New York

Lahuerta, J. and Vivas, P. (2003) Casa Batllo Gaudi Triangle Postals Barcelona

Meyer, J. and Land, R. (2003) Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge:

Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practicing within the Disciplines. Universities of Edinburgh, Coventry and Durham.

Nicolaides, K. (1941) The Natural Way to Draw. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, Massachusetts

Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted 2005) Drawing Together: art, craft and design in schools. Available at: www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/080245

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Sooke A., S (31 Jul 2012) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art- features/9285796/ Thomas-Heatherwick-Design-is-like-solving-a-crime.html

Van Eck, Richard (2006) Implicit vs. explicit and declarative vs.procedural Department of Teaching & Learning, University of North Dakota (online) Available at: http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2006/09/implicit-vs-explicit-and- declarative.html Accessed: 8 March 2010.

May 2015 C.A. Bowles

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