Reflective writing

First assignment was to bring an object, mine was an old canvas which was given as present by my biological grandmother when I was a child. The first task we had in class was to close our eyes, to feel the object we brought with us and to draw what we felt in that very moment. With my hands I felt an old, rough and wore out canvas. However, what I felt went beyond the physical touch: I could feel a story yet to be told and to be drawn. The following task was to draw one detail of the object: I chose to draw the wonderful shapes that were drawn inside the animals’ body on the canvas – such animals were standing inside an ark. Following that, we had to draw with our eyes shut. We had to draw with two pencils using the right and left hand simultaneously. The exercise was to draw what I could remember of my object; I chose to keep drawing the rough shapes and outlines of the object’s drawing. The fun part of the exercise was to not have full control over the drawing with the weaker hand (my left hand).

After that, I had to draw using both hands again, but this time I was only allowed to draw continuous lines and dashes. It was the first time I was drawing using such techniques. The less skilled I was in using a technique, the more fun I had. From the dashes and continuous lines drawing I just completed, I had to convert that into a 3D design. At the time of hearing the task, I had no idea how to do it, or what exactly I should have achieved. Once again, the more I walked into the unknown, the more comfortable I felt. In the end, I created a 3D ship which I attached to the wall.

It was a fantastic sunny day, and the lecturer allowed us to take a walk in the park. While at the park, we brought our object with us, and we placed it in 3 different spots. Later on, we had to explain why we had chosen those spots. The first thing that struck me was that the park was filled with beautifully ancient trees. It reminded me of Gustav Klimt’s drawing: “the tree of life”. Hence, I chose to append my canvas on the wall.

I was together with one of my classmates, and I discovered that he also chose to use the tree to append his object there. I learnt that his object was as rich of history as mine was. I then noticed another thing in this park: there were graves. I got an inspiration linked to Gustav Klimt’s drawing, where life is linked to death.

Back in college, I drew what I could remember from the visit in the park on an A1 with my eye shut. It was a weird feeling: I could envision so much, remember so many details and wanted to draw so much, that it wasn’t easy to keep concentrated and to draw everything which was in my mind. I understood that it’s not easy to draw what I am feeling in a particular moment.

What I loved about this project is that I used something so personal to begin a new way of thinking and seeing things, a new way of drawing, all while keeping a deep personal feeling to the object that I was using to learn all of this. What I liked the least was the time constraint. I felt that within the time constraint given, I could not give enough importance to the details of my object, as I had to rush through the drawing at times.

Design project - Xiao que xing

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