Re-collection; drawing from memory
Like many artists whilst my final outcomes are abstract, they are firmly based in reality; from observational drawing, tracings, photography, rubbings and gathering up of items I find on my journey.
I call this approach collecting; filling my ‘creative fridge’ to use back in the studio.
collection of objects found on a walk
The physicality of hand to paper offers a unique opportunity for immediate expression. The physical gesture of brain, to pen, to paper offers the immediate extension of an idea as well as direct sensory observation of our environment. The action of hand drawing creates a bond with the paper where it becomes an extension of the brain, and it teaches the brain to develop ideas. The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, an avid life-long sketcher says drawing is like “breathing”.
As Juhani Pallassmaa states “There is a bridge between the imagining mind and the image that appears on the sheet of paper. The hand…operates directly in the flesh of the world, the reality of space, matter and time, the very physical condition of the imagined object, or space.”[1]
My own drawing has increasingly shifted from the single viewpoint to approaches that I feel have more potency, that capture a sense of place. The purpose of this post is not to reject the use of traditional observational drawing, but to emphasize that there are other ways of approaching the act of drawing, of capturing the essence of a subject, the aim being not to replicate but to represent. These approaches are numerous and include contour drawing; effectively looking at all times at your subject and keeping your pen or pencil on the paper, drawing around physical objects to gather shapes, lines, patterns, taking rubbings and tracing shadows.*
However, making drawings from memory is the subject of this post. I call these recollection drawings, essentially collecting observational memories that are collected and represented later in the studio; re-collected.
By walking and observing, but only drawing when back in my studio, I am using stored information that is pulled from my memory via my hand onto paper. I started experimenting when introduced to the idea by a visiting tutor Dr Michelle Whiting on my MA. She described how she would walk and observe, make recordings of sounds including her own voice but not physically drawing. Back in the studio she would recreate from memory, including the movements made when walking.
The resultant pieces have an atmospheric quality.
drawing around the objects above
Michelle Whiting
Oliver Reed “The Lost Valley”
I searched on Instagram for any posts using #memorydrawingand found artist Anita Reynolds, had posted ‘memory sketches’; studies done in the studio after a time of observational drawing outside.
These dynamic sketches no doubt feeding into her later outcomes. They capture the essence of her subject.
Anita Reynolds
This is a very different experience, with different results from observational sketching. When drawing from observation I often find myself measuring distances, becoming too concerned with proportion and perspective, the closet architect in me begins to take over! Drawing from memory avoids the anxiety of drawing exactly what one sees and focuses more on the overall atmosphere of a place, its essence, a recollection. I find I only remember what is important to me, and it leads me towards refining my intentions** for a final piece.
Every time you draw something you are actually drawing from your memory. This is true no matter what your source is: from life, a photograph or your imagination. The reason for this is that you cannot look at your subject and draw it at the same time. At some point you must take your eyes (or mind) off of your subject and focus on your drawing. When you do, you draw what you have seen, past tense….not present.
The same is true of painting. With each pass you remember what you have just painted. You decide in a split second what to do next based on both that short term memory, and your knowledge and experience that is built over time; all those ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’ thoughts that float in and out as we are working. Often we are unaware of them, but they are there hard-wired into our memory.
Visualizing your own observations through drawing, letting your memory guide your hand is a visual and cognitive way to grasp the essence of a place. Back in the studio the I try to work fast, and focused on the overall structural and spatial experience of the place I have visited. Fast-drawn recollection sketches encourage an openness to broad ideas. I have found that what was important for my brain to memorize, becomes distilled into the recollection, in effect I filter out what isn’t important.
recollection sketch of an underpass.
Further research led me to the writings of Darren Rousar. In Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall (4) Rousar’s aim is to enable you to train your memory to be able to replicate what you see, this is not what I personally am interested in preferring to represent rather than replicate. But his book is interesting, he explains clearly that memory is a complex thing, it has many parts: working, short term, and long term. Both working memory and short term memory are involved when you’re drawing from a subject that’s in front of you.
Rousar states that working memory is something you tend to mentally manipulate while it’s being used. For example, when you notice an error while you’re drawing and make the correction without resorting to another look at the subject, spending time to correct, you are then using your working memory.
Short term memory, which is a part of working memory, is not manipulated. Short term memory is that which is used within a few seconds. It is also not manipulated in your mind before it is used. So, if you are working quickly, and you make a subtle change based upon flicking your eye up and down to your paper, you’re using your short-term memory.
Most things that you can recall after more than a 30 seconds are also stored in your long term memory. That is what makes it available to be recalled at a later time, when you are working. At that point you have a combined memory of both your vision of the object and the physical act of drawing, the muscle memory.
Another way of ‘drawing’ that Rousar says relates to memory drawing is to spend time actively seeing, to stare at your subject and pretend that you’re actually drawing it. As you observe you consciously think about the various aspects of the image. I often to do this if I find myself without materials at hand. Holding up my finger and tracing the subject in the air, using the side of my hand to indicate angles with one eye shut, whilst having an inner dialogue “this edge is longer than that one, that edge is at a steeper angle than those edges, this value is lighter than the rest, etc.” I admit it looks odd to anyone watching, a little like Thai Chi! But back in the studio moving my hands from memory can bring back the essence.
recollection sketches after a walk along the coast
Another form of active seeing is simply to stare at a scene, taking in the whole of it while intentionally avoiding measuring etc, by doing this you are trying to perceive the visual impression, a sense of the subject. When I do this I then stand with my eyes shut and recollect it, what I am ‘seeing’ is not actually a sensation on my retina. Rather, what I am visualizing is my short term memory.
Ideas around drawing from memory are not new. In the beginning of Lecoq de Boisbaudran’s 1911 (5) book he defines visual memory as ‘stored observation’, or ‘observation preserved’. By observation he means more than a perfunctory glance, but intense looking.
”….without the help of note or sketch of any kind, they show a power of grasping a scene as a whole, of seizing its essential character and movement“
It is this essence that I am aiming for, the sense of place, a representation of a journey rather than a single viewpoint. It is an approach that I encourage you to explore, whether your work is representational or abstract. It is in itself a journey into another aspect of creativity.
NOTES
*If you are interested in learning about a range of ways to collect, consider and create, and are confident with your chosen media, then take a look at my Approaches to Abstraction course. Whilst recollection sketching is not part of that course it will be part of my new course Urban Explorations.
**intentions is the topic of my next blog post
NB One of my students has Aphantasia, which is the inability to visualize. It is rare and one that is also difficult to diagnose. If you have Aphantasia, or believe that you do, don’t fret. You can still be creative. You can read more about it HERE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pallasmaa, J., 2010. The thinking hand. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley.
Bathspa.ac.uk. 2021. Michele Whiting. [online] Available at: <https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/michele-whiting/> [Accessed 15 October 2021].
Oliver Reed ‘ Part 1: Memory Musings – Ideas, research and musings (ed.ac.uk)
Rousar, D., Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall
Lecoq de Boisbaudran, H., Luard, L. and Image, S., 1911. The training of the memory in art and the education of the artist. London: Macmillan and Co. free online version, translated into English in 1911, is available here.