Module Information

Drawing enables us to express our ideas and is central to an artist’s practice. It is also important in the student’s development of a personal visual language. Drawing helps us to develop and refine our visual awareness and literacy. We examine the world through drawing. It is fundamental to the activities of seeing, thinking and reasoning.

Through practical classes, workshops, demonstrations, lectures and assignments, this module offers an introduction to the language of drawing. It examines the relevance of drawing to all media, introducing techniques, processes, methods and materials.

Over ten weeks of essential practice in observational and measured drawing, students will be introduced to the vocabulary and grammar of drawing as an end in itself as well as its application in Printmaking and Interdisciplinary Thinking and Making. Through the study of original artworks in the School of Art Museum and Galleries, students will learn to identify and analyse a wide range of artists’ materials, techniques and approaches to drawing. Lectures will be delivered by staff from different disciplines to provide a greater appreciation of the rationale of drawing and its application to all media.

Using ‘landscape’ as the unifying theme complements the core art history module AH11520: Looking into Landscape: Reading, Researching, Responding which also runs during Semester 1. It reinforces the connection between history, theory and practice as well as provides a basis for project work, thus forming a more cohesive student learning experience.

The structure allows for the accumulative acquisition of skills as students ready themselves to draw the human form in Semester 2.

This module comprises weekly lectures on techniques, methods and processes common to the disciplines of Drawing, Printmaking and Interdisciplinary Thinking and Making, as well as other disciplines taught at the School of Art. The syllabus broadly connects with themes explored in the core art history module AH11520: Looking into Landscape: Reading, Researching, Responding to provide a themed approach to drawing practice.

1. Lecture: Introduction to Materials and Techniques.

Practical (Drawing): Mark-making and exploring drawing media.
Practical (Printmaking): Introduction to Intaglio: Drypoint, Hard and Soft Ground Etching, Coffee Lift (aquatint). Plate preparation: degreasing, applying and using ground. Approaches to drawing: drypoint, drawing with an etching needle, drawing with coffee lift.

2. Lecture: Line Drawing

Practical (Drawing): Seeking and Drawing Landscape Compositions.
Practical (Printmaking): Introduction to Intaglio: Etching plates, inking and wiping, printing in Black and White. Etching plates – using Ferric Chloride / Saline solution. Inking plates in black and white, wiping, using plate tone, printing.

3. Lecture: Drawing in Printmaking Lecture and Prints from the School of Art Museum Collection.
Practical (Drawing): Line and Measured Drawing.
Practical (Printmaking): Lecture on Printmaking (Printing ≠ Printmaking). Introduction to Printmaking: How successive technical advances in ‘printing’ have facilitated the transcription of line, tone, texture and colour in the development of ‘printmaking’.

4. Lecture: Chiaroscuro.
Practical (Drawing): Chiaroscuro.
Practical (Printmaking): Introduction to Relief Printing: Wood block, vinyl and or linocut. Designing for black and white woodcut and linocut. Approaches to cutting line and texture.

5. Lecture: Landscape in Illustration.
Practical (Drawing): Line and Tone.
Practical (Printmaking): Introduction to Relief Printing: Printing Blocks in Black and White. Inking blocks, printing by hand and using a press for printing. Experimenting with layering, using stencils and masks.

6. Tutorials and Group Tutorials.

7. Lecture: Contemporary Drawing.
Practical (Drawing): Recording Movement.
Practical (Interdisciplinary Thinking and Making): Introduction ‘On Not Standing Still’.

8. Lecture: Perspective Drawing.
Practical (Drawing): Perspective and ‘Non-Perspective’ 1.
Practical (IT&M): Student-led research seminar.

9. Lecture: Drawing with Ink.
Practical (Drawing): Perspective and ‘Non-Perspective’
2. Practical (IT&M): Workshop 1 in the Drawing Studio.

10. Lecture: Drawing with Paint.
Practical (Drawing): Drawing with Paint.
Practical (IT&M): Workshop 2.

11. Lecture: Responses to Landscape.
Practical (Drawing): Making a response in mixed media drawing.
Practical (IT&M): Student project presentations in the Project Room and Drawing studio.