Drawing and flying - thinking via life drawing

I've been awarded a place on the national Artists Access to Art Colleges scheme and will be spending approximately one day a week at Plymouth University over the 2013-14 academic year, doing research in support of my bird flight project Solid Air.  While I'm there, I'll also be sharing aspects of my practice with students.

Having been introduced to the facilities and put up an informal introductory exhibition with the other artists (Tabatha Andrews, Sally Hall, Kaleigh Hill, Lee McDonald and Jamie Barber) my first period of hands-on work was to join the weekly life class.

I wanted to explore in a practical way the differences between drawing freehand with pencil on paper and creating digital drawings from data. What most interests me is the contrast that Tim Ingold describes in relation to line-making between 'the trace of a gesture' and 'an assembly of point-to-point connectors' (2007: 74-75).

A freehand drawing evolves during a process of discovery as marks are made and remade in response to the model. In Ingold's terms it is 'laying a trail as one goes along' (ibid.: 76). Similarly, when flying free, the bird maintains an overall goal such as searching for food, but makes its path through the air by responding to different stimuli in the environment (such as air currents).

However, by contrast, when flight co-ordinates collected by a bird are transcribed and plotted on the computer screen or digital printer, the drawing (or 3D print) is made by a process whereby 'every successive destination is already fixed prior to setting out' (ibid.: 73).

Ingold, T. (2007) Lines: A Brief History  London: Routledge