The final Criw Celf ‘Drawing with Light’ workshop is now available to view on the education page.

I have now completed the edit of the second Criw Celf workshop. See the video on the Education page.

I’ve just added my video of the work I did with students at Bruntcliffe School, Leeds to my artwork and education pages. We worked with the various ways to use digital projection technology to improve drawing skills, especially observational drawing of difficult subjects – like the human form in movement. The students grew in confidence as they became familiar with the methods. Engaged and focused, they completed a large body of work each over just three days.

Ynys Enlli Seal Pup 2011

I thought I might begin to use this space to track my thoughts and experiences in this last year of my PhD.

I’m finding it really difficult to begin writing although I know I have to – I really should have been writing months ago. It’s been a difficult year health-wise, which hasn’t helped, but there is something else going on. It’s one of two things – or it could be both at once.

Firstly, I’m terrified – I feel as if I have the barest hold on academic writing and just the thought of doing it interferes with writing anything. So that’s FEAR.

Secondly, I am circling around something – something is about to emerge and I have a feeling that I just have to give it a little longer to make itself known to me. I hope that then all the work will make sense and a structure will present itself so the way to write will become clear. And this is the process of EMERGENCE.

Of course, the essay is less than half the story (40% to be precise) – but it feels a large part at the moment. The thesis must be led by the practice, so after months of reading I have left the books for now and am back in the studio. This time I have ordered the work in a logical way – not my usual following my nose style, and things are happening.

Line seems to be at the heart of the marks I make. What’s in a line? Well, it seems that the world can be there. My lines are made from observing movement. Line is the most economical and dynamic form to use to represent movement. It flows naturally from a kinaesthetic response to the subject, it is a consequence of movement itself. The first images we make as children involve lines as a result of having a marker in our hand that touches the ground (as in a receptive surface) as we move. Our first marks are for themselves, are a result of that joy in moving and engagement in seeing the trace of that movement left there to revisit visually.

The lines I make differ from those pure kinaesthetic engagements in that they are observational drawings. They are an attempt to connect as closely as possible the experience of observing movement with my eyes to the act of mark making with my hand. In the act of drawing I attempt to be one with the observed, to merge, to flow, to lose myself and find the other until observing and drawing transforms into communion.

This is intense work and I find it has a time limit. I work in short bursts of concentration, building up to it, acting then recovering and reflecting.

Interestingly, the work is becoming ever more abstract. The more I work with staying in the moment, staying with observing the subject, the less recognizable is the image. The recent works are pure movement drawings. Will the viewer be able to read them? Are they of any use beyond my studio?

It’s difficult to let go of the image and stay with the act, but it seems important to do so at the moment.

I’m drawing using video footage I made of the seals and a seal pup on Ynys Enlli last spring. First I project the video onto paper as a screen and draw straight into the video, directly on the paper. One of the effects of this is that as the ‘screen’ becomes saturated with the drawing, the video appears to disappear behind the drawing, giving a feeling of the seals hiding behind the lines.

Next I go to the easel and set up a third camera and a video mixer then draw with my hand mixed into the projected image. I am about 2-3 meters away from the projected image but can see my hand and where I am mark making. This allows me to see whether I am still with my subject or whether I have disappeared into the memory of what I was just looking at in the desire to make a drawing of it (therefore a figurative representation). I have to be vigilant with myself and keep to the task of drawing movement. I have to ignore the physical drawing and focus on keeping my hand and eye with and on the subject.

The drawings have a distinct quality, but they are abstract. I worry about that – although I love the process of making them and I enjoy the pure marks, and although I know the marks have integrity, which I think reads in the images, I notice a frustration in myself for figurative elements – for a more representational image. My work is usually figurative. However, I set myself the question ‘how do I draw movement?’ and in following that through – with the aid of digital technologies – I have arrived at abstract images. I find I have created a paradox. In using photographic and digital technologies that could enable me to make representational drawings I have ended up using them to draw out the abstract elements of observing movement. I have made drawings that do not seem to relate to the observable world, yet they are the most accurately observed drawings of movement I have yet made in 30 years of drawing movement.

