Firstly I really need to say WELCOME Peter and emphasise that this is 
not a network with any over presiding idealism.

It is a place for those who love drawing to share and discuss ideas and 
i personally LOVE the fact that there is so much passion in what we do 
and what we discuss. It's only through communal expression, comparison 
and appreciation of opinion that the natural sciences have gotten where 
they are so why shouldn't we drop our drips of experience into the 
communal ocean and taste what others taste? That's all my view is 
really, one drop in an ocean, some will agree wholly, some partially, 
some not at all and some will gather the villagers with burning brands. 
C'est la vie! It's great we have this power to feel so much.

As a luddite, there is one thing i would like to ask however, as i know 
dreadfully little about the various options of drawing on a computer. 
Pressure sensitive pens, obviously, using your hands with such an 
implement will somehow result in a numbered variance of pascals which 
the machine will record in relation to a spatial relation to the mark, 
my question, not as a maker, but as a viewer would be how would i see 
the resulting work? Would it be on a flat TV/PC screen or would it be 
printed by a ink jet printer? Is the 'being' you place within the 
system, equal or almost or more to what comes out? If you for example 
did a life drawing of your wife / partner after a blazing row or perhaps 
just after you've made love, would the possibility that unconscious 
nuance intimated such be present?

I think this is essentially the Walter Benjamin argument is it not? I 
cannot begin to list all the works of art i have experienced first hand 
and how their mechanical reproduction's compare. Just off the top of my 
head i'd recommend the physical presence of Frank Auerbach and Tony 
Bevan to their little postcard selves, or 20/30 photos that you could 
find online.

There are numerous, numerous type-fonts available through the net, their 
effects range, however - just my own little personal opinion here! - I'm 
more interested in what the human using them is saying/trying to say as 
oppose to their use. (Not even getting into a comparison to a 
handwritten form.)

:)

Slainte, Spike.

Thomas, Peter wrote:
>
> Hi Spike,
>
> There are lots of us out here who use not just specialist mice but 
> also pressure sensitive graphics pens. We have favourite software, 
> brushes, pens, and even can be extremely particular about the texture 
> and size of the tablet we draw on.
>
> Graphics tablets and a good range of drawing software have been around 
> for many years now.
>
> There are some effects which are better created using ‘real’ 
> watercolour, oil, acrylics on canvass, and pens on board, paper or 
> other media. I don’t think its helpful to label people who draw using 
> a computer as photoshop perfectionists just as its not fair to label 
> by-hand workers as water colour blot makers or whatever.
>
> I just joined this drawing research network yesterday because I draw 
> and I’m interested in drawing. If this is a kind of anti-computer 
> network please let me know and I will seek out that unsubscribe button.
>
> I don’t think you need to worry about the industrial revolution in 
> England anymore.
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter
>
> *From:* The UK drawing research network mailing list 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *Jill Gibbon
> *Sent:* 22 November 2008 14:38
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: Fwd: why has there been a swing back to drawing?
>
> Thanks Spike - "drawing cuts back on gloss of media glamour" I so agree!
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* Rachel & Spike <[log in to unmask]>
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Sent:* Saturday, 22 November, 2008 12:13:50
> *Subject:* Re: Fwd: why has there been a swing back to drawing?
>
> Hello Becky, my own naive and hopeful view is that drawing places us 
> in connection with ourselves fully, here in the life-world.
>
> Instead of the virtual distance we don't necessarily 'experience' but 
> co-join in absence (that very technology that refines through 
> developed 'etch-a-sketch'-ese within which we do not develop ourselves 
> but follow a doctrined path), we actualise a freedom of thought 
> through embodied mark making.
>
> This is very much Jean Baudrillard i realise but i feel it's true and 
> more important now than ever.
>
> Glamour is too easy for those of intellect who have some experience. 
> Any basic novice could take a photograph of someone real and through a 
> few easy steps, refine it on photoshop to make it appear glamourous 
> and fitting that thin veil called 'beautiful'. The inhuman brush of 
> media can clean away blemishes, brighten the eyes, enhance and richen 
> colour, lift eye lids, over-define lashes, balance or make more 
> symmetrical, etc etc. Is this what we strive for through art?
>
> I think drawing cuts back on gloss of media glamour, it defines human 
> reaction and modification - searching and finding - but it also leaves 
> its traces of definition and correction and screams nuance. Drawing is 
> a language which utilises pressure as well as arc of elbow, turn of 
> wrist etc. Graphically, before a real drawing, we can intuit feeling 
> and passion, this is the very language which is bleached away on a 
> computer screen. This is the very thing which eludes today's multi 
> media 'perfected/corrected' images, depth itself, human contact of 
> emotion, experience and presence.
>
> The computer is for me nothing but the whiteness of the paper i wish 
> to destroy with the placing of a presence there. A scan of one brush 
> mark does not convey the essence of that brushstroke, it conveys an 
> appearance which is registered by a machine and translated into a 
> separate language of 0's and 1's and thereore diminished. Like 
> converting Shakespeare's language into Telly Tubby language. We don't 
> feel the flow of the medium or the tease of the brush, we can pick up 
> on the groove created in the paper by the force of the pencil.
>
> If you excuse the lewdness, i guess it's the same as the difference 
> between having real sex and looking at porn.
>
> :)
>
> Just a luddite opinion.
>
> Spike.
>