Learning by looking so that we can then imagine

Inspired by the theory of Learning as a Generative Activity, and Artist - Richard Kenton Webb - we are building a project that questions whether the discipline of drawing daily supports our ability to make sense of ourselves and the world around us. We will drop thoughts here on this page as well as how this idea evolves and impacts us all at Mayflower. 

Richard kicked things off with his forum in Modbury. Questions were posed such as, how do you look and what is normal?

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Scribbled notes from the forum...

Great art isn't said it's always saying

In other words it's always relevant and of the moment

Painting captures the intensity of living of being other than ourselves

To dare difference

Different futures

It's inclusive and has values

Metamorphic matter into thought

It's where - Our body and soul are me but not me

We need art to further ourselves - our creative imagination

Art is at a disadvantage - an unnecessary part of doing things - of society

COVID taught us the dangers of relying on technology - it isn't evil but could be

Painting doesn't need electricity - it's primitive and elemental that we need to be in touch with

Drawing is basic and simple as a way of looking at yourself - a basic way of looking (of noticing)

A powerful thing as a human is our creative imagination

If we don't know how to make sense do what we see it's difficult to pull what's inside to out

Book 'playing reality' a potential space between us and the world

We understand the world by making it visible

'The extended mind'

Learning by looking so that we can then imagine

Drawing is a lifelong commitment - the more you look the more you see

We learn to draw before we learn to speak - it's so primal and necessary

Connecting brain and hand - to connect imagination to our reality

Understand through drawing - positioning | where one thing is in relation to another

A question might never be answered, and often just sits there, but often it follows you around

An idea: an aspect perception - so much of the world is there but not seen.

We haven't seen its aspect.

As a teacher we teach visually and also neurologically diverse

1. Line
2. Shape or form
3. Movement
4. Space - Spacial|ness
5. Tone
6. Colour

Book - 'The place of a colourblind painter'

Repetition of shapes and forms like a kind of musical awareness

Shapes forming and repeating like musical composition

Using line and shapes of tone to find certain aspects in the room that might then make a painting

'To record the seeing process' | use our periphery vision e.g. the door bends

A photograph would look completely different - insist on drawing

Comprehend how things fit together through your eyes

You're leading the viewer into the room using shapes and forms (unlike a camera) to experience the room or space

An embodied experience

The viewer joins the painter in the experience as a composition

Living thinking thought is saying something - still - it's not said it's saying

Could we write on drawings | thoughts or observations as part of its history

Colour and shape

No line - but colour and shape can suggest line

Sensory - a disciplined act of making sense of things - representing both figurative as well as abstract or sign the land

Select - organise - integrate and make sense of and represent other things and ideas | this is what is going on through observational drawing

If you want to make work through imagination - observational drawings give a well of images to draw upon

A visual poet | a feeling | a vision | I've already seen it

Be seriously humorous | vulnerable

The visual poet imagining | what if...

That you're carrying something important

'The Blue Mantle'

Declare | a calling | no impostor syndrome | something to say | I am...!

The way I draw, and I look | (the way I live)

Why are you a painter | what's the role of the painter?

Intuitively work things out

The spectrum

Vulnerability and honesty

It's not about looks - it's about feeling

Visual vs Haptic