DIAGRAFICA

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines art as 'Human creative skill or its application'. We surely need to flesh out that brief definition. I would suggest this: 'Art enriches and enhances the quality of life. Art is something that isn't naturally here; it's created by artists through the skillful transformation of raw materials with love, often with passion, and always with imagination; a form of alchemical magic. Art then is creation, or co-creation, and not replication. Art is about feelings, experiences and, especially, imaginings. Things that are different; things that transcend the day-to-day human experience of reality. Art is about elevating the human spirit, inviting it to soar. Art is about changing moods. Art is about nudging us, and sometimes shocking us, out of complacency and asking us to look at, and thus experience, the world differently. Art is stimulating, energising, and sustaining; it fuels and sustains hope. Art is largely about self-exploration and self-expression. Whether its modes of expression be via the visual arts, music, literature, theatre or whatever, its sources are similar, and those sources arise from the innate human desire to make, to create, and often to beautify.

This desire is a manifestation of humankind's need to lift itself out of mediocrity, indifference, boredom, disappointment, repetition, pain and suffering, and reach outwards and upwards. Art has nothing to do with utilitarianism. It's not something to be used. Rather it's something to be incorporated within life lived as celebration; something therefore to be enjoyed and often wondered at. Its creators are those who find themselves able first to recognise and then to articulate their loves, their feelings, their experiences and their ideas, and to do so in original and imaginative ways. We call those people artists, and we all of us have artistic potential'.

If, as I have just suggested, the source of art is love and imagination, then 'artists' need to understand what brings out their love, and what stimulates and excites their imaginations. To that end they need to get to their own source, and, once there, harvest the seeds of love and imagination that will subsequently sprout and blossom, through the transformative use of materials, into works of art. For those that choose the visual arts as their mode of personal or self-expression, Keeping a Graphic Workbook in which Drawing, Colour and Handwriting are combined, is almost certainly one of the best tools for getting to that source, and for such harvesting.

The arts of drawing and handwriting, which I see to be the fundamental components for such Graphic Workbooks, have been somewhat marginalised in many quarters of both the 'art world' and art education over the last century, and yet, paradoxically, they are activities which remain an almost universal part of human development, experience, interest and enjoyment. Indeed the acts of making and creating, especially drawing and handwriting, appear to be innate activities of humankind which meet deep-seated needs. A Graphic Workbook is something that not only every visual artist at every level should keep, but something that everybody should consider keeping. Not least because I see it as a means by which perceptions, thoughts, responses, feelings and emotions may be expressed, or externalised, in a remarkable visual way.

More particularly I am convinced that the 'process' of making entries in a Graphic Workbook has of its essence the requirement to be completely present in the moment. I am very much persuaded that the by-now-rather-hackneyed phrase 'You already have all that you need to be who you really are' is really true. What we mostly seem to struggle with is gaining access to our own life forces, and then putting them to their best uses in living out our own authentic lives. Instead we tend either to keep them bottled up and repressed, or try to be something or someone that we are not, usually with disappointing consequences. My lifelong interest in, and practice of, drawing now leads me to believe very strongly that drawing, which I shall presently define, can be an extraordinarily powerful tool with which individuals may explore and express many aspects of both their inner and outer worlds, particularly when such drawings are combined with colour and with handwritten words. This book is all about such explorations and such expressions; manifestations of the world that already exists within us, as well as the world which surrounds us. This is a book therefore that is not just for 'artists', but for all, young and old, far and wide, who wish to participate actively in voyages of personal visual exploration, leading to discoveries and, not infrequently, transformations.

This is not an academic book in the sense that such books are primarily concerned with the history and the theory of a given subject. It's more a polemic, perhaps even a cri de coeur. However it does contain some preliminary background discussions about the nature of drawing, and the principles involved in its practice. It is definitely not a prescriptive drawing manual. In fact this book, being the third volume of my 'Drawing Trilogy', assumes basic familiarity with drawing and painting theory and practice, since those matters have been dealt with at length in the two previous volumes. If in any sense it is a 'how to' book, it is a book which offers suggestions as to how to develop an individualised approach to practical combinations of drawing, handwriting and colour on the pages of a personal Graphic Workbook.