Perhaps because I am so acutely aware of what I am looking at in representational terms as I draw into video or through the mixer in live situations I am fighting my own conditioning? Abstract images usually come about through other processes. Either an artist takes themselves away from the subject and together with an interaction with the materials allows a distillation process to access the essence of form, colour, line, shape and so on; or the process itself demands an abstract response – drawing music, drawing from touch or from (the artists) movement.

It is usual to aspire to and attain a figurative image when working closely from observation. Perhaps my own training and expectations are getting in the way of simply allowing the work to work? I think I need to put my frustration aside and keep doing the work, to see what happens.

‘Don’t You Wonder Sometimes,‘bout Sound and Vision’ (David Bowie)

Maria Hayes is an artist, film-maker, and educator whose work is concerned with the human form, landscape, music, and movement. She is currently studying for a PhD in Fine Art at the School of Art under the supervision of Professor John Harvey. He is an art practitioner and an art historian with a particular interest in the visual culture of religion. Recently, both have – independently and in very different ways ­- interacted with music and sound: Maria produced a series of illustrations in response to the Martin Pyne’s alternative-jazz album 7 Pictures (2010); John, for his part, has experimented with sound-based articulations of biblical texts. As a result, they feel ready, and that now is an opportune time, to extend and apply their respective endeavours to bridge the medial divide.

In Concert: To Do Something in Cooperation with Another, student and tutor work together to combine image making with sound making, and visual and audio technologies, during a day of improvisations. They will attempt to do something in order to see what will happen. There are no presuppositions about the outcome. The only certainty is the principle of uncertainty. Nevertheless, the artists will embark upon the occasion with a determination to: explore new possibilities; learn from one another; interpret and respond to each other’s efforts; be fearless of failure and surprised by the unexpected; live in the moment; and to address the process rather than the product (in other words, to concentrate on the journey rather than the destination).

‘Concert’ is not a performance; it is not for an audience but, rather, for the participants. However, students, staff, and members of the public are welcome to visit the gallery throughout the day in order to see and hear the work in progress. The spectators will encounter an example of practice-based-research-in-action: a playful yet critical investigation of what takes place when two distinct modes of creativity are juxtaposed. Maria and John anticipate moments of convergence and reciprocity, illumination and reconciliation; as well as periods of floundering, befuddlement, arbitrariness, and disintegration; and (hopefully) times of recovery and resolution too. In these respects, their creative experience will resonate with that of every artist.

Maria will be working with a sophisticated projection system which facilitates performative drawing and painting. John’s tools will be an electric guitar; amplified speech, and drawing and writing implements; recorded sound; and electronic, sound-modifying devices. The collaboration will take place in the single gallery at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University between 11 am and 1 pm, and 2 pm and 5 pm on Wednesday 3 March 2010. Students will have an opportunity to discuss the development and the artists’ perception of the work, with them, during the lunch hour.

‘Don’t You Wonder Sometimes, ’bout Sound and Vision’ (David Bowie)

Maria Hayes is an artist, film-maker, and educator whose work is concerned with the human form, landscape, music, and movement. She is currently studying for a PhD in Fine Art at the School of Art under the supervision of Professor John Harvey. He is an art practitioner and an art historian with a particular interest in the visual culture of religion. Recently, both have – independently and in very different ways -– interacted with music and sound: Maria produced a series of illustrations in response to the Martin Pyne’s alternative-jazz album 7 Pictures (2010); John, for his part, has experimented with sound-based articulations of biblical texts. As a result, they feel ready, and that now is an opportune time, to extend and apply their respective endeavours to bridge the medial divide.

