Michelle Fava
Introduction
Abstract
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Fava
This paper invites opinion and discussion Practitioners views on the purpose of
about the place of observational drawing observational drawing
skills in contemporary art & design
curricula in further and higher education. Jane Tormey (1997) observed, in all the
In what ways is it still valuable to recent debate there seemed little articulation
students, how does it fit with of how drawing methods may be relevant, or
contemporary notions of graphicacy, and to the nature of activity and why it was
how should this be reflected in curriculum important. This paper asks what is it about
design and assessment practices? observational drawing that can be
considered of continuing value to art &
Personal communications with drawing design students?
practitioners will be used to illustrate
commonly held beliefs about Debates exist around the place of manual
observational drawing and the wider design drawing after the advent of drawing
5 6
abilities it enables . Cognitive and software , and around the relevance of
second generation embodied-cognitive representational drawing in contemporary
perspectives on learning will then be fine art practice. Aside from these ongoing,
considered and I will make some changeable debates lays a broader
tentative proposals about an expanded assumption that observational drawing
definition of drawing skill. enables a range of transferable skills.
The debate:
5
The author would like to thank Leo Duff,
Rachel Pearcey, Eduardo Corte Real, Lisa
6
Moriarty, Doris Rohr and Richard Hare for For a detailed analysis of the role of digital and
their contributions and insights in response to manual drawing in design see Garner (1999),
questions sent through the DRN mailing list. Johnson (2005), Prats et. al.(2009).
Observational drawing
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Fava
9
largest for vocational courses . It can be descriptors are expressed for drawing.
said that their unit specifications do not There is also room to review the role and
reflect the wide range of purposes nature of observational drawing, both within
drawing is ascribed by the practitioners art and design practice and more generally
above. Of the 137 BTEC National as part of a set of transferable skills.
Diploma units Edexcel currently accredit,
none mention drawing in their Observational drawing and assessing
assessment criteria. Until 2006 there was cognitive skills
a unit named Drawing Development,
since renamed Visual Recording. Many point to purposes of drawing beyond
Standard drawing texts are suggested in making a representation, but what wider
this units reading list, but drawing is not abilities can we reliably attach to
necessary to pass it. To gain a distinction observational skill, and how should this
in this unit a student must be able to: affect the way we conceive and assess
students drawings? Which of the cognitive
demonstrate independence, skills described by QAA can be developed
innovation and individuality in through observational practice?
evaluating and using sources,
integrating visual recording skills In personal communications practitioners
and in-depth understanding in responded to the questions: What end does
10
communicating information. this practice serve? What abilities does it
(Edexcel 2009: 4) enable? Observational drawing practice
was said to enable: decision making, clarity
While this criterion refers to valuable of vision (Duff, 2010), [Ability] to analyse
skills, it does not refer directly to drawing. visual information through visual rather than
The situation in First, Foundation and textual means, Visual analytical thinking in
Higher National Diplomas is similar. The short, being able to synthesise data visually
act of recording visually (be it drawing, (Rohr, 2010) and The ability to
photography or otherwise) is relegated to communicate ideas visually, directly through
only one of four pass criteria, implying drawing and indirectly through transference
that implicit in this wording is the of skills learned through drawing to other
assumption that to draw is simply to forms of visual expression (Hare, 2010).
describe and that as such, it accounts for
only lower order skills of recognising and Many have likewise described observational
describing. drawing as a means of visual thinking and
analytical learning. David Haley maintains
It is clear there is more scope to consider that drawing is integral to perception and
the way that learning outcomes and level cognitive understanding (2010). Hudson
renamed the activity of observation as
Construction, describing:
9
A Levels are awarded by AQA, WJEC (in
Wales), CCEA, OCR (run by University of
Cambridge), or ISESB (for Independent a piece by piece assembling of
Schools). Edexcel are the only awarding body awareness, [which] was precisely the
to be run by a profit making company, after
way in which children learned by trial,
having been taken over in 2003 by Pearson
PLC. error, and the storing of resulting
10
It is unclear what exactly is meant by experience. He saw it therefore as the
descriptors like independence, innovation,
catalyst of creative education pre-
individuality or in-depth, at this level of
learning. existing, assisting other matters
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132
Observational drawing
What is common from these opinions is symmetrical trace lines to balance a figure
that the range of cognitive skills drawing, or the use of anatomical or
associated with observational drawing structural knowledge to proportion or
include not only lower order cognitive construct a figure, building or machine.
