Angela Brew The Drawing Centre
Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts London
…the painter throws away the ish and keeps the net. His look appropriates correspondences, questions, and answers which, in the world, are revealed only inaudibly and always smothered in the stupor of objects. He strips them, frees them, and looks for a more agile body for them.
Figure 1. Betty Edwards’ drawing students, learning a new way of looking at things
Learning to Pause
ist both (A) learns, and works within, the limits of their perception, and (B) extends these limits by developing their perception. Central to the argu-ment is an enactive account of vision, entailing that the way the body moves creates changes in percep-tual awareness. From this view the role of the hand is always a signiicant part of the perceptual equa-tion. Only by considering the dance of eye, hand, head and whole body can a complete picture begin to emerge of the drawing process, of perceptual style and transformations.
Extra-ordinary perception
Van Sommers (1984) argues, in the particu-lar context of drawing a hand, “I do not believe that normal perceptual commerce with objects is adequate to this task” (132) and that while several styles of perceptual analysis “would be adequate for recognition… not all are equally suitable as a basis for drawing” (132).
What is an adequate and suitable style of per-ception for accurate drawing from life, and how do we acquire this style? My original proposal was to study how experienced drawers look at gaps between objects, referred to by drawing teachers as
“negative space.”
he dominant paradigm in drawing teaching is that students need to learn how to look at things in order to draw them. he premise is that if you
learn to look then you can draw, implying that the mechanical act of the hand will follow easily. here is a bias towards isolating the eye as the sole per-ceptual tool in the task of drawing. he common view is that the eye perceives, and the hand fol-lows. To a large extent experimental research has operated on this paradigm, adopting a sequential model with the eye looking and perceiving, and the action of the hand following information from the eye. My perspective, from my own teaching experi-ence and research, is that students oten struggle to integrate and coordinate their eyes and hands, and that being more explicit about how the hand and eye synchronize will facilitate learning. Cognitive scientists have begun a productive dialogue with philosophers about skill acquisition, embodiment, enactive vision and consciousness (see Jacob and Jeannerod, 2003; Seeley and Kozbelt, 2008; Varela et al., 1993; O’Regan and Noë, 2001) however this does not, I submit, reach drawing education in any efective way.
he irst point to bear in mind is that the eye moves a great deal during observational drawing, making many ixations and weaving a web of con-nections.
he movements of drawing (a style) bring about a new style of perception. Crucially this includes eye movements, and phases of not moving.
Segmenting and pausing distinguishes experts from novices
Two behavioural factors distinguish experts from novices: pausing more oten, and drawing smaller segments of lines. Tchalenko (2009) found diferences in eye movements between novice and expert drawers when copying complex lines, and developed a drawing hypothesis relating to how people divide up the image into sections to be drawn. He recorded the drawing strategies of 16 subjects, with drawing experience ranging from novice to expert, while they copied a line drawing of a standing woman. He found signiicant difer-ences between the experts and novices:
he experts produced accurate cop-ies whereas all the beginners produced marked inaccuracies of overall scaling, proportion and shape. Analysis of eye and hand movements showed that the experts alone segmented the original drawing into simple line sections that were copied one Figure 2. Still of eye tracking data imposed on video
footage, showing the web the eye weaves between object and drawing (Brew & Fava, 2011)
Angela brew
at a time using a direct eye–hand strategy not requiring intermediary encoding to visual memory. he results suggest that segmentation into simple lines deines the task-speciic process of accurate copy-ing, and that this process is restricted to experts, i.e. acquired through training and practice. (p. 791)
Tchalenko and Miall’s (2007) indings from par-allel eye tracking and fMRI studies suggested that drawing from life relies on the encoding of visual information into motor plans. In other words the drawer converts what they see into a plan of how to draw it. I used these two indings, relating to seg-mentation and pausing and the use of motor plans, to form hypotheses for the experimental element of my PhD and for development of my new drawing instruction.
