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Firing Practice: Drawing as Empowerment

Article  in  Journal of Visual Art Practice · November 2002

DOI: 10.1386/jvap.1.3.150

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Howard Riley
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 Firing Practice: Drawing as Empowerment
Howard Riley
Abstract
The domain of drawing is mapped as a matrix integrating the social functions of drawing
with the systems of semiotic choices and levels of perception. Such a matrix facilitates
students to realize meaning in drawings and facilitates viewers to negotiate meanings
from drawings. It is proposed that understanding the domain of drawing empowers
students’ practice.

The three R’s revisited

1 I am indebted to one The three R’s, Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic, are generally agreed to stand for the
of my anonymous ref- important educational priorities of literacy and numeracy. However, wRiting itself is
erees for pointing out
implicit evidence of another faculty of educational value: our ability to inscribe marks
that Christopher
Frayling questioned the upon a surface so as to make representations of our experiences visible to others.
validity of the three R’s It may be argued that the centrality of wRiting within the familiar mantra has
in a speech delivered at usurped the cultural importance of that other faculty for which there is no name.
Repton School. Perhaps visualcy? This invented term refers to the distinct capacity of the human
Professor Frayling has
mind that Bruce Archer identified as ‘analogous with the language capacity and the
kindly provided me
with a copy of that mathematical capacity for cognitive modelling’ (Archer & Roberts 1979). Deanna
speech, in which he Petherbridge has commented that ‘Drawing is the primal means of symbolic
argues for ‘reading, communication, which predates and embraces writing, and functions as a tool of
wroughting, and arith- conceptualization parallel with language’ (Petherbridge 1991: 7).
metic’. The term
In the wake of such authorities, a more balanced and coherent version of the
‘wroughting’, says
Frayling, ‘... places three R’s may be proposed1: Reading, Routing, and ‘Rithmetic. According to the
making and creating at Oxford English Dictionary, to rout means ‘to cut a groove in a surface’. A router is
the heart of a well- ‘one who routs out or draws forth’. These are venerable words, redolent of a pre-
rounded education.’ industrialized era. However, here they are revitalized, to remind us of the hand/eye
coordination essential to much material cultural production even in this digital age
of the twenty-first century, and to remind us that the activity of drawing facilitates
the uniquely human aspiration to share through visual communication our physical,
emotional and spiritual experiences of the world.
This paper scrutinizes assumptions about drawing which have long been taken
for granted, and instead takes them apart. In doing so, a new validity for the practice
and teaching of drawing is advocated – a validity akin to other disciplines concerned
with systematic research and the sharing of discovery, founded not upon the
vagaries of individualism (whilst allowing individual expression) but upon a new,
clearly articulated basis derived from perception and communication theories.

The fundamental problem identified

A historical review of methodologies applied in the teaching and practice of drawing
confirmed the observation that few approaches to teaching drawing articulate their
philosophical bases, and none appears to align its methodology with the other two
parameters required for the clear articulation of any philosophical position, namely,

150 JVAP 1 (3) 150–161 © Intellect Ltd 2002

those of ontology and epistemology (Riley 2001). The identification of this
problem reveals a fundamental need for students to be empowered. Firstly, in the
sense of acquiring an understanding of how the study of drawings and the
practice of drawing may expand awareness of the existence of ontological and
epistemological constructions within the self and others; and secondly, of how
such awareness may then stimulate the production of visual work.
It is argued that a proposed new teaching programme of drawing, based upon
a synthesis of perception theory and communication theory, could expand
students’ awareness and understanding of a range of cross-cultural constructions
of reality made visible through drawings, and may empower them to produce
more varied, more informed constructions of reality in the form of drawn
responses and ultimately, other visual practices.

