To continue to improve my drawing skills, I participated in the Marks Make Meaning exhibition in which myself and a group of illustration students collaboratively drew with artists across the world. Our themes to draw around were mind map, shared garden and mega hotel (the image above is from the later).

My takeaway from the one day project was how differently people interpret themes and what they draw from them. For instance as we worked on mega hotel it turned more of a metropolis and later something quite apocalyptic as our Irish artists who we were collaborating with began to blank out everything they drew with black.

As our tutor Paul told us, it often isn’t the drawing which is the final outcome of session but the video produced – I agree with this statement as the collaborative aspect can be truely seen in the video. During the mega hotel session myself and the other artist began crossing out each others marks which can be read playfully or aggressively – in the moment it felt like a game but watching the video we are both placing our marks with vigour and speed.

I really enjoyed the session in that it was fun to participate but also interesting to step back and watch others do their thing. Overall, I’m happy that I put myself forward for it as it’s something  I wouldn’t normally consider doing, however it really helped to conquer the fear of the drawing as the final outcome. It has made me consider that I should be recording my experiments more to see if I can gain different/multiple outcomes from them.