Come draw with me at the Nasher Museum!

This is an open invitation to join my three-session drawing series at the Nasher Museum at Duke University this September.  We will meet at the museum on the successive Saturdays of September 12, 19, and 26 from 10:00 to noon. There will be drawing materials provided, but feel free also to bring your own sketchbooks, paper, pencils and other dry drawing utensils. If you have not yet registered, please contact Alex Deyneka, education assistant at the Nasher ([email protected]) or call 919 684 9244.

Welcome to the world of drawing. If you are not a beginner, welcome back!  You might be unaware of it, but there is at present a worldwide movement about drawing, a veritable tsunami of drawing and drawers. When you pick up a pencil or pen or crayon, you are participating in this global phenomenon. I don’t know about you, but I find great energy and excitement in this knowledge. Drawing connects in so many ways. This connection is one of my chief themes as an artist and I have a lot to say about it.

You may not care about worldwide drawing currents and that is fine. You are welcome to ignore this phenomenon… but you will still benefit from it, if you choose to, in several ways. There are many, many books now published on drawing and sketching and lots of online and real life drawing groups. Because of the popularity of drawing now, there are more and more kinds of drawing tools available to buy. So there is lots of inspiration out there, lots of support for those of us who draw, and, yes, lots of ways to spend money on art supplies!

This kind of connection among many, many people is one thing.

The other key kind of connection is between you and the object/person/animal...in our case, the work of art... you are drawing. This is the I-thou connection, Entity (you) and Entity (the drawn Other), meeting in time, on paper. There is no reason to feel daunted when you set out to draw even a great masterpiece. For those moments when you are in its presence, responding to it with what is within you, you are peers. You give yourself to it. It becomes, for this experience, yours.

And for me, there’s still another form of connection, and that is to the energy that pervades the universe, connecting us all.  I believe that when we draw (and paint, sculpt, write, build, plant) we have the opportunity to swim in that living stream of energy and become part of it in a deliberate way. We are part of it by the very fact of our being human, of course. Drawing actualizes and enriches our participation.

In our classes, I will offer standard instruction if needed, in addition to offering my own approaches and suggestions.  You are free, of course,  to go about this business of drawing any way you want. I will have a reading list for you, and a list of enriching websites, too. I will bring books to share with you, showing the work of many different artists and sketchers to inspire you.

I will show examples of my own sketches made at the Nasher and in other museums around the world.

Page above from Playing With Sketches: 50 Creative Exercises for Designers and Artists, Whitney Sherman, Rockport Publishers, 2014.

If you are in the Triangle area in September, please join our group at the Nasher! Together we will be drawers of all levels, many ages, a world of experiences. I can’t wait! 

 

Comments

[Laura]

Thank you, Robyn. I'm looking forward to it, too!

[Laura]

Marly, sorry I missed this when you sent it! Yes, the sign up is meant for all three sessions, though I think we have at least one person who will miss one of the sessions. Would have loved to have had Rebecca with us!

[Robyn Mixon]

Laura--I love your I-thou connection energy concept. It is so natural when making the object one's own. Looking forward to sketching at the Nasher with you.

[marly youmans]

Might possibly be able to swing one of those days for my daughter when she gets back from Paris... Not sure. But I expect one signs up for all three.

Anyway, sounds like great fun! Enjoy.