The visual aesthetic process of production

Let us consider the relationship between an individual piece of work and the state of
the culture within which it is located. The individual piece may be expressed through
identifiable conventions which may be taken to constitute the ‘hallmark’ of the
period, or alternatively may challenge those conventions. In order to explore such
relationships between individual expressions and cultural conventions, Raymond
Williams (Williams & Orram 1954; Williams 1961) invented the term ‘structure of
feeling’. A structure of feeling describes the ideological aesthetic construction
through which we make sense of the unique within the generalities of a period’s
social conventions. The concept becomes useful here as a way of understanding the
visual aesthetic process:
The making visible of any idea requires an inception stage, in which social
concepts and individual percepts are codified in material form. What is termed here
the visual aesthetic process is an ordering of visual perceptual relations deemed
appropriate by the producer for transforming into visible form some aspect of the
sociocultural values of the particular social and cultural context (See Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Firing Practice:drawing as empowerment 151

 At the inception stage, the semiotic requirements for visualizing social ideology
will determine the selection and combination of drawing elements (See Table 1).
The combinations in the above chart are of course universal. They can be seen at
work in all visual imagery in every culture. But how these combinations come to
represent experiences of the world is very much culture-specific.
What is noticed about distance-relations, for example, may be represented using
proportion and scale encoded in a system of geometry deemed appropriate to that
society’s world-view. A society with no concept of egocentricity would have little need
to develop an artificial perspective which represents distance relations from a static,
one-eyed central viewpoint. (Figure 2) Australian Aborigines, for example, have used
combinations of visual elements in order to represent their ideological positioning,
which is one of total integration with all aspects of the natural world (Figure 3).
In the materialist sense, drawings are produced through the selection and
combination of particular surfaces, drawing tools, and the marks resulting from
their interaction. However, semiotically speaking, both producers and viewers of
drawings take up positions, adopt attitudes and points of view which are influenced
by their positions within their sets of social relations. Such an ideological
positioning involves a specific way of using signs (a semiotic), and a structured
sensibility (an aesthetic) both grounded in a particular system of social relations.
The way the producer selects and combines the compositional elements of the
drawing, and how the viewer relates to that drawing, are both functions of the social
contexts in which the work is (re)produced. But to say that drawings simply reflect
social structure is too passive. Drawing not only expresses the social context but is part
of a more complex dialectic in which drawings actively symbolize the social system, thus
producing, as well as being produced by, the ideological framework of a society. This
dialectical relationship is what Michael Halliday (1978: 183) discusses in the phrase
‘social semiotic’.
From this social semiotic perspective, any social context may be understood as
a temporary construct which may be mapped in terms of the three variables which
Halliday called field, tenor, and mode.

Table 1.

152 Howard Riley

Figure 2.

Field of social process – what is going on at the time of production of the drawing.
Tenor of social relationships – the type of drawing we produce varies according to
the level of formality, of technicality, of need for clarity of communication, etc. It
is the role relationships – the drawer, the subject matter, the viewer and their
inter-relationships – that affect the variations.
Mode of symbolic interaction – in the sense that how we draw varies with our
attitude. An attitude of objective observation may produce drawings in a
realistic mode; emotional disturbance may be realized in an expressionist
mode; absentmindedness in doodling mode. An attitude attuned to the
necessity of clear communication may produce drawings in a highly
conventional mode, for example, as specified by British Standards or
professional bodies.

The functions of drawing

Halliday (1973) argued that any code of
communication has three main
functions. Firstly, to convey some aspect
of our experience of the world. Secondly,
to express our attitude or mood regarding
our experience, and also to position the
receiver in terms of mood and attitude.
Thirdly, to structure these two into a
coherent, perceptible form. The first two
functions may be labelled the experiential
and the interpersonal. The third may be
termed the compositional function.
The parameters of social context – field,
tenor, and mode – are systematically
related to the functions of the semiotic
system. In fact, those meanings that
Figure 3. constitute our understanding of any

