Drawing

Recently I have been thinking about the term and act of 'Drawing'. It by definition is based around the act of marks onto a surface in which to create form and shape. Last week I asked a student to 'draw with scissors instead of the same 2b pencil', a phrase coined from the Matisse exhibition I had seen some time ago.

Matisse said "the paper cut-out allows me to draw in the colour... Instead of drawing the outline and putting the colour inside it... I draw straight into the colour".


Henri Matisse - Blue Nudes

I imagined using the scissors to construct out a negative shape with which to draw or subtract form from, which would leave the student with a broken boundary away from the paper. Instead, when I returned the student had chosen to carve and scratch into the paper much like using the scissors as a pen or pencil. Now by my own fault of not explaining fully what I meant, I found something which I would like to inform a future workshop.

If a pen is used to make a mark.. why not use pencils and pens to cut? or rulers to create wonky lines?

..maybe helping us to "draw upon the definition of drawing"?