Workshop 2 – Drawing making – Making drawing with Gemma Anderson

‘Over the years of practised observation, I have been creating a bank of forms, stored in my memory. Drawing is a mnemonic device, and the more I draw; the more forms and ideas enter my collective memory’. Gemma Anderson, (taken from Drawing Projects, 2011).

This workshop delivers a rigorous observational drawing method developed by Anderson, through which an in depth knowledge of natural form will emerge. Anderson will introduce the workshop concept with an artist’s talk describing her practice based research project 'Isomorphology'. The workshop will be routed in the practice of studying and drawing a range of natural history specimens borrowed from museum collections especially for this workshop. 

Anderson will lead the group through this unique seven step method which is directly inspired by Goethe's conception of morphology and 'Delicate empiricism'; combining observation, intuition and imagination, allowing for individual experimentation, through which we will come to know the morphology[1] of our specimen in a new way. 

[1] Morphology is a term coined by Goethe in 1792 as the study of the form and formative processes of organisms.

Part of Drawing making – Making drawing a series of talks, in-conversations, discussions and workshops conceived of and devised by artist, writer and educator, Jack Southern.

*Please note, lunch is not provided and participants will need to bring to the workshop a range of pencils (e.g. HB through to 8B), a magnifying glass (if you have one), colouring pencils or watercolours and a journal or notepad.