Learning to segment and pause
I ilmed students copying a continuous line, before and ater the 5-day intensive course of draw-ing traindraw-ing, and analyzed the footage frame by frame to see whether they began to draw smaller line segments, paused more and speciically paused between segments. Footage of each test was analyzed in terms of changes in a) spatial and temporal inter-action of eye and hand (performance) and b) the line drawn (output). he study asked does the hand need the eye? And if so in which situations, i.e. when does the hand need the eye? his then poses questions about why the hand may need the eye and whether the drawer knows this explicitly or implicitly.
Tchalenko and Miall (2007) found that for the hand to achieve accuracy in drawing the shape of simple lines, the eye does not need to look at the hand as it draws or to check the drawing as it emerges. However, from results of copying tasks in which participants did not look at the paper, or their emerging drawing, they found that the hand does need the eye in order to piece together the segments of lines accurately in space on the paper. hey stated that “…precise positioning of these shapes required periodic references back to the paper” and “in copy-ing tests, the eye focused on the paper to continue drawing that line while controlling its spatial posi-tion.” (Tchalenko, 2009, p. 791).
My hypothetical model for copying a single complex line was:
• Step 1. Subject looks at the original (O)
• Step 2. Some drawing is executed “blind”, while looking at the original (Do)
• Step 3. Drawing continues while looking at the paper, to control the spatial position of the line (Dp)
I developed a way to record visual traces of the pauses, using absorbent paper and felt pens.
I deined a pause as ¼ of a second by correlating observable pauses in the video footage of the hand with ink pools on the paper.
It was found that ater 5 days of drawing training and practice subjects took longer to copy the same original line drawing, drew at slower speeds per mm of line and looked back and forth between the original and paper more times, looked at the paper more whilst drawing, and broke up the drawing into more, and shorter, line segments. For subject A, the most detailed case study, the mean pause length increased by 247% from 0.44s to 1.09s.
Results relating to “drawing blind” (with eyes on the original) raised interesting questions about when blind drawing may be an appropriate hand-eye strategy, when used in conjunction with a strat-egy to monitor the evolving drawing on the paper.
A cognitively informed drawing instruction From Tchalenko and Miall’s (2007) indings relating to motor planning and blind drawing, my own case studies of Betty Edward’s drawing stu-dents and relective drawing practice I used a syn-thesized proile of expert behaviour to develop a drawing instruction. his is grounded on the ind-ing that experienced drawers pause more and draw shorter segments of line, and on an enactive view wherein perception is developed through action.
It focuses attention on the role of physical practice in the perceptual learning required for drawing.
Figure 3. Showing the usefulness of drawing on poor quality paper—Ink pools reveal pauses in drawing action.
Learning to Pause
Transformations of perception come about through movement and knowledge of movement, through physical engagement with the external world. As Alva Noë (2004) emphasizes “perceiving is a way of acting” and “not something that happens to us, or in us. It is something we do” (p. 1).
I thought about skills that are easy to acquire and come naturally to most people. To this end my irst instruction focuses on the unity of the body, proprioception and our ability to synchronize movement. Preliminary eye tracking data from a recent strand of my research suggests that there may be phases when the eye communicates with the hand spatially rather than using any form of visual memory. Rather, the hand is moving along the line at the same time and at the same speed as the hand, creating a physical motor translation rather than a perception-to-action translation.
The instruction
Based on the inding that short simple segments of line can be drawn without looking at the paper I begin by asking students to practise moving their eyes slowly along a line. hen they practise syncing their eye and hand by moving the eye down a short simple segment of line and at the same time draw an equivalent line on paper with the hand. I explic-itly describe this as drawing two lines of the same length in space. Once this mode of drawing simple lines is established, I introduce a way to locate the segment on the page. I instruct them to look to the paper just as they are completing the drawing of each segment of line, to monitor the “landing” of the line. Next I instruct them to pause before draw-ing the next segment, to give time to assess accuracy and choose a starting point for the next segment.
he premise is that the eye behaves like the hand, ofering a direct translation of movement. he hand moves at the same speed as the eye, drawing equivalent lines superimposed on the object-being-drawn and on the drawing. his establishes a way to draw an accurate line from life and encourages students to draw only short segments of line. his smooth slow way of moving the eye is easily learnt, in contrast to some drawing instructions relying on using an external measuring device e.g. measuring with a pencil, which require mental calculations and a less direct way to map from vision to the hand movement. he instruction hinges on our proprio-ceptive awareness, rather than attending to looking alone. We start to learn to draw by attending to our
whole body and how it engages with the object.
