'Draw with anything, on anything, in ways that interrupt your normal sensory or bodily relationships to the materials and processes.' That was the brief.
One of the simplest things you do is to draw left-handed if right handed and vice versa. Having graduated from Year 0 last year this was always going to be something I would look to take further.
After initially trying to draw left-handed using boxing gloves, which didn't hamper my control enough I decided to try something a little bit more ambitious, so I got hold of a selection of fine charcoal, put them in my mouth to see how I could draw with them. Initially I wasn't sure if it would work but after checking progress I could see that a pattern was emerging. The charcoal moved in my mouth, broke in my mouth, I could move it with my tongue. The grasp was enough but not total. I could taste the charcoal, saliva was dribbling down the charcoal onto some of the paper. I couldn't see the paper as I as too close, I could make out the emerging marks. I felt I needed to cover the whole paper and not just an area, I wanted total coverage to see how it looked.
While I was doing this I wondered if I could also try something else that would have a closer contact with the paper and still be bodily. I was wondering if I could use my beard as a brush and what media to use. I found some ink and dabbed that on and then had a go at beard painting. Strange? Yes. The sensation of using your beard or rather your jaw and neck, as those are the parts that do the work, that make the movements and ultimately make the marks, was equally as difficult to see what was being created as the charcoal in the mouth. Again I was so close I couldn't see what was being made and even when I stood back and reviewed it I was unable to then go back to it and affect it in any controlled way, I could only continue to cover the paper and see what the end result was.
The result has 'beardness' it has definite directional strokes, as if with a brush but not as if it has been brushed on rather that it has been twisted on, potentially breaking the brush in the process.
I have also used my beard to make and impression in clay when doing some of the casting workshop. The contact with the cold clay was a strange sensation, it was tacky, pulled at the hairs and you could smell it. The resulting cast revealed a subtle impression and with it all being of the same colour it blended into the rest of the cast. Something to consider for other pieces.
I also tried drawing with a piece of paper on the floor while I sat on a chair. Awkward to create and quite difficult to achieve. I did get some results but didn't feel the connection, with the work or the process as I had done with the charcoal in the mouth and beard painting.
It clearly shows the movement of the arm and how the right and left collided in the middle overlapping the create a denser area. Maybe it was that I was using my hands, even though I couldn't see them that I had an issue with or maybe it was that I had the charcoal in my hand I wanted to get it away from a traditional grasp.
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