The January 2021 gathering of the Drawing Together community was hosted by Shelley Wall, GMIC board member, medical illustrator, and an associate professor in the Biomedical Communications graduate program at the University of Toronto (UofT).
Our session was on the theme of walking, or other ways we move in connection with the earth.
Introduction and warm-up exercise:
Get your paper and pen or brush ready. Close your eyes, and take a line for a walk. For one minute, move your pen continuously over the page, slowly, thinking about moving across the page as if you were walking or rolling or otherwise moving in contact with the earth. Feel the page through your instrument; think about the rhythm of the movement, and sync the movement to your breath.
Main exercise – twelve minutes:
Now think about the way a comic travels across the page. Think of each panel as a footstep or a wheel planted on the ground. Draw a series of open shapes—squares, circles, your choice—as a sequence moving across the page. You can travel across the page in this way in any direction you like! Then, inside each shape, draw, or write, or make marks to capture what that step feels like: what does it feel like to make contact with the page there, like a foot or a hand planted on the earth? What is the rhythm or gait of this walk? Does the left feel different from the right? What other thoughts or feelings or memories does this small but mighty act of traveling evoke?
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