As a irst step towards learning to draw, this divides cognitive and executive elements of obser-vational drawing into two distinct phases. he instruction establishes a clear division between drawing and assessment behaviour, and establishes the pause and the drawing of short simple lines.
here are two aims of the instruction: irstly to explore whether this separation and explicit expla-nation works well as an instruction, and secondly as a model for further scientiic testing. It has been dif-icult for psychologists to break down the complex intertwining of processes involved in drawing. he contrasting roles of the eye in the two phases may facilitate studies of brain activity during drawing.
Concluding thoughts about event structures, the drawer’s mind and attention to parts and whole
he instruction splits the drawing process into two distinct phases, one executive and one cogni-tive, i.e. drawing, and not drawing, wherein the thinking takes place while not drawing, while paus-ing. his is given as an explicit verbal instruction to the student: to not think while they are drawing and to think while they pause. On a micro-level, the eye moves and pauses during each phase of move-ment—the eye pauses and ixates and then saccades to another spot. he conventional view is that this Figure 4. he HandEye / Handsight – dancing to-gether, sharing sensory and perceptual roles, learn-ing from one another
Angela brew
is the role of the eye, to capture information. My drawing instruction attempts to use the eye in a radically diferent way, sidelining visual capture and using the eye to draw the line.
Van Sommers’ (1984) statement below about copying (the irst step in learning to draw) resonates with Merleau-Ponty’s description of the artist’s way of looking:
he fact is that copying, like imitation in language, is not a matter of item-by-item matching of perception to action, but a translation process, extracting relation-ships and using available skills to recon-struct them.
My instruction looks for direct and appropri-ate translation skills, entertaining a more luid and integrated view of the play between senses and per-ception and between the eye and the hand. Does the hand see?
Without practice this kind of sensation is rather confused and dim; but if you take men born blind, who have made use of such sensations all their life, you will ind that they feel things with such perfect exactness that one might also say that they see with their hands
(Descartes, 1637, Dioptrics) Descartes’ insight about touch is beginning to be supported by scientiic research of sensory substitu-tion. he hand can anchor perception, and teach the eye; they can search together and instruct one another. Bridget Riley (2009) writes of drawing “It is as though there is an eye at the end of my pencil, which tries, independently of my personal general-purpose eye, to penetrate a kind of obscuring veil or thickness.”
he aim of interdisciplinary research is to con-tribute by linking theory and understanding from domains of research – in the same way that the drawer tries to attend to and relate the parts and the whole in order to articulate a new idea, an innova-tive approach and new knowledge. My view, from in between domains, is that scientiic research has developed some useful provisional models of the physics and cognition of observational drawing.
hese need further elaboration and testing, includ-ing longitudinal study of drawinclud-ing students and
micro-level studies of brain activity. his will sig-niicantly contribute to research of brain plasticity and learning, and, through our interdisciplinary collaborations and communication, to the practi-cal educational application of new knowledge about drawing and cognition.
Playing in an orchestra requires constant awareness of all the other voices, express-ing one’s own while listenexpress-ing to the other.
Daniel Barenboim (2007:133) Everything is Connected.
References
Brew, A. & Fava, M. (2011). Eye-tracking eight kinds of drawing, ilm. Shown at Macy Gallery, Teach-ers College, Columbia UnivTeach-ersity during the hinking through Drawing exhibition, October 2011.
Barenboim, D. (2007). Everything is Connected: he Power of Music. London: Weidenfeld and Nicol-son.
Coen-Cagli, R, Coraggio, P., Boccignone, G., Napo-letano, P. (2007). he Bayesian Draughtsman: A Model For Visuomotor Coordination In Draw-ing. In Advances in Brain Vision and Artiicial Intelligence, Proceedings of BVAI 2007. LNCS 4729.
