Each drawing event at the Cube has come with a different set of weather conditions, there have been greyish days and days punctuated by the most brilliant light, there have been cloudscapes and wind whipped, rain damp streets, there has been the scurry of feet and the rustle of leaves. The landscape is fairly flat and on a grey day it's hard to pick out landmarks. It has been interesting to see how people respond to the views on offer, some feel "where is the drama, where is the spectacle, this is just boring", but those who know the area have no difficulty in picking out just what is special to them.
This little girl started drawing lines because Carole had asked people to make one line drawing of the view from a window. The space seemed so vast, simple lines seemed the best response, once she noticed the pebble and sedum growing out on the roof she began to relax and enjoy herself.
Do not fail, as you go on, to draw something everyday, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worthwhile, and it will do you the world of good. - Cennini
What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. - Vincent van Gogh, "The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother"
Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.- Keith Haring
Becky enjoyed drawing in the Cube on Saturday so much that she came back again with a friend
Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods.- Henri Matisse
The essence of drawing is the line exploring space - Andy Goldsworthy
From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs, but all I have done before the the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At a hundred I shall be a marvelous artist. At a hundred and ten everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokosai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.' - Hokusai, The Drawings of Hokosai
One of the things we felt would be really important about the Family Drawing Days would be to encourage the parents who came with their children to stay and draw with them - there were plenty of sofas set back from the drawing tables and it would have been mighty tempting to settle down, sit back and chat adult to adult.
When these two family groups arrived the mothers were going to do just that, but Carole asked them to sit with their children, even if they felt that they had no ability to draw. Carole said that sitting and creating together would be something that they could all enjoy and would remember as a really happy time in the future.
Initially the Mums were unconvinced, but who can resist the allure of taking time for yourself and a box of gorgeous new pencils - Carole encouraged them to forget the scary white paper, to forget the critical teacher of the past and remember the childhood joy of making your mark.
Good drawing takes a lifetime practise, as Hokusai states in the quote above, but you can't improve if you don't plunge in and make a start! At the end of the session everyone felt that they had had the best time and the Mum's were glad they had joined in rather than sat back.
Andrew Rushton, who was helping to document the events of they day is also a well known face at The Ferrers Specialist Arts College, was taken by surprise when some former students appeared in the Cube. He's caught them here at the top of the Cube's spiral staircase.
To draw, you must close your eyes and sing. (Pablo Picasso)
Before you are able to draw, you have to learn to see, and you learn to see by drawing. (Mick Maslen)
I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing. (Vincent van Gogh)
I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.- Frederick Franck, " The Zen of Seeing"
When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, 'You mean they forget?' (Howard Ikemoto)
I know I draw without taking my pen off the page. I just keep going, and that my drawings I think of them as scribbles. I don't think they mean anything to anybody except to me, and then at the end of the day, the end of the project, they wheel out these little drawings and they're damn close to what the finished building is and it's the drawing... (Frank Gehry)
Photographs by Carole Miles and Andrew Rushton
For more quotes by artists on drawing follow this link and this one
