#19: Whole Body Drawing
Extend beyond your fingers and furrowed brow.
Instructions
Notice the random mark-making in the world.
Devise a new way to create using your limbs or other movements.
Play around! Try to unhinge your expectations.
Edit the final products by cropping, folding, tearing—or other verbing.
Chalk It Up to Youth
Making a mark in the world is a near-universal experience—that human expression of “I Was/Am Here”. With the weather warming up here, the kids are going WILD with chalk on the streets and sidewalks, and there are plenty of hopscotch squares and maps and various doodles.
Image: That Buford, he’s a sly one. (The first 20 minutes of “Raising Arizona” is perfection. I will fight for this truth.)
The other day I happened upon one of my favorite things to see in the wild: a set of chalk lines that a kid had “drawn”, probably while riding on a scooter or running quickly. The lines captured that zesty joy of living that kids have not yet forgotten.
Image: The fast dashes and the even faster dots. Artist unknown.
Arm Yourself for Drawing
Often when we draw, the tyranny of expectations can get involved, and the act of expression gets tightened into our hands and fingers. One of my favorite YouTube/meme rabbitholes is people making “perfect circles” using the full motion of their hands, elbows, or shoulders. There’s a joy of creation, and an almost universal joy of witnessing.
But even more joyful, in my opinion, is when random movements and arcs can be included in the process. One of my favorite examples is from the artist Carolee Schneemann, in a work called Up To and Including Her Limits. In this work, Carolee was inspired by an arborist and used a harness to fling herself around and make marks. You can find out more by watching this poorly-made video I made! In my defense, it was over 10 years ago, and I had to shoot, “light”, roll sound, and edit within a short timeframe—and Carolee needed to get on a bus to go home and feed her cats. She was a pro, for the record.
Go wild! And maybe use erasable markers in case you extend past the edges of the paper. Art is an essential part of life, but getting your deposit back on your apartment is also essential.
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