Firing Practice:drawing as empowerment 153

particular social situation are made visible through the selection and combination of
elements within the semiotic system (See Table 2).
This is the basis of a model which may theorize how drawings operate within a
social context, and may empower students’ practice.
Halliday (1973) elaborated upon this basis to provide a model which identified
the systems of choices from which specific selections may be related to the
functions of language in specific social contexts.
Michael O’Toole (1994) demonstrated the versatility of Halliday’s model by
adapting it to theorize how painting, sculpture and architecture may be understood
in relation to their social contexts. Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (1996)
have also used Halliday’s insight to illuminate the study of graphic design and other
forms of visual communication. They have argued that in a literate culture, the
visual means of communication may be construed as rational expressions of
cultural meanings, amenable to rational accounts and analysis. The problem, they
claimed, has been that literate cultures have ‘systematically suppressed means of
analysis of the visual forms of representation, so that there is not, at the moment,
an established theoretical framework within which visual forms of representation
can be discussed’ (Kress & van Leeuwin 1996: 20–21). Alongside these pioneers of
a systemic-functional semiotics of the visual, this paper proposes just such a
theoretical framework within which visual forms of representation may be
discussed. Specifically, it is proposed that the theoretical framework may inform the
production of drawings, and that it may also function as an instrument for
evaluating qualitative shifts in students’ attitudes evident in their drawings.

A systemic-functional semiotic model for drawing

Such a model is presented in Figure 4 where the Experiential function of drawing
relates to a drawing’s ability to represent some aspect of our experience of the world.
The Interpersonal function deals with how drawings may express the maker’s attitude
to their experiences, and may position the viewer in terms of attitude and mood. The
Compositional function deals with the systems of available choices of media, surfaces
and marks that combine to make visible, to realize, the other two functions. The
heading Levels of Engagement in the chart refers to the hierarchical layering within
which engagement with the drawing is possible. The Matrix of Systems of Choices
emphasizes the systemic nature of the model: these ranges of available choices do
not simply allow meanings to be negotiated at any single functional level, but affect
all functions as a whole.
Social meanings to do with the drawer’s and viewer’s experience within the field of
the real world, and also the tenor of the relationship between drawer and viewer are all

Table 2.

154 Howard Riley

 2 It should be mentioned
realized simultaneously through the systems of Theme, Modality, Geometry, etc. here that the student
Choices from these systems are realized as particular modes of drawing which are cohort was divided in
themselves realized as appropriate combinations of drawn marks upon a surface. two groups: one experi-
In this chart, the varieties of geometries derived from the variety of ways of mental, one control.
Both groups
seeing, become some of the systems available to the Compositional function in order
responded to question-
to realize – make visible – the Interpersonal and the Experiential functions. Also, naires in the form of
John Willats’ (1997) denotation systems, made up from selections and combinations Likert sets, designed to
of picture primitives, may be integrated within the systems of choices available. probe ontological atti-
Combinations of selections from the available systems of compositional choices tudes before and after
delivering of the teach-
allow the drawer to give visible material form to modulations of their physical,
ing programme. The
emotional and imaginative experiences of the world. Reciprocally, those experimental group
combinations are modulated through and related to the viewer’s own experiences of was taught through the
the world. Thus the proposed model may facilitate both a means of putting sense new programme, the
into drawings, and making sense out of drawings. control group was
taught through a previ-
The model is the organizing principle which structures the proposed new
ously existing module
teaching programme in drawing. It enables the design of drawing exercises which under the supervision
focus students’ attention upon specific problems of visual representation, as well as of an experienced
being a means of assessing the resultant drawings. For example, the student who is teacher and
able to derive the world-view of another culture from the analysis of its drawings practitioner of drawing.
Analysis of the
becomes increasingly aware of ontological possibilities other than their own. Such
questionnaires
awareness allows the student to deconstruct their own, taken-for-granted, beliefs indicated a positive
about time and space, about reality itself, and affords the possibility of elaborating shift in the ontological
more sophisticated ontological constructs through drawings. Examples of such awareness of the exper-
drawing exercises and student responses to them in the form of drawings are imental group, and this
greater awareness was
illustrated and evaluated below.2
also evident in the
experimental group’s
Evaluation of students’ drawings produced in and around the new drawings when
teaching programme compared with the
control group’s work.
Drawings from the ‘Visual Studies Workshop’
In their first life-class, the majority of students drew an outline of the figure. Very
few marks, if any, were made outside this figure-shape. Generally, tone was added
within the figure-shape after its completion, and was referred to as ‘shading’.
With the Chart (Figure 4) as reference, exercises were devised at the level of
engagement of Combinations of drawn marks in order to increase student awareness
of the greater possibilities of line, how it may represent visual phenomena, and how
the primary geometry of the figure in space may be transformed to drawing through
an expanded range of combinations of drawn marks.
Students were encouraged to replace line with a concept of contrast-boundary.
The terms edge and occlusion of surfaces were discussed.
Figure 5 illustrates the first indication of this expanded awareness. Edges in
the primary geometry are beginning to be treated as boundaries between
contrasting tones in the secondary geometry of the drawing, particularly at the
shoulders, the right knee and left wrist.
An indication that such an exercise may act catalytically to facilitate the
production of work by the same student beyond the confines of the drawing
programme is illustrated in Figure 5a. Note that the emerging awareness evident
in Figure 5 is now fully articulated in this painting, most subtly at the shoulder,
knee and thigh of the second figure from the left, at the small of the back of the

