Create > Upside Down Drawing

Create > Upside Down Drawing

Goal: Create a mindful switch from the verbal to the spatial state of consciousness

Concept:

Drawing upside-down provides the right conditions to consciously recognize and experience the spatial state of consciousness.

Familiar things do not look the same when they are upside down. Inverted drawing forces you to shift from the verbal mode to the spatial mode.

Studio Activity:

Understand, that by inverting an image, forms become unrecognizable and ‘nameless’.  this turns down the dominant verbal state of thinking (you don’t name things) and allows the spatial state greater moment to moment awareness.  The spatial state of awareness like mindful meditation induces positive and satisfying emotional consciousness that lasts long after.

1. Prepare with a  blank page, a pencil and the image I give you.
2. Take a deep breath and prepare not to speak for 30 minutes.
3. Turn the image upside down and like Trukese sailor navigate by constantly checking and rechecking visual qualities.  For example; this line goes up and to the left, starting halfway down the middle of the page and ending near the upper left edge of the paper.
4. Do not speak or attempt to name things.

Trigger Mechanisms: Awareness, Silence, Observation

Generalize, Reflect & Publish:

Instructional Strategy

• Evaluate the results

Learning Activity

Reflect > Should I go back and rework anything?

• How did you combine art elements (line, color, shape, texture, value)  to develop art principles? (Unity/variety, balance, emphasis contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale, figure/ground relationship)

• Where are the dominant shapes, forms, colors, or textures that carry expressive significance?
• Why Is the work ordered and balanced or chaotic and disturbing?
• What gives the work its uniqueness?
• Is symbolism used in the work to convey meaning other than what one sees?
• Does the work evoke any feelings?

Instructional Strategy

• Providing Recognition

Learning Activity

Publish > Share your album to our G+Community > Concepts & Creations category

Respond > in the comment section write the following reflection.

• Obviously you can’t always turn things upside down (models, still lifes or landscapes) so your goal is to be able to look like an artist.  What will that take?

Egon Schiele

Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Igor Stravinsky. 1920. Graphite. Musée Picasso, Paris, France

Pieter Brueghel the Younger from theIconography; etching by Van Dyck

Albrecht Durer My Agnes

Edgar Degas