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INTRODUCTION ALCHEMY
At school, and sometimes beyond, we are advised or even energy and focus of the moment to be expressed through
required to plan our pictures, declare the idea, explain the controlled accident and a degree of the unknown Both
composition, and practice each part before putting the final drawings were made trusting the marks, and at speeds
image together. This suits many artists well and is perfectly beyond conscious thought.
valid. However, excessive planning can get in the As you draw any subject—something you see, feel, or
way of the imagination, the unknown, and what imagine—it is not enough to only render its shape,
you discover in the process of making. It denies size, and position in space. You must also think of its
the importance of accident, which can offer intrinsic nature: its purpose, meaning, and how it feels
keys to other things. to the touch. Know the texture, temperature,
These two brush drawings, created depth, and opacity of your subject. Imagine
centuries and cultures apart, are both these qualities so strongly that you feel them
made of ink laid onto wet paper with in your mind and at your fingertips. Whatever
speed and agile certainty. The physicality, the material— wood, silk, bone, metal, fire, or
balance, and spirit of each subject was
held strongly but loosely between ice—you must actually feel it beneath your
the fingertips, and allowed to flow fingers as you draw. As your hand meets
through the brush. Each image the paper to make a mark, it should
relied upon past experience to be responding to the sensation and
know the probable behavior meaning of the subject it draws. If
of the brush, ink, water, and you can do this, your marks will
paper. They each allowed the become the subject on the paper.
This is the alchemy of drawing.
FLOWING SKELETON BRUSHED LANDSCAPE
The gliding poise of this walking This is a detail of a brush-and-ink
anatomy comes as much from the drawing by a Japanese Buddhist
feeling of movement as it does from monk. Our position asvieweris
the feeling of drawing. I made it unsteady. W e float toward the
almost unconsciously with a pen and quiet vista as it also moves toward
a brush, trusting my intuition to find us. We are caught in a shifting focus
a visual equivalence for the sensation that makes everything fluid, and we
of weight within my body. can just make out the distant stains
of mountains, mists, and an island
brushed with trees.
Landscape in Haboku Style
15TH CENTURY
