Picking up Ana Leonor's comment based on Martin's phrase ' drawing to think about concepts'.
The development of this notion of drawing as thinking is, perhaps, one of the fertile area of investigation for the drawing research community. It provides a valuable bridging concept between drawing research that is informed by theoretical perspectives from fine art and drawing research that is informed by theoretical perspectives from design.
In 2001, Tim Smithers published a useful paper which focused on sketching as thinking. In this paper he writes "...early design sketches are not representational devices, used to aid memory or mental imagery, they are the elements of a language of thought needed in designing." I'm sure many drawing makers - not just designers - would want to echo the proposition that their drawing is not merely the externalisation of internal thought but intimately bound up with thinking itself. Smithers uses a quote from J McMullen in support of his discussion which I reproduce here:
"Drawing is a physical act which puts us in touch with how we really experience space and form. Design, when you examine its fundamental impulse, is informed reflex. We make shapes, choose intervals, and decide on hierarchies all from deep instincts, which are expressed in the act of drawing. The drawing hand, moving at the will of our purposeful choices and also the subconscious biases in our nervous system, creates the basic structure upon which all other aesthetic decisions are made. ...Without drawing there would be no way to meld the world of the rational and the world of the intuitive. ...In drawing, the physical act itself provides an intensifying 'container' which makes possible a kind of thinking which occurs at no other time. Typically, we advance the drawing half from reason and half from intuition, and the drawing itself provokes still more intuitive and associative responses which in turn provoke more drawing. The fertile interaction between the hand making the marks and the mind responding occurs most successfully with artists who draw well."
There are things there we may want to disagree with, but there is clearly support, within the drawing community, for an important relationship between drawing and the processes of creative thought. Yes, there is already much written on this but I think the drawing research community has much more to offer.
Steve Garner
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Smithers, T (2001) 'Is sketching an aid to memory or a kind of thinking?' In Visual and Spacial Reasoning in Design II, eds J.S.Gero, B.Tversky & T Purcell, Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, Univ of Sydney, pp165-176.
McMullen, J (1990) 'Drawing and design, an idea whose time has come again' AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, 8(3). (quoted from Smithers above).
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From: The UK drawing research network mailing list on behalf of ana leonor rodrigues
Sent: Wed 06/09/2006 19:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: In Response: Hall
I like that, "drawing to think about concepts" (it could also be: drawings to think about concepts)
ana leonor
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From: The UK drawing research network mailing list on behalf of martin
Sent: Wed 06/09/2006 20:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: In Response: Hall
Instead of using concepts to think about drawing maybe we should use
drawing to think about concepts a bit more,
Martin.
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