Cohen, D. J. (2005). Look little, look oten: he in-luence of gaze frequency on drawing accuracy.
Perception Psychophysics, 67, 997–1009.
Edwards, B. (2001). Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. London: Harper Collins Publishers.
Edwards, Drawing Courses info. Available from:
http://www.drawright.com/drsb.htm (Accessed 20th April 2009)
Gregory, R., (1997). Eye and Brain, 5th ed, Princ-eton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gregory, R., (1997) Knowledge in perception and illusion Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 352, 1121–
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Jacob, P., & Jeannerod, M. (2003). Ways of seeing – he scope and limits of visual cognition. Oxford:
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Kozbelt, A. (2001). Artists as experts in visual cogni-tion. Visual Cognition, 8, 705–723.
Merleau-Ponty, M. ed Lefort, C. (1973), trans.
Learning to Pause
O’Neill, J., 3rd ed, he Prose of the World. Evan-ston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Miall, R. C., Gowen, E., & Tchalenko, J. (2009).
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Noë, A. (2004). Action in Perception, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
O’Regan, J.K. & Noë, A. (2001). A sensorimotor ac-count of vision and visual consciousness. Behav-ioral and Brain Sciences, 24 (5), 939–1011.
Riley, B. (2009) he Eye’s Mind: Bridget Riley Col-lected Writings 1965-2009. London: hames and Hudson.
Ruskin, J. (1971). he Elements of Drawing, New York: Dover Publications.
Seeley, W. & Kozbelt, A. (2008). Art, artists and per-ception: a model for premotor contributions to perceptual analysis and form recognition. Philo-sophical Psychology, 21, 149-171.
Solso, R. (2001). Brain activities in a skilled versus a novice artist: An fMRI study, Leonardo, 34 (1), p31-34.
Tchalenko, J. & Miall, C. (2007). Eye-hand strategies in copying complex lines. Cortex.
Tchalenko, J. (2009). Segmentation and accuracy in copying and drawing: Experts and beginners, Vi-sion Research 49 (2009) 791–800, Elsevier.
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Descriptive and experimental studies of graphic production processes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Abstract
It has been argued that the function of art and the function of the visual brain are one and the same, and that the aims of art constitute an exten-sion of the functions of the brain (Zeki 1999). In this article we address a broader picture: that of art making as an extension of visuo-motor coor-dination. We focused on copy-drawing, because the ability to draw lines to represent the perceived, or imagined, visual appearance of objects in the world is a building block of visual creativity; a fun-damental question is that of understanding how humans coordinate vision and action to achieve this. We studied concurrent hand and eye move-ments of naive subjects as they performed a simple copy-drawing task. Despite considerable variability among individuals, we were able to isolate some key features of the drawing strategy that were shared across all subjects, and provided a window into the underlying neural processes. A computational model that incorporated those features qualitatively reproduced the data.
Introduction
Cognitive science, and in particular the analysis of human vision and visual attention, have always paid some attention to the visual arts. he latter have provided a rich source of images that are situ-ated somewhere between natural images — such as pictures and videos of landscapes, animals, humans
—and synthetic images—the kind of visual displays realized speciically for the purpose of experimen-tally testing some visual behavior. Visual artworks
share some properties with both classes, because a) they possess some degree of artiiciality, being images produced by humans and therefore possess-ing the kind of features that have been called arti-factual properties [88]; and b) they are as common in our visual experience as natural images, since we are exposed to visual artworks very oten in daily life (think of museums, books covers and illustra-tions, advertisement). Furthermore, drawing is an old practice (the oldest cave graities dating back to about 30,000 years ago), that is present in almost all geographical and cultural areas.
he pioneer recordings of eye movements made by Buswell (1935) and Yarbus (1967) used famous paintings as the test image; many later examples exist of analyses of the visual activity in response to paintings and drawings, and recently visual
he pioneer recordings of eye movements made by Buswell (1935) and Yarbus (1967) used famous paintings as the test image; many later examples exist of analyses of the visual activity in response to paintings and drawings, and recently visual