Andrew CM Hinton <[log in to unmask]> escreveu:

> >Myself, when i teach drawing, i begin (or the student begins in the first
> >year) to teach the traditional process of life drawing, having in mind the
> >Renaissance visual paradigm, and then we follow to processes that
emphasise a
> >freedom of action where drawing is everything you may do in a bidimensional
> >surface and with anything that leaves a graphic imprint, which includes
> >photographic, or digitalised processes.
> >My idea is to overtake any borders that define and close drawing in an
ideal
> >place and time outside our present.
>
> This is probable the first post, I have received, that defines a process.
> My first post to this network was to ask for help with developing a
> project to impact on the the drawing skills of students with a severe
> learning difficulty, complex medical needs or those who are on the
> autistic spectrum who also have a severe learning difficulty.
> In my planning life drawing has been replaced by plant drawing but the
> process still rings true. Thank you.
> Andrew
>

Dear Andrew,
As you could read from the letter my practice is mainly with so
called "normal" students, however, it happened that I had several students
with hearing difficulties (by that meaning no hearing) and it was very
interesting to understand how far drawing is a very complete communicative
process.
As one may easily accept (but a fact anyhow, in those I meet) they were often
very skilled in drawing and developed very original solutions compared with
the "normal" student (they were integrated in the official studium).
I thought a lot about it.
The fact that drawing relates directly to the visual mind and directly also
to the kind of intelligence that is interwove with sensibility and emotions,
without the detour to the abstract cultural  building the hearing person
tends to deal with, and by that I mean words and verbal discourse, made me
realised the importance drawing could have in developing not only skills in
the student of arts, but the intellectual development, in general, of any
person.
Usually I do not stress this opinion as it is looked upon as some artistry
idea of making everybody an artist.
On the contrary, from experience the moment a student opens him/herself to
drawing as a modus of expression and communication, it usually is paired a
broader development in general.
I'm writing this and can imagine how far it may seem like the prophet with a
healing solution, which is not at all my position about anything.
Our societies, or at least in Portugal, stress the development of the
abstract mind and memory, ignoring other faculties. To this day people still
consider drawing as a talent one is born with, or not.
I think that everybody may and should learn drawing as a normal step in their
learning evolution, precisely to overcome the tendency restrain explanations
to words or numbers.
That we are able to do everything, speak, write, count, draw, and with these
skills order, invent, understand and enjoy & have pleasure should be fully
used and not lobotomised as our logic-deductive culture tends to do.
Back to my practice, I never let a student rest with a solution or a recipe,
after achieving some goal which may be: drawing from life naturalistic,
mastering perspective, composing colours, using emotion in the line, in the
tone, draw over photos, with photocopies, with computer programs, and so on,
then they have to begin again from step 0 in a "kind of" remaking the
learning process again.
My main aim is that they learn to think (and here I go away from drawing,
because it should be a general attitude) without preconceived solutions.
The good thing about drawing is that is does not establish cultural classes
or ghettos, it may be a person with a fine cultural background or a less
cultivated one, or etc. it has an universal quality that moves to the
opposite direction of frustration or low self-esteem.
Well, as from the other letters, I tend to abuse of the length, sorry, but it
is a subject I'm fully interested about.
Yours
Ana Leonor

 --
Ana Leonor M. Madeira Rodrigues
Faculdade de Arquitectura - Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
home: Av. Gago Coutinho, 25- 2º Esq.
1000-015 Lisboa
T.00 351 218492924