Firing Practice:drawing as empowerment 155

156 Howard Riley
central figure, and at the shoulder of
the fourth figure from the left.
Figure 6 illustrates a full awareness
of how tonal contrast may appear to
fluctuate along an edge; dark
figure/light background: light
figure/dark background.
Figure 7 provides evidence of an
awareness that the figure in space may
be construed simply as a pattern of
salient edges. There is no information
about mass or illumination, but an
opportunity to focus upon the proximal
values, the linear pattern of the scene.
An ability to construe line as
something other than outline is
evidence of the student’s expanding
ontological constructions.
Figure 5.
Drawings from the Plantasia project
The Plantasia project offered students an opportunity to increase their awareness
of ontological constructs to do with ways of seeing. Three levels of perception
were introduced:
1 The haptic level, or the noticing of textural variation and detail in the scene.
2 The distal level, or the noticing of information about spatial depth in the scene.
3 The proximal level, referring to the noticing of pattern across the visual field.

During the Plantasia project these levels were discussed as potential means of

Figure 5a.

Firing Practice:drawing as empowerment 157

Figure 6. Figure 7.

organizing visual information in compositions that may both communicate the

experience of seeing and position the viewer in terms of attitude and mood. The
three functions of drawing identified in Figure 4 were introduced in a talk
illustrated with slides.
Figure 8 illustrates one of a series of finished large-scale drawings in which the
viewer is drawn into the frame by a series of eye-paths which run along the edges or
spines of leaves, thus drawing attention to their differences. In particular, the viewer
is invited to dwell on the textural smoothness and sharpness of edge, qualities which
result from the student’s engagement at the level of Drawn mark, and
experimentation with various combinations of paper texture and drawing medium.
Here is evidence of the student’s increasing ability to communicate the effects of
light upon material surfaces. Such ability may be developed from a greater awareness
of the three levels of perception and the three functions of communication.
Figure 9 illustrates a response to the stimuli at Plantasia which may be
understood by first engaging at the level of Sub-divisions of the drawing’s surface. The
systems of Gaze, for example eye-paths and focal points (or the lack of them) are
employed to emphasize a dynamism exemplified by the two orange and three black
curves emanating in various directions from a single source situated one-third
along the base of the drawing from the left. In contrast, and balanced vertically one-
third from the right on the base, another, straight-lined grid emerges which may
refer to the gridded architectural structure within which the plants exist. Even
though the colours of high contrast are juxtapositioned, any illusion of depth is
minimized by the application of thick black lines at these contrast-boundaries,
rather like the leads of a stained glass panel.
Minimal too is any information of the textural qualities of the materials
represented. However, the minimization of information about the haptic and distal
values serves to maximize the third way of seeing, the proximal. Here is evidence of
the student’s growing awareness of how viewer’s attention may be drawn to the
proximal quality of contrast between the organic and the architectural by
appropriate selection and combinations of visual elements.

