Drawing Sound and Movement

This series of workshops explored mark-making and documenting ‘sense of place’ through abstract drawing, in both large and small scales.

The first workshop, being the first to restart the residency after the year-long Covid-19 restrictions, saw participants being eased back into human interaction and being outside.

I took participants through some mindful listening exercises. Closing their eyes and, while taking deep breaths, listened to the world around them, such as the chattering and squawking of a variety of birds, versus some discordant factory noises.

Eyes closed, and deep breaths. Listening to the sounds around us.

After making some concertina sketchbooks, they created a ‘library of sounds’, represented through a series of marks, using pencil and graphite sticks.

Marks were created by twisting and turning the pencil, or smudging to represent an echo. The marks and labels created a visual map of activities, which could be heard but not seen.

Examples of participants’ concertina sketchbooks, and their ‘library of sounds’.

Not every workshop was blessed with good weather, on those days, we retreated inside within the C2C Social Action centre. This enabled other participants to join in, who were unable to travel to the allotment.

Participants were tasked with documenting the sounds they heard around them, which included a whirring kitchen fan, a game of bingo and ringing phones. One participant accurately described this as ‘Drawing the sounds that something makes, rather than what it is’.

A participant using wax crayons, inks and graphite to document the sounds heard within the C2C Social Actions’ Centre.

A participant’s drawing. They had jotted down the numbers which called out during the bingo game

For the next workshop, we were back out in the allotment garden. We used the drawings of Julie Mehretu as inspiration, in particular, her quote ‘When drawing, I pull myself out of myself, go deep, lose all sense of cultural self, get lost inside a beat.’

These large scale drawings were time-based and drawn in reaction to sounds created from a ‘gardening performance’ by C2C Grows support worker Sophie, who improvised around a base score of watering, pruning and digging.

Further unexpected beats were provided from an outdoor DJ set of party classics, booming from the playground of a nearby school at their end of year school party.

Mark making examples, a book on Julie Mehretu for inspiration, my workshop planning book and materials on the allotment table.

A participant working on the patio, drawing the sounds, she could hear around her

Sophie pruning the bushes. Part of her improvised gardening performance to inspire the large scale and time-based drawing workshop

Utilising good weather, tools and materials which the C2C Grows Allotment Garden had to offer, we made some large scale drawings. Instead of sound as an impetus for mark making, we experimented by exaggerating movements made when gardening, such as sweeping, watering, raking and weeding; transferring our physical energies and dynamic movements when tending the earth to cultivating a free flowing drawing on paper.

We tested mixing on the drawing surface; soil, charcoal and graphite to create a variety of tones and textures. This was a day for playing, not aiming, no end goal was set. It was a ‘what happens if?’ day, revelling in the freedom to be, to push ideas. The ART is often found in process and the experience of being, not on a gallery wall.

Using seed trays as palletes, and mud as paint.

Using a hand held weeding fork to draw ‘weeding lines’ with.

Using a broom to create ‘sweeping’ mud marks. The wallpaper lining paper is placed upon a paved path, which is often swept using this broom.

Fingers and charcoal were used to create these ‘pushing and sifting’ marks. After weeding I like to push my hands through the soil, with my fingers outstretched to sift it.

There were two events to showcase and celebrate the work produced on the project. The first, an exhibition at NN Contemporary Art, the second a celebration event at the C2C Grows Allotment Garden. At NN Contemporary Art, the small sound drawings made inside the C2C Social Action centre, were presented alongside the large sound drawings made outside, within the allotment garden.

Emma Davies