Drawing Ecologies: A day workshop with Tania Kovats at Drawing Projects UK on Saturday 16 November 2019 as part of the Drawing Matters programme held in association with the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2019.

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” Rachel Carson

“ I completely understand this category of ‘observational drawing’ because that means that we are there drawing and there’s something there that we are drawing. But there is something also about the term ’observational’, which seems to me not quite precise. Because actually, as soon as one starts to draw, as soon as the process begins, it’s a process or rather an experience of astonishment, because whatever it is that one is drawing, however ordinary, or exceptional, the more one starts following one’s look, the more astonished one is in terms of discovery. Astonishment is at the heart of drawing and astonishment is at the heart of living...here drawing and life are quite close. The word observational doesn’t insist upon this astonishment.” John Berger

These two quotes serve as an introduction to some of the thinking that frames the approach to this Drawing Ecologies Day Workshop. During the day we use drawing to promote an awareness that leads to a sense of wonder and engagement with the ‘natural’ world, however we decide to define the term ‘natural’. How we engage with the natural world is more critical than ever with the environmental challenges out planet faces with climate change.

Addressing environmental issues in creative practice poses a challenge. I would suggest that we enter into this exploration and engagement with the natural world by searching out the human, or personal, the microcosm in the macrocosm; and to use drawing to enter an embodied, sensed, relational experience with ‘the natural’. This positions us in both the environmentalist Rachel Carson’s state of wonder - so less likely to be destructive - as well as Berger’s ‘state of astonishment’. Drawing provides a focus, something rest on, where giving time and space to the drawing is also giving time and space to yourself. This time can be generated and uncovered through investigative observational drawing practice and an open approach to what might be possible in a day of experimentation.

Drawing allows you to be intensely present. Drawing is a unique physical and mental activity that can allow for creative absorption, offering an experience of de-acceleration time. The approach to drawing for Drawing Ecologies will seek to bring you into a moment of being intensely present and aware of living things, with plants as an entry point. The aim of the time spent drawing is to try and come into a state of awareness with what you are observing; this will include an awareness of your own thoughts and experiences whilst drawing. During the workshop we will attempt to develop moments of a reciprocated state between you, the living thing, and the drawing, while also addressing the ecology of the drawing process itself.

The workshop will involve intense observation, looking, drawing. Working in pairs and individually. Basic drawing materials will be provided, but please bring with you anything you know you would like to draw with.

Miranda's Coffee shop at Drawing Projects UK will be open from 8am to 4pm.