Dear Marvin
One of the great things about doing an MPhil/PhD is that you have to become
a bit of an expert in the domain of interest. The domain of drawing
research is pretty broad, even if we restrict ourselves to research
concerned primarily with drawing production (as opposed to drawing
perception). It covers everything from developmental studies of children's
drawing (e.g., Freeman and Cox, 1985; Lowenfeld, 1947), investigations of
drawing strategy (e.g., Beittel, 1972; Getzels and Csizszentmihalyi, 1976),
studies of 'objective', or observational drawing (e.g., Cohen and Bennett,
1997), of thinking processes (e.g., Frith and Law, 1995; van Sommers,
1984). There has even been some research into patterns of eye movement and
brain activation during drawing (Miall and Tchalenko, 2001; Solso, 2001).
There has also been a lot of really good work in the area of design
sketching (e.g., Fish and Scrivener, 1990; Garner, 1992; Goldschmidt,
1991). Recently, of course, more artists have become involved in formal
research, and the fact that much of this work is (as yet) undocumented is,
I think, a very good reason for holding seminars where they can talk about it.
When doing a PhD, you also have to give careful consideration to the way in
which your research is conducted and presented, because you need to be able
to convince other experts in the field that you've made some genuinely new
contribution to knowledge. Thus, PhD researchers have to grapple with
questions such as: How do I identify a topic that's worth researching and
hasn't been researched before? How do I formulate my research question(s)?
What methods are appropriate for addressing that (those) questions? How can
I make the research watertight against criticisms of subjectivity? And how
can I present it in such a way (verbally, visually or otherwise) that
people are clear about what was under investigation and what my findings were?
I believe that in-depth presentations of MPhil/PhD work can provide a focus
for (much needed) discussion of these issues, which are relevant to all
researchers whether or not they intend to do a research degree. For
practitioners thinking about doing research, such presentations can give an
idea of what's involved, and may help to identify possible topics or
suggest how their own practice might be structured so as to facilitate
research.
I agree with you that it's important that such discussions should be
inclusive, and I think that presenters have a duty to show how their
research is relevant to practice, and to try to make their work accessible
to a broad audience.
George W.
Short bibliography
(If I had to recommend only one of these, it would be John Willats' 'Art
and Representation', which describes an approach to the analysis of
pictures based on 'drawing systems' and 'denotation systems', and makes
reference to relevant research in fields such as developmental psychology,
vision science and artificial intelligence.)
Beittel, K. (1972). Mind and Context in the Art of Drawing. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston.
Cohen, D. J. and Bennett, S. (1997). Why Can't Most People Draw What They
See?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,
vol. 23, pp. 609-621.
Fish, J. and Scrivener, S. (1990). Amplifying the mind's eye: Sketching and
Visual Cognition. Leonardo, vol. 23, pp. 117-126.
Freeman, N. H. and Cox, M. V. (eds.) (1985). Visual Order: The Nature and
Development of Pictorial Representation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Frith, C. and Law, J. (1995). Cognitive and Physiological Processes
Underlying Drawing Skills. Leonardo, vol. 28, pp. 203-205.
Garner, S. (1992). The Undervalued Role of Drawing in Design. In D.
Thistlewood (ed.), Drawing Research and Development, Harlow, UK: Longman,
pp. 98-109.
Getzels, J. W. and Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1976). The Creative Vision: A
Longitudinal Study of Problem Finding in Art. New York: Wiley.
Goldschmidt, G. (1991). The dialectics of sketching. Creativity Research
Journal, vol 4, pp. 123-143.
Lowenfeld, V. (1947). Creative and Mental Growth. New York: Macmillan.
Miall, R. D. and Tchalenko, J. (2001). A Painter's Eye movements: A Study
of Eye and Hand Movement during Portrait Drawing. Leonardo, vol. 34, pp.
35-40.
Solso, R. L. (2001). Brain Activities in a Skilled versus a Novice Artist:
An fMRI Study. Leonardo. vol. 34, pp. 31-34.
van Sommers, P. (1984). Drawing and cognition: Descriptive and experimental
studies of graphic production processes. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Willats, J. (1998) 'Art and Representation.' Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
At 06:45 PM 2/27/03 -0800, you wrote:
>Dear George,
>
>
>I read your reply and I think its a great idea. But what about for people
>like me who don't understand drawing research or not yet considering Phds in
>drawing, just simply diligent in their work. I would like to take part in
>these discussions but it seems a bit intimidating and exclusionary to just
>have forums for people trying to attain their Phds. I think that I have alot
>to learn about drawing and I wouldn't know as much without consulting with
>people such as yourself. But as a serious practitioner, I think that the
>source we take from drawing comes from a persons natural inherent abilities.
>My question is, what is at the core of these discussions, what is your goal?
>To find some hidden truth in the mind? I still don't understand, please
>explain or recommend some books I can read so that I can relate and discuss
>these topics with a better understanding.
>
>sincerely,
>Marvin Jordana
>
>
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ac/ad/htmlpages/staff/gwhale.html
George Whale
Research Associate
Loughborough University School of Art & Design (LUSAD)
Loughborough
Leicestershire
LE11 3TU
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1509 228967
Mobile: 07944 751088
Fax: +44 (0)1509 228902
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