158 Howard Riley

Figure 8. Figure 9.

Drawings from the Seeing and Believing project

The Seeing and Believing project afforded students an opportunity to explore the
essences of reality, those ontological constructions of space-time relationships. A
variety of realisms were discussed, and the ways in which those realities have been
expressed through the drawing conventions of different cultures in different periods
were studied. Students were encouraged either to analyse and if necessary adapt an
existing convention from the range, or invent from first-principles their own means
of visually representing a belief system to do with the space-time relationship.
An example of a student exploring an existing convention of representing the
positions of objects in space is illustrated in Figure 10. Here, the Australian
Aborigine convention of representing the location of food and water sources, and
the types of landscape likely to be
encountered on a journey to such
sources, has been adapted to codify the
pattern of land-use and location of
eating-places within her locality.
Through this exercise, the student
gains insight into the ontological
construction of another culture, and is
therefore in a position to recognize her
own cultural conventions as alternative
constructions of reality.

Drawings from the Geometries of Vision

project
The Geometries of Vision project
afforded students the opportunity to
relate the concepts of primary geometry
and secondary geometry to those of Figure 10.

Firing Practice:drawing as empowerment 159

viewer- and object-centred
representations through their drawing
practice.
Figure 11 illustrates student inquiry
into the assumption implicit in
perspective projection, that of the
fixed, single point of viewing. Here is
an attempt to break out from such
ontological constraints, and to invent a
way of representing the information in
the light received at both eyes.
Focusing upon the wooden framework
with each eye in turn, but paying
attention to the primary geometry of
the scene, the student shares the
experience of both eyes in the one
drawing. The primary geometry of the
scene is transformed into a secondary Figure 11.
geometry rarely explored. It may be
noted here, that this student, Heather Simmonds, went on to win the student
prize in the Welsh Artist of the Year 2000 competition, and had work
independently selected for the Glynn Vivian Gallery Open Exhibition 2000.
The drawing illustrated in Figure 12 evolved from the student’s study of
projective geometry systems in common usage. An awareness that all of those
assumed a flat plane of projection stimulated inquiry into the possibility of
projecting onto a non-flat plane. Discussion around the notion of a ‘cone of vision’
developed into the idea of inventing a system for geometrically projecting what
was noticed in the cones of vision onto a cone of projection. A paper cone was duly
constructed and arranged at eye level, apex pointing to eye. With one eye closed,
so as to flatten the cone perceptually, the student proceeded to mark the cone at
appropriate distances from the eye, the
marks representing the salient scene
primitives (corners and edges). When
the paper cone (or pyramid, to be
precise) was laid out as a surface
development, an original projection
system was revealed.
This student, Nigel Williams’
experiments in the life-class
empowered the sustained production
of a series of drawings and paintings
throughout the student’s second year
and into his third. Work from the series
has been selected by independent
curators for inclusion in the national
touring Welsh Drawing Biennale
1999–2000 and in the regional annual
Glynn Vivian Gallery Open Exhibition
2000. Figure 12.

160 Howard Riley

 Conclusion
A theoretical mapping of the domain of drawing as discussed in this paper appears
to empower students’ practice by allowing them an understanding of their
ontological constructions as culture-specific. This may lead to the recognition that
other cultures’ drawing conventions may be fruitfully explored as ways of
representing experiences of perception, emotion and imagination.
The research is ongoing. I welcome comment, questions and constructive
criticism.

References
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London: Routledge, 1996.
O’TOOLE, L. M., The Language of Displayed Art, London: Leicester University
Press/Pinter, 1994.
PETHERBRIDGE, D., The Primacy of Drawing. An Artist’s View, London: South Bank
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Firing Practice:drawing as empowerment 161

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