This book is rooted in the reality of my own experience of making many thousands of drawings in sketchbooks, and writing by hand many hundreds, perhaps also by now thousands, of pages, in journals. What I have to say here is based on more than 50 years of personal drawing practice and a quarter of a century of teaching drawing to people with widely varying levels of ability and experience. Its aim is to stimulate and facilitate you, the reader, to pick up pencils, pens and brushes and get to work, in your own natural way, without any sense of fear of failure or intimidation. Because I am completely convinced that the material to be presented in these pages will, when put into practice, enhance your life in ways which you might not have thought possible.

The word graphic is defined within my copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary as being"of or relating to the visual or descriptive arts, especially writing and drawing". And so the term Keeping a Graphic Workbook seems to me to be the one that is most suitable for describing a certain type of activity which involves making, or creating, entries on pages of paper, most often in some sort of book, which combine images with words, in the form of drawing, colour and handwriting. Such a book differs significantly from purely written diaries and journals, and also from many sketchbooks, which traditionally contain drawings without words and often without colour.

The keeper of such a Graphic Workbook could be called a 'Graphicer' I suppose, a word that has now crept into the language: a Graphic Journalist or Graphic Chronicler would be alternatives. The terms 'Artist's Journal', 'Graphic Journal', 'Sketchbook Journal', 'Visual Chronicle', 'Visual Diary', 'Visual Journal', 'Watercolour Journal' and 'Annotated Sketchbook' are other names for a Graphic Workbook. But Graphic Workbook is, I think, probably the best one, particularly when it is applied to books which consist of combinations of drawing, colour and handwriting. Of course Graphic Workbooks can take many forms, incorporating collage, mixed media, and so on. But this book's main focus will be that of combining drawing, handwriting and colour. This book moves progressively, and quite quickly, through separate, practical considerations of Drawing, Colour and Handwriting, towards ways in which these three elements, or components, may be integrated within the format of a Graphic Workbook. And it also contains a section about using the pages of such books as starting points for other works. The 'images' are all reproductions of my own work in sketchbooks/journals/workbooks. They are derived from a period of 44 years engaged in this activity, though the majority of them are from the last 3 years. They appear more or less in chronological order, so that the reader may appreciate the gradual evolution of style and content which has occurred over these years. With very few exceptions the drawings were made on location, and the writing which accompanies them was almost all done on the spot.

This book follows on naturally from the first two volumes of the trilogy, 'The Drawing Spirit; Developing the Art of your Drawing Hand' and 'DiZENiO; Celebrating Beauty through the Art of Drawing'. I believe that it is a book, like them, which can stand alone. It is also, in common with those preceding two volumes, an intensely personal one. Indeed this third volume is unquestionably the most personal of them, because it is tightly focused on the keeping of Graphic Workbooks, probably the most intimate and authentic of all activities in the visual arts. I feel that its contents will have a wide appeal since it presents a framework for a focused approach to a particular type of drawing and writing activity which I believe to be highly relevant for our times; and it's an activity that is currently neither widely taught nor widely practised.

Just now we looked briefly at what drawing has mainly been in the past, concluding that, within the traditions of Western Art from the time of the Italian Renaissance, it was predominantly concerned with realistic description or depiction until the end of the nineteenth century. In some quarters it still is. But drawings that are entirely realistic and 'complete', and that lack any evidence of personal touch or interpretation, tend to look rather sterile. We may admire the skill with which they were executed, but they don't really move us. They don't ask us to question conventional assumptions nor, importantly, do they leave room for our own visual experience and imagination to get to work. As such, realistic, complete and 'academic' drawings come to represent, at their best, the height of drawing craftsmanship.

Which begs the question 'What is the difference between craftsmanship and art?' I have attempted to answer that question in both the earlier volumes in this trilogy, and put forward some suggestions as to what I think art is at the beginning of this book. In truth it is not a question that can be easily answered, not least because it inevitably suggests judgement, but also because any definition must, in the end, always be a personal one, due to our own individual taste and sense of values. But I think that it is a question that we probably do each need to consider quietly for ourselves from time to time. In particular we should bear in mind the notion that art has the ability to transcend purely linguistic expression, and dwell in 'dimensions' beyond those of science, politics, religion and even philosophy. Since vision and visual perception are both themselves moving phenomena, and since we live in an age of movement and multiple images, then contemporary drawing surely needs to reinvent or redefine itself within that milieu. So far it hasnŐt really done so. Injecting movement (through drawing) into static objects/subject matter and conveying a sense of movement (through drawing) via a static object (a drawing) are two of the important challenges that face the practise of drawing in our time, and in this book we will be very much concerned with both of those issues.

