In contrast to yesterday, today was a very busy day. I began by drawing into another friend’s video. Vivian sent me a film of herself making her young child ‘fly’. ‘Kaat’s first flight’ is the result of me working into this short video 5 times to make the final drawing.
The rest of the morning was spent with a group of MA students from the School of Art. They readily participated in their own energy exchange, modelling and drawing each other. I encouraged the students who were modelling to talk to the drawer and the rest of the group as a way to dispel their inhibitions about being ‘on stage’ and observed. We began to discuss the consequence of being lost in the act of drawing and not being able to hear or respond to the model speaking properly. I feel this is due to a right brain switch. Something about working in the projection makes the switch effective. It seems to induce the right hand brain state faster than usual observational drawing modes. I’m not sure why this happens at the moment, but sense it could be important to investigate this phenomenon further.
As a group we also discussed how drawing in the projection makes the mark making decision process explicit.
In the afternoon Coleg Ceredigion arrived with a group of 20 students. I split the session in two and half the group were in the demonstration space trying out drawing with the projection and half looked at the show and then we swapped over. The students were curious, involved and engaged. They were responsive and asked questions.
Just before their session was finished, Esyllt Harker and Gerry Gold arrived. Gerry got out his trumpet and students had the opportunity to draw him playing in the projection.
After the students had gone Esyllt, Gerry and I experimented with improvised sound and storytelling performance drawing. They listened and responded to each other and I drew their movements. Nothing was prepared; no one knew what was coming next. Moment to moment we played and drew each other out. There were some intense and beautiful sections. Esyllt told a haunting version of the ‘Selkie Bride’. In the second piece, I projected a video of the sea into the mix and we responded in a more abstract way to each other and the sounds and sights that emerged.