skills, but the full range of educational Analysis can be seen by the activity of
objectives in the cognitive domain (Bloom questioning what is seen marks which
1956): observation, communication, refer to not only the visible but to structural
transference of skills, speculation and or relational properties can provide evidence
visual analysis, decision making, of analytical thinking. Likewise, there might
editorial skills, synthesis and solution. be evidence that a student has considered
the distinction between what they know and
A drawing might be assessed, therefore, what they see in their correction of
in terms of the cognitive sophistication mistakes or acknowledgement of
with which it was made, rather than its subjective distortions. Evaluation will be
representational accuracy, conformity to evident in traces of re-working, changes in
convention or even its contribution to a composition or measurement. The synthesis
further purpose, such as gathering visual of visual knowledge would allow
information for a design project (this sophisticated decision making, which might
could be a learning outcome better suited be evidenced by a novel choice of line to
to a design brief). Furthermore, I propose describe a form or texture, or by an
that traces of this activity can be visible in informed, perhaps unconventional,
13
the drawing itself and assessment need compositional decision . It is perhaps the
not rely on extensive annotation to as creativity invested in the drawing which
11 14
evidence . Table 1 suggests ways in gives rise to the wow factor .
which cognitive skills might be recognised
in an observed drawing. In this way, the range of cognitive objectives
can be evident in a single observed
15
We might find evidence of close drawing . A students engagement with this
observation and understanding in a drawing process can be made more explicit,
drawings correctness, alongside and sufficiently sophisticated objectives and
empathy with the subject, and depiction descriptors can be devised without the
12
of it in a personally engaged manner necessity for additional tasks to satisfy a full
16
(Duff 2010, personal correspondence). range of level descriptors .
Evidence of application might be seen in
the employment of analytical visual
knowledge, for example, the use of
13
These are intended only as examples. There
are surely as many ways of identifying cognitive
skills in a drawing as there are in a piece of
writing.
14
See Gordon (2004) for a discussion of the
11
Annotation can be useful for reflection when wow factor in art & design assessment.
15
appropriate, but it evidences a students ability Affective and psychomotor domains of skill can
to verbalise and post-rationalise their learning, also be regarded as important for observational
rather than the learning itself, and therefore is drawing. Space does not permit a full discussion
not a reliable form of evidence for of this here, but comments about how these
assessment. considerations might be included in curriculum
12
Leo Duff describes this as the main criteria design and assessment are also welcome.
16
with which she assesses the quality of Howard Rileys matrix of systems of choices
students observed drawings, communicating (2008) is also useful in defining and
this both in writing and in one-to-one and communicating learning objectives, it plots levels
group discussions (personal communication). of engagement against functions of drawing.
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Observational drawing
QAA (2008) list transferable skills that sensory understanding and cognitive
associated with art and design, but what thought are inseparable, in that they
is implied above is that the abilities develop in tandem and make use of the
enabled by drawing are even more same neural pathways. For example, Usha
fundamental and have to do with ones Goswami describes how our knowledge
ability to concentrate, to attend, to representation is rooted in attention to the
consider, to observe, to comprehend. If perceptual structure of objects and events
practiced regularly, visual cognition can (2008: 51). He also describes how the
become embedded in ones thinking, in foundation of our cognitive framework for
much the same way that a habitual exploring and representing the behaviour of
practice of writing would establish the objects is shared with that of the behaviour
propensity to analyse the world of people:
19
linguistically .
the attribution of belief and desires
Two further senses in which seems to develop from the same
observational drawing skills might be sources as the attribution of causal
considered broadly transferable are mechanisms such as collision and
suggested below. The first considers support namely from the perceptual
embodied cognitive perspectives on the (mental) representations of the dynamic
relationship between perception and spatial and temporal behaviour of
cognition. The second considers notions objects and agents (Goswami 2008:
of analogical transfer and suggests ways 46).
of considering transferable skill in
teaching practice. He goes on to relate sensitivity to space,
objects and causal relations to more
Embodied cognition and drawing abstract cognition such as conceptual
representation, memory, logic, and a sense
Drawing is widely thought to sharpen of agency. Empirical evidence supporting
sensori-motor awareness and expand these claims lies in the shared neural loci of
visual memory by virtue of time spent experience for concepts and percepts.
paying close attention to the visual world.
A more intimate knowledge of the way Cognitive linguist Mark Johnson builds on
the world looks, and is physically this paradigm, explaining that embodied
structured, is valuable in itself, particularly understanding is the foundation for thought:
to artists and designers. However, it can meaning and thought emerge from our
be considered more widely valuable capacities for perception, object
when contemporary embodied-cognitive manipulation, and bodily movement (2007:
perspectives are taken into account, as 113 see also Johnson 1990). This is the
these perspectives illustrate the basis of metaphor. The neural body in the
relationship between perception and mind reconstructs tactile, spatial and visual
cognition. experiences to make sense of more abstract
ideas. Hence it makes perfect sense for an
Developmental cognitive neuro- idea to be thought of as having tactile or
psychologists now widely acknowledge spatial qualities; being slippery, fragile,
liquid, heavy, difficult to grasp, thrown or
19
Other examples of this view include bounced around. They can be held lightly,
Petherbridge (2008), Riley (2008), Corte-Real
(2009), IDEAL Project (2009), Haley (2010),
Kantrowitz (in press).
