In this short video by C. Coy, designer Milton Glaser draws a picture of Shakespeare while talking about the ways that drawing helps him think and perceive: "for me, drawing has always been a primary way of encountering reality."
His ideas reminding me of cartoonist Seth's short essay for The Walrus called "The Quiet Art of Cartooning." Both Seth and Glaser are in agreement that your mind opens up on interesting ways while you draw. Teachers who prevent students from drawing and doodling while being taught a lesson are hindering their learning.
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It's interesting to see someone draw and talk at the same time. I absolutely can't write or type and talk at the same time. The brain says "one or the other, but not both." Drawing though, I'm not sure of.
check out "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud. It's my bible. I also think it should be required reading for any art student.
I’ve long believed that art started as a way of noticing things, focusing on them, fixing them in our minds, that when our ancestors drew animals on the walls of caves, it was a kind of sympathetic magic. If they could draw them, they knew them, they controlled them. Or could control them. Then drawing led to writing and to civilization. All from art. In those days art was science.
Milton Glaser's covers for Shakespeare (Signet, I believe) are incredible. The Tempest is one of my favorites, here is a slightly washed out example
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14168877@N04/3028440072/in/pool-miltonglaser
I'd like to see the other 49 Shakespeare drawings. Are they all the same 3/4 view head? He talks a lo about form, but his drawing doesn't indicate much in the way of solid three-dimensional construction. It's more like - "I know how to draw a 3/4 view head."
jfrancis. i think you miss the whole point. creating a masterpiece wasn't the intention of this film. he even mentions how a perfect likeness is not always the goal.
I initially thought there was a deeper message happening here by way of completely contradicting everything he's saying via the "drawing", considering that he's not observing or seeing anything.
Then I decided it's just hubris.
I can't draw, because I don't think in pictures, or even consciously remember pictures. I can't visualize. And yet, I've written award-winning books and delivered well-received lectures. I think in words. I remember things as words. And it works for me. To remember the content of a scene, I have to first tell myself a story about it, and then remember that story, as words.
I think people who think thinking in pictures is superior are unaware that there are others for whom that is not the case. I think it depends completely on the individual.
Before the addition of the beard, Willie the Shake looks remarkably like former Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau.
I would say the mind is open-uppable in many interesting ways via many pursuits. Drawing, yes, writing, yes, making music, yes, hard physical effort, yes (think Haruki Murakami and long-distance running, for instance), ingestion of psychotropic substances, yes. There's more'n one way to skin a minou.
Is it just me or does his pencil go from black to red as it gets dull, then back to black again once the point goes totally soft?
Also, There's something to be said for a method of drawing that takes into account the lifespan of the average pencil point.
@dejayqueue
he is using a multi colored pencil like the one in this image.
http://bit.ly/6dm1Mj
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@anonymous
If you google the phrase 'Analyze the model, don't copy the model' you'll see the work of an artist I had in mind when I made that comment. He doesn't strive to accurately copy the model, and he comes from a tradition of solid construction.
Robert Beverly Hale described drawing as the placing of lines over conceived form. It's possible that Glaser was working from a strong conception of 3D form in the video. I just didn't get that sense from the way he placed his lines.
Specifically, he's using a koh-i-noor magic pencil :D
I'm so happy to see an artist using them, even if only for a sketch. Only mums buy them for kids in our store.
I think this is a great video, and, as a drawer, I find it very inspiring.
Drawing is not being acknowledged as an important part of development.. For children and for artists. I think it is really showing in contemporary art.
glaser's opinion is untrue about art schools discarding drawing to accommodate technology. drawing is seeing a comeback from the previous generations.
it's the home and pre-college educational environments that have discarded drawing, and colleges have to play catch-up in that education -- too late for the critical period for kids as glaser mentions.
This is about drawing and painting.