In many ways the misunderstandings surrounding Duchamp's pronouncements, discussed earlier, have been unfortunate, to say the least; I would submit that of all the visual arts it is perhaps that of drawing which has suffered most as a result of them. By that I mean that classical approaches to, and training in, drawing were abandoned completely in many places at around Duchamp's time, rather than being re-examined and updated, which I think is what he, and indeed others, were proposing. Unfortunately the widespread practise of drawing has not yet been universally resumed. Which means that many contemporary artists, and their teachers too, simply cannot draw. Does this matter? I believe that it matters greatly.

Analogies taken from other artistic activities may be helpful here. Successful novels do not become such as the result of a unilateral declaration of their worth on the part of the author, in the way that Duchamp had posited his urinal as a work of art. Rather they become established as successful novels because they present to the reader an original plot, scenarios and a cast of characters, all of which are articulated and harmonized using a well-established language which involves knowledge of plot structure, character development, grammar, syntax, vocabulary and so on. These are all used to bring about effects within the mind of the reader, and these effects occur because the reader is able to relate to them from memory and experience, or through imagination and/or fantasy. Consequently many readers buy them and enjoy reading them. Such novels can indeed be thought of as successful.

Many of them started as notebooks or journals, in which were written countless words which recorded observations and research, or which articulated imaginings. The writing of a good novel is a lengthy and demanding process. It results in an object; a book, which the reader reads. A story which is of interest, and most especially human interest. In the end therefore one could say that it is the reader, or readers, who decide whether it is a work of art and not the author. The great draughtsman/woman, of which there have been remarkably few in the history of humankind, is akin to the conductor of a large orchestra, but much more besides. Because not only does the artist conduct, in other words ensure that all the musical instruments are playing in time and in tune, as well as expressing themselves appropriately under the conductor's guiding baton, but the visual artist has also composed the 'music' for the orchestral set of 'instruments' (pictorial elements and different media), each one of which he or she knows intimately how to 'play'! A visual artist who, using this analogy, proclaims that he or she has just produced a great work of art, especially one that he or she did not create using materials with his or her own hands, and who has no knowledge of composition, no knowledge of melody or harmony and no ability to play or understand the range and qualities of the 'instruments', is likely to find that the proclamation falls on deaf ears, and is not appreciated by those with keen and knowing eyes. In my view far too many modern 'artists' now fall within this category.

Moreover many are presenting so-called, and self-proclaimed, 'art objects' to which the vast majority of viewers cannot relate. Just like readers for books it is the viewers of the visual arts who will decide what for them is, or, just as importantly, is not art, and not the artists, curators or critics, however self-confident or self-important they may think themselves to be. In the case of drawing everybody can relate to it, because everybody has drawn and therefore, in my view, everybody has every right to hold an opinion as to what sort of drawing constitutes a work of art for them, rather being told what to think by someone else. This is important!

Encountering a lack of acceptance or understanding the 'artist' may shout louder and louder, or behave in ever more outrageous manners, in order to bring attention to himself or herself, and, often secondarily, the work. These are manifestations of the need for instant gratification and recognition, especially in the marketplace, that have little to do with the act or the quality of drawing, and so I think that we may now put them to one side. Because no amount of such posturing will make good the visual equivalents of a lack of musical melody, or the inability to play expressively, in time and in tune. In my view the claim that something, or some activity, is 'Art', requires that it be authentic, excellent and beautiful, and that it conveys some sense of perfection and truth; those attributes are almost always hard-earned. Art then is not something that you need to proclaim; it is self-evident to the viewer/receiver, and its experience will necessarily vary between viewers.

We might however have some sympathy with the sense of frustration associated with a failure to achieve excellence or beauty because of the fact that being both the composer and the conductor, as well as knowing how to play all the instruments is indeed rather a daunting prospect! Perfection is never really attainable. But the way to come to terms with it is to recognise that, straight out of the blocks, as it were, it is not possible to become all these things in a short period of time, and also to recognise that not only have very, very few people ever achieved that level of mastery in drawing, but that, importantly, such mastery is not necessary for the purposes of creating a highly successful and relevant personal Graphic Workbook!