Fava
built up and then shattered, attacked and towards a teaching that facilitates cognitive
20
defended . understanding. She notes that in the past,
technical skill for representational purposes
The proposition this logic allows is that may have been separated from cognitive
time taken to conduct observed drawing understanding, but less so now (1997).
has the ability to enrich cognition in a Similarly, Bruce Archer identifies a need for
holistic way. This is, perhaps, another drawing as a training in thinking to be
way observational drawing might be taught in addition to drawing for the
included in contemporary notions of purposes of representation (1997). What
graphicacy. might drawing as a training in thinking
involve? Here I will suggest that drawing
The implication here is that time spent can be also used as a basis for analogical
drawing is valuable by virtue of the reasoning and learning.
intensity of experience the drawer has,
which will contribute to their cognitive Laura Novick (1988) describes surface and
capacities and to any design or visual deep levels of analogical reasoning. She
artistic practices. This is by no means a explains how a novice is able to apply
new idea. Nicolaides insisted that the surface features of an experience in
effort you make is not for one particular analogical reasoning, while an expert can
drawing, but for the experience you are relate superficially unrelated tasks by
having (1990 [1941]: 2). structural comparison. In this way learned
problem solving strategies can be
This holistic aspect of learning is primarily transferred across disciplinary and thematic
concerned not with the quality of the boundaries.
drawing, but of the drawers experience.
This is, again, something hard or even Daugherty & Mentzer (2008) review
impossible to measure. Yet the quality of research into analogical reasoning and its
the experience of drawing process is significance for engineering design
something most drawing tutors trust in, students. Emphasising its importance for
despite the fact that it cannot be creativity, they describe the way that
expressed in writing as a measurable analogies aid in the development of
outcome. knowledge. They state that this takes place
by the application of structural logic from a
Observational drawing & analogical base domain to a target domain. This can
transfer be enhanced by [r]epresenting either or
both the base or target domain to improve
Tormey suggests a need to move away the analogy [to] further establish conceptual
from teaching drawing simply as a means change.
to creating conventional images,
Gentner & Jeziorski (1993) note that while
20 tutors often use analogy to explain concepts
Despite the ubiquity of metaphor, it is not so
acceptable for it to be used in learning to students, analogical reasoning is rarely
outcomes and assessment criteria. Richard formally taught. Drawing can be thought of
Hamilton believed the learning process to be as useful in this way. It can serve as a base
analogous to that of organic growth
(Thistlewood 1981), but this metaphor would domain from which to source creative and
seem out of place in a module specification, learning experiences. As established above,
and might only be used after the fact to
observational drawing activity encompasses
explain the meaning of more obtusely worded
descriptors or objectives to puzzled students. cognitive activity in a relatively
136
Observational drawing
Focus must shift between smaller Again, this is a form of learning that cannot
elements and the whole to maintain easily be measured. Transferable skills are,
coherence (stepping back and by nature, flexible, rhizomatic,
leaning in during making). unpredictable. To apply the logic of one
discipline to an analogous novel situation
Both involve aesthetic decisions requires both flexibility of thinking and a
and compositional planning. repertoire of problem solving experiences.
What analogous experience a student may
A range of strategies can be have used in solving a design problem, or
chosen, e.g. beginning from a approaching an essay, might never be
specific point and working known. It could be that by encouraging a
outwards, or working from the student to consider analogical reasoning
general into the specific. based on an understanding of drawing, they
are inclined to a better understanding of
It might be necessary at some point analogical reasoning itself, and as a result
to erase large portions and re-draft. solve a novel problem by applying existing
For example, if an error is found, if knowledge. This would be highly individual
a preferable compositional choice is for each student, relating to their own
found (highlighting the need for unique experiences and challenges. Impact
ongoing evaluation), or if the of this kind would be neither entirely
purpose (or subject) of the drawing predictable nor measurable. It might even
changes. go wholly unnoticed, but it would be of
lasting importance to the student.
Strategies for constructing a coherent
whole can be tried and tested, and Both of these examples relate to holistic
progress over time is clearly visible, both approaches to teaching and assessment
within and between drawings. These that account for non-verbal learning and
qualities render drawing a valuable individual differences. I suggest that it is
resource for reflection on learning and for possible to consider observational drawing
approaching analogous processes. It can as part of an expanded definition of
be seen as a broad base for analogical graphicacy, which accounts for the capacity
reasoning. Acknowledgement of, and drawing experiences have to enable visual
reflection on, this structural similarity can cognitive abilities and creative problem
serve as a valuable opportunity to solving, and to facilitate abstract conceptual
consider analogical reasoning. Relatively thought through an enriched visual
simple drawing experiences can be used knowledge of the world.
as opportunities for considering more
Fava
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