The colonised line
The initial drawings
Starting with an initial observational drawing with no set guidelines in general students produced very similar outcomes that demonstrated use of what I have termed the 'colonised line'. You can see what I mean by this in the drawings above where the initial focus has been on trying to capture the outline of the model and pin the shape onto the page.
Starting with an initial observational drawing with no set guidelines in general students produced very similar outcomes that demonstrated use of what I have termed the 'colonised line'. You can see what I mean by this in the drawings above where the initial focus has been on trying to capture the outline of the model and pin the shape onto the page.
This is often the process most people start with when completing a drawing and I am interested in how this process links back to colonial ideas of what is deemed 'perfect'. You can often hear people state that they can not draw after trying and failing to create a 'perfect' copy of what they are looking at. A task that is always most likely to end in failure. I argue that these constraints that restrict the drawing process are directly linked to the ideals around the body (in terms of gender, race, sexuality and all other forms of identity) perpetuated by Western art history. These ideals generally celebrating white, slim, youthful, able bodied, heterosexual women.
If this is the case, what I wanted to find out was if we start to disrupt these lines could this open up a conversation about how we think about the female body?
If this is the case, what I wanted to find out was if we start to disrupt these lines could this open up a conversation about how we think about the female body?