Automatic Drawing

Instructor: Ryan Price

Location: Maitland Art Center, Studio 10

Cost: $60 + $10 material fees.

Materials fees must be paid in cash directly to the instructor, and are due on the day of the workshop.

No drawing experience is required! Open to all levels! Automatic drawing is a technique named and commonly used by the Surrealists. It involves the artist directly and randomly moving the pen or drawing tool with no preconceived image or plan. This technique is similar to what writers termed, “Stream of consciousness” writing, where through a mental shift drawing automatically allows participants let their subconscious flow through their hands.

Participants will be encouraged to draw their heart’s content out, and learn to unshackle themselves from hesitation. We control the anxiety of being confronted by a blank sheet using a low-stakes process like drawing. Participants will learn how to engage their subconscious as a means of express what lies under the surface of the mind. Students will create many drawings using different materials to get them out of their heads and their comfort zones. You will learn about processes like automatism, frottage, and responsive drawing.

Take your drawing utensil and move with rhythm or erraticism, write your name obsessively until it becomes maddening marks. Twist and turn the pencil or pen with the delicacy and grace of an angel and the brutish wickedness of a demon. Use this low-stakes practice as a way to get more comfortable with a material or tool. The drawing doesn’t ever have to be  finished, it can be left as a single deposit of personal memory. There is no right or wrong way to practice automatic drawing.

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