Make Your Mark

It is a small but powerful act. One that everyone can do. Drawing. It is a pencil, ballpoint pen, charcoal on paper. It is a mark in the sand, chalk on the sidewalk. Drawing, is a visual language. Making marks on a surface is a truly democratic activity, something that everyone regardless of age, culture, socio-economic status can take part in. So why is there so much fear and anxiety about the process? If I talk to most people about drawing I usually hear, “oh I couldn’t draw a straight line.” This comment always stuns me and inside my head I think, “what artist cares about drawing a straight line when they draw? Drawing is not about making straight lines. There is no judge going around with a ruler saying, “okay you can draw, your line is straight.” The world of drawing and the process of drawing as it unfolds is infinite. Drawings are as varied as the world of ideas and thoughts. A series of random lines, dots and dashes arranged in a particular way, a line curving in many directions – drawings like the people who create them are individual.

When you think about drawing what comes to mind? A stick figure slammed in the center of a blank page. Hanging mid air maybe with a line drawn across the bottom of the page. A circle sun in the corner radiating a few lonely lines? Why draw? Why make marks on the page? How do we shake up the drawing process and get it back to something raw and meaningful?

I am on a mission to get people to draw. To change people’s perception about what drawing is, what it is used for and why we draw. I am on a mission to get people to think seriously about the power of the drawn line and how the act of drawing brings people together, that drawing is a thinking activity that should be learned in schools alongside math and science and that if we as humans connected with ourselves and others through drawing, by taking risks through drawing and making connections through drawing then possibility for real change may emerge.

To get your copy of, "The Make Your Mark" exercise click here: https://thedrawinglab.mykajabi.com/pl/64163

Check out my latest podcast on the subject:

https://anchor.fm/putnoiartforachange

https://open.spotify.com/show/7bcaZmdaML2JabEjAFlfnD