In Concert: To Do Something in Cooperation with Another, student and tutor work together to combine image making with sound making, and visual and audio technologies, during a day of improvisations. They will attempt to do something in order to see what will happen. There are no presuppositions about the outcome. The only certainty is the principle of uncertainty. Nevertheless, the artists will embark upon the occasion with a determination to: explore new possibilities; learn from one another; interpret and respond to each other’s efforts; be fearless of failure and surprised by the unexpected; live in the moment; and to address the process rather than the product (in other words, to concentrate on the journey rather than the destination).

‘Concert’ is not a performance; it is not for an audience but, rather, for the participants. However, students, staff, and members of the public are welcome to visit the gallery throughout the day in order to see and hear the work in progress. The spectators will encounter an example of practice-based-research-in-action: a playful yet critical investigation of what takes place when two distinct modes of creativity are juxtaposed. Maria and John anticipate moments of convergence and reciprocity, illumination and reconciliation; as well as periods of floundering, befuddlement, arbitrariness, and disintegration; and (hopefully) times of recovery and resolution too. In these respects, their creative experience will resonate with that of every artist.

Maria will be working with a sophisticated projection system which facilitates performative drawing and painting. John’s tools will be an electric guitar; amplified speech, and drawing and writing implements; recorded sound; and electronic, sound-modifying devices. The collaboration will take place in the single gallery at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University between 11 am and 1 pm, and 2 pm and 5 pm on Wednesday 3 March 2010. Students will have an opportunity to discuss the development and the artists’ perception of the work, with them, during the lunch hour.

Drawing with Light: Criw Celf workshop

To view the presentation I gave at the DIVERSE conference 2009, Aberyswyth University, click on:

http://echo360.aber.ac.uk:8080/ess/echo/presentation/f8de5ce6-43a5-4e7e-9624-a3109007b256

To know more about DIVERSE click on:

http://www.aber.ac.uk/diverse/

I am presenting a paper at the DIVERSE conference:

http://www.aber.ac.uk/diverse

Drawing with Light: an exploration in the use and application of digital projection technologies for the teaching of embodied drawing.

Abstract

I am committed to delivering art workshops and residencies, which are about enabling participants to engage with their creativity through engaging in the processes I use as a professional artist.
On 21st March 2009 I delivered a Masterclass for Criw Celf (Gwynedd Arts Agency) to young people on “Performative Drawing”.

The methods I employ are part of my new practice to marry traditional modes of drawing and contemporary digital technology.

The Masterclass comprised of screening film footage I had made as part of my own work onto a large piece of heavy weight drawing paper. The young people were invited to draw directly onto the paper whist the film was being projected. The projection onto large paper was then repeated, but using a video mixer linked to a camera on an easel (with paper on board). The camera fed into a data projector and whilst drawing took place on the easel paper, the image and the hand doing the drawing was seen in the large projection on the screen. In the re-screening the participants experienced drawing in the film in a different way. It was still a “trace” of a moving image, but done in an entirely new way.

In order to visualise this process please view the film Tone Line Colour on my website: www.mariahayes.info

I will present my findings from the Masterclass using documentation of the workshop and will contextualize the role I see for the use of digital technology in the teaching of traditional drawing.

The highlights of my education work in 2008/9 include:

• Making four Fairytale books with Foundation Phase children in the Swansea area. The books tell the stories entirely in images and are designed to encourage oracy. The work was exhibited at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea in October 2008. Another project is planned for June/July 2009.

• A residency on Tory Island (Donegal) in July 2008, in connection with my Selkie project. I worked with a group of young people (aged 6 – 28) from the island and we made an exhibition for the festival. The group threw themselves into the project and we made drawings on the rocks at the harbour and at Green Port (where the seals are). We then developed the work into Photoshop montages. The final exhibition had digital prints of the work made outside, prints of the montages and a DVD playing with the soundtrack made up of some of the children singing in Gaelic. Also, a senior member of the community told a native Tory Selkie story, again in Gaelic.