Lisa Milroy Everyday Objects Workshop

‘Everyday Objects Workshop’ invites you to explore your connection to objects through drawing. It explores the affect of using different drawing implements and tests the duration of drawing on your depictions of an object.

Please click on the vimeo link below for the ‘Thinking About…Lisa Milroy’ in her studio at home with Gabriel Hartley. In collaboration with Dulwich College and Southwark Schools Learning Partnership (SSLP). https://vimeo.com/424018196

Materials:

a personal object (size should be handheld) large quantity of paper (large sheets best, cheap i.e. newsprint – you’re going to get through lots of it!) pencils, ranging from soft to hard black compressed charcoal black ball point pen black marker pen black and grey oil and/or chalk pastel ample floor space

1. Introduction What is your choice of object – is it a souvenir? An item of clothing or accessory? A functional object, a tool or utensil? A natural object, like a rock or a branch? Start by considering your connection to the object and how you might relate to a friend why the object is special, valuable or important to you – what would you say? Imagine your friend in front of you and say it out loud. Place the object on the floor in front of you and begin to walk around it in a circle.

Note how your perception of the object shifts with each footstep. Notice how your object’s shadow changes shape as you circle around the object. What is the best viewpoint or angle of the object? What is the worst angle? Why do you think this is?

Squat down on your knees and look at your object from this viewpoint.

Now lie down on your stomach and look at it from eye level. What changes in your perception of the object, what do you become more aware of? Up on your feet, start to circle around the object and call out all the adjectives and adverbs that spring to mind as you inspect it – ie rough/smooth, shiny/mat, fragile, delicate/robust, sturdy, heave/light. What are all the colours? Do some of the colours escape having a name? Keep this activity up for a minute. If possible, try to record your list on your phone – what do you discover listening to the recording? Does hearing your list trigger more words to describe your object? The recording is like a ‘sound drawing’ of your object.

‘Painting A Picture’ , 2000, acrylic and oil on canvas, 152 x 223cm

2. Drawing exercise Drawing from observation - 15 minutes Get several sheets of paper and a stick of charcoal or a pencil, sit down on the floor and place your object in front of you. Set the timer on your phone or clock for 15 minutes - you are going to draw your object from observation for this time period. Don’t worry about your drawing being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – just focus on recording the appearance of your object. Draw analytically. Do as many drawings as you like, looking at the object from as many angles as you like. Make your drawings as if to clearly explain what the object looks like to a friend who can’t see it.

Drawing from memory – 15 minutes

Put your object and all your observational drawings to the side out of sight. Arrange another pile of paper next to you. For this exercise, use the same drawing implement as you did for the observational drawing exercise. You are now going to draw your object from how you hold it in your mind, from the mental picture you keep of it. Not from observation.

What does your object look like in your mind’s eye? Set your timer for 15 minutes and start to make as many drawings as you can recalling the object for this time period. At the end of this session, arrange your two sets of drawings on the floor in front of you in order to assess the experiences of drawing – what differences do you note between the two sets of drawings? Did you prefer one exercise to the other? Do you like one set of drawings more than the other? Think about the way you hold an image in your mind – with your mind’s eye, does a memory look different from a recollection? Does picturing the contents in your fridge look different from picturing the clothing you wore last year? What affect does time have on how you mentally picture something? What about diagrams – when you sketch out a map for a friend to show them the way to your home from a bus stop, reflect on how you organise the information in your head and transcribe it onto a sheet of paper. What is drawing like for you when the thing you are describing moves through time as opposed to staying still?

3. Duration exercise You’re going to start this exercise by testing the material potential of your drawing implements.

Select any one of your drawing implements and make a fast-straight line with it across your paper. Make another and another. Then move onto your other drawing implements and make the same fast straight line.

Make a series of slow lines, the slowest possible, using the range of your drawing implements

Wobbly lines using the range of your drawing implements Sharp zigzag lines using the range of your drawing implements Squares, keeping the corners sharp, using the range of your drawing implements

Circular lines where you really curl your wrist round and round using the range of your drawing implements

Circular lines where you keep your wrist and arm completely straight, using the range of your drawing implements

Tap the floor as soft as you can with one of your drawing implements, slowly, then speed up, faster and faster, now slow down. Tap the floor as hard as you can, fast/slow/fast. Move onto your other drawing implements following the same pattern. Listen to the sound each drawing implement makes – it can get percussive!

Do all of the above with your hand you don’t normally use for writing – left-handed people, please use your right hand; right-handed people, please use your left hand.

Try doing some of these exercises from a standing position or lying down on your stomach. Do them with your eyes closed. Do them listening to your favourite song and then to a piece of music you are not familiar with.

What do you notice about the look and feel of the same line determined by different drawing implements? What do you notice about your own sense of touch and energy as you handle the various drawing implements? Do you like some more than others? What’s your favourite? Why?

Now you are going to return to drawing your object, engaging in a series of time- based exercises. Select three different drawing implements and for each exercise try to make 3 drawings using each of the three drawing implements. Use a separate sheet of paper for each drawing:

® Make a drawing of your object with the softest lightest of touches - 3 minutes ® Make a drawing of your object pressing heavily - 3 minutes ® Make a drawing of your object with your eyes closed - 2 minutes ® Make a drawing of your object making the smallest drawing possible in the middle of the

paper - 1 minute ® Make a drawing of your object making the biggest size of it possible on the paper - 1

minute ® Make a drawing of your object very tiny in one of the corners of the paper – 2 minutes ® Make as many drawings of your object as small as you can, repeating the object across

the paper for 3 minutes. Repeat the object again but making it as big as possible over the sheet of paper for 3 minutes

® Make a 30-second drawing of your object make a 15-second drawing of your object make a 10-second drawing of your object

® Make a 5-second drawing of your object ® Make a 3-second drawing of your object ® Make a tired floppy-looking drawing of your object - 2 minutes make an angry-looking

drawing of your object - 2 minutes make a bored-looking drawing of your object – 2 minutes make a calm-looking drawing of your object - 2 minutes

At the end of this session, display your drawings on the floor in front of you and take a close look at the affect that each drawing implement has on your depiction. Now take a look at the ‘space’ in your drawing in view of composition and where you placed your depiction on the sheet of paper. Would some of your drawings look better if you cropped them? Try cutting some of your drawings down to enhance the interplay between the amount of space in your drawing and the object depicted. What affect do the edges of the paper have on your depiction? What about the orientation of the paper – square, ‘portrait’ or ‘landscape’? What looks best? Why do you think I recommended that you stick to the colour black for all your drawings, whatever the drawing implement?

4. To Finish Select five favourite drawings from the ‘Duration” session and five drawings from the “Observation/Memory” session and tape them to the walls of a room to make an impromptu exhibition. Invite family members to come in and share comments and observations about your drawings.

Why not suggest to your family that they take part in the workshop, with yourself as the leader?

Catalogue produced for ‘Here and There- Paintings by Lisa Milroy’ at Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London 2018

Lisa Milroy Everyday Objects Workshop

A selection of 3D paintings made between 2015-2018