Drawing as meditation

Drawing is the practice of seeing, not looking; it is the practice of focus and observation.

Drawing is also the practice of trying to understand what you are looking at. That might sound weird but the act of drawing has the effect of slowing down time and slowing your thinking process too. 

Think of some object or building that you see, use or pass every day. Maybe it is your motorbike, maybe your favourite chair or the local bakery. Now imagine stopping and drawing that thing for an hour.............................. 

 As you analyse its shapes and proportions you may start to see it differently. As you try to describe the textures and tones by making different marks with your pencils, you may begin to feel differently about it. 

As you draw, you may begin to discover how you actually feel about this thing or what kind of relationship you have with it. That may also sound weird, but these are the possibilities that open up to you as you draw.

Drawing is most rewarding when you are experiencing a state of flow; of existing in the moment. Flow is that state we achieve when we are completely immersed in an activity and are focused on that alone.

Through this immersion into the act of drawing regularly, of creating drawing after drawing, the artist soon forms a trail of understanding. Just pick up an artist’s sketchbook and walk through the searches, detours, dead ends, and discoveries to see that drawing is a personal journey more than a technical production. John Berger, author of 'Ways of Seeing' confirms, “A drawing is an autobiographical record of one’s discovery of an event – seen, remembered or imagined.”

The human being is a sentient conduit that transforms the subject into an arrangement of lines which are as much about feeling as about representation. What you draw is what you feel; this is very revealing and enlightening. It can be frightening and frustrating too.

Warning - drawing will reveal your weaknesses. Any honest endeavour will do that whether you are trying to learn to play the flute or to improve your golf swing. 

Trust that this is a good thing.
Know that it is only revealed to you.
Believe that you are heading for a better place because of it.

• The discipline of drawing is a painfully wonderful practice. Over time, it has the potential to create more than great works of art; it can create great artists. Lashing ourselves to the sheet of paper, through a humble pencil, locates our focus on the transference of visual information between the drawing and that which is being drawn. We become the bridge, reaching across the expanse and bringing back, recording with each stroke what has been seen. Doing this enough times will change you. I am not waxing hyperbolic when I say that drawing is a transformational activity. Navigating the space between the drawing and the thing-which-is-drawn means we form a relationship with both. This cultivates an outer and inner awareness of the world we inhabit. Through drawing, we don’t just notice – we see.    Tim Parsley

Our drawings, then, are the evidence of our looking. They are the trail left by our journey. Or, as Peter Steinhart puts it in his book, The Undressed Art: Why We Draw:

“It is not the finished drawing that counts. It is the time spent outside oneself, of which the drawing is merely a record, the ticket stub in your pocket after the concert.”