9 Students from The fine Arts department gathered for a workshop on Drawing and Thinking for an approximate period of 5 hours.

First exercise – Respond to the recent news of the discovery of the black hole.

3 of them had not heard of the news and browsed on the net before drawing their thoughts.

In this exercise, an existing, recent memory is there. The event of the first black hole image was recently revealed. It is not a personal, distant memory. I feel a wider choice could have been given as recent news to respond to.

Second exercise – Create a sequence of drawings in the sketchbook where we see a transition of thought.

In this exercise, we could see a peak period, a shift from seeing from the mind to observing the environment around us, to exploring a question in different directions. Each person required time to explain the concept behind each sketch. The drawer and others could identify the peak period in the sketches.

This exercise held tightly between observation and something imagined.

Third exercise – Through conversation on what we were drawing, the third exercise evolved. It was about exploring the concept of

1. Zoom in / Zoom out
2. Vantage Point
3. New points of perspective

The sketches explored going into a thought and seeing, imagining new possibilities. There was lot of contradiction as what seemed zoomed in could be seen as zoomed out. The strength of the exercise was the conversation as it led to one challenging the concept of the other or responding to one’s particular sketch.

Example: Student A responded to the book, flatland where everything is in two dimensions with drawings. The conversation on this led to Student B creating a new vantage point, which challenged the concept of the 2D world created by Student A.

Observation:

1. How the concept of a peak drawing, a level of satisfaction, points of failure were understood.
2. How the concept of drawing on paper and training of the mind to draw were understood. In this case, an introduction was made to Processing application and an animated line through coding. Drawing on the I PAD and drawing with a pen on Photoshop software.