Experimental Drawing — Gary L. Schroeder

While scanning the upcoming class offerings at the School for Visual Arts a couple of months ago, I came across an entry that looked promising: Experimental Drawing. Taught by Andrew Castrucci, it looked like a great way to break free from the rigid “same old” of some of my art-making patterns. Problem was, it was only being offered on campus during work hours. Bummer. Then, a month later, it became available as a condensed one-night class. A one night crash course, being better than nothing at all, I signed up.

Whereas the full class experience promised “a radical approach to drawing the body through a variety of experimental techniques, including diagrams, stencil typography with the figure, and graphic stylizations that meld traditional figure and portraiture studies with scientific notions-from Leonardo da Vinci to chaos theory”, the crash course only had time to focus on the section dealing with sound/music drawing with ink, graphite, and permanent markers.

A jazz-influenced drawing. Still too representational for the instructor’s liking.

Working from a model, we were encouraged to break free of strict representation, allowing music and feeling to guide our marks into the territory of the subconscious. I found it difficult to do, feeling a strong pull to really represent the excellent model sitting in the studio. But, the accompanying music playing in the background really helped. Of the various genres played during the course of the evening, I found jazz to be the most affecting for me. It definitely propelled extra emphasis and exaggeration to the strokes of my pencil.

Getting more abstract, but still too representational.

I’m very interested in the incorporation of text and written symbols in art and I would have loved to explore that but the three hour length of the class simply didn’t allow for it. That will have to wait for a different time.