Exercise 4.1: Description and Depiction

In this exercise, I was asked to consider how words interact with pictures and enhance the meaning of observational drawing. I had to draw four equally sized boxes in my sketchbook, pick a scene to draw, and approach capturing it in four different ways:

1. Write about the scene in detail
2. Use words in place of drawings so that the location of the words is where I would have drawn a picture
3. Draw the scene simply using only pictures 
4. Combine both drawing and words

I have commented several times on the usage of text in sketchbooks and how I’d like to get better at incorporating this into my work. During the visual diaries research task, I noticed that I was especially drawn to artists who used a lot of words among drawings in their pages, and I enjoyed experimenting with this in the fill it up fast exercise. I hoped that this exercise focusing on using words would help me open up some options for using text in my sketchbook. I began by drawing out the four boxes, adding some lines for text in the first box, and drawing some simple spatial lines in the other three. I then found a video of a scene from the YouTube channel I found during Exercise 3.2 to work from.

This process felt more like one of refinement than of learning how to use words. By the time I reached the final drawing, I knew what was important to me in the image and what I wanted to capture. I wasn’t sure how to use words to do this, so I just expressed what I was thinking, as I want to do in my sketchbooks in general. I also found it helpful to write the detailed description in the first box as it forced me to really take in everything in the scene and consider things I maybe wouldn’t have considered otherwise. I liked the process of thinking of how I would describe what I was seeing to someone who wasn’t there, and it made me feel more interested in drawing what was around me.

The unit guide asked me some questions about the exercise:

Which approaches did you enjoy, and which will you take forward from this task?

I enjoyed writing the detailed description, but I don’t think I would physically write like this again. I would like to consciously sit and consider what I’m looking at, though, and maybe make some rough notes on what is visually interesting and what I would want to point out if I was describing it. I think this helps with choosing content and figuring out what to draw. I also want to continue writing my thoughts down when working.

What happened when words and images interacted; did they reinforce or play off against each other?

I’m not sure how I feel about their interaction. I think they express more about what I am feeling, thinking, and experiencing than of the space I’m in. At the beginning of this exercise, it was asked, ‘How much of your own presence in the experience do you think comes through in your drawing?’ and I think, ordinarily, not much. My style and visual interests come through, but my experience is missing, and the words add this. This is why I’m keen to add my thoughts to my work – it contextualises pieces.

Did describing the scene using words first affect the way you drew afterwards?

Yes, in that it helped me find what was visually interesting. But I also found myself a little frustrated as what I was drawing was a very small portion of what I had described and what I could see. It could easily have been multiple drawings of different interesting parts of the scene. I think I would’ve felt more satisfied with that.

This exercise didn’t quite help in the ways I had anticipated, nor did it launch me into always writing in my sketchbook alongside drawings. But, I think it has given me a push in that direction – and some encouragement in the worth of doing so. I need to build it into my sketchbooking habits over time. I did, however, get a lot out of the questions posed, and it gave me a lot to think about.