Eye to Pencil

This is the bit that everyone skips… but it is important as we close our studio doors to say some thank yous.

The first thank you is for each of you who has come and drawn with us, and for those of you who couldn’t but have followed remotely and supported the project none the less. Drawing together and sharing an enthusiasm for what we learn from drawing, and from each other, has been at the core.

Over 3 and a half years a range of extraordinary drawers have given talks and subsequent workshops to share knowledge with us. From different fields, drawing in relation to anatomy, engineering, architecture, graphic novels, photography, music, and art are some of the angles we have encountered. They have shown how drawing remains a vital tool for visual thinking to be used in very different ways. Each of these guests made time for us and brought a wave of generosity into the studio - I am indebted to each of them.

I am grateful for three constant voices returning to the studio, who have reminded us about fundamentally important aspects of drawing: .a.martin on transcription and the benefits of sketchbooks being a constant companion; .galego using drawing as a way to develop ideas and compositions for painting; and asking poignant questions about how we learn and rethinking what CPD for art teachers could be.

Over 50 recent graduates have given drawing workshops focusing on a particular aspect of their work. Without exception these have been deeply thoughtful, full of (good) surprises, and shown fresh ways to think about materials and a range of references. They have also been hugely enjoyable and packed.

I have worked within a small team but each of them has brought humour, questions, and better solutions to the table. Immeasurable thank yous to .sykessmith , , , ,

A little break for now. We will keep drawing, and what we have learnt from Eye to Pencil as a project will manifest itself in other ways.

Some of you actually read these posts, and to each of you a special thank you :-)

Here’s the line up for our party on Wednesday 11 Dec…
We are celebrating with drawing and drinks
With performances by the Shadow Puppet boys &
Followed by .xyz taking the stage
Rounding up with DJing by
and Leafy Greens

Dress: the more homemade the better

(Yes, there will be a red carpet and a disco ball)
7-11pm
Essential to have a ticket: link in bio or on our website
www.eyetopencil.art

Maybe we have to look more carefully to find meaning in smaller things. The quiet and slightly reticent final project Desenho was nonetheless put together with the utmost care and thought. The works were mainly made by artists who make art not intended for the gallery context. Works were small for a number of reasons, not necessarily around the logistics of getting work here from Portugal and elsewhere in Europe. Sometimes we don’t have much space to make things, or the materials we have at hand need to be portable. Sometimes, it feels right to make something that can just sit in the palm of your hand.

I owe a huge thanks to and .galego for putting this show together and bringing small yet thoughtful, playful, sometimes even punchy works, and finding the right relationships and spaces for them to inhabit. Both of these painters make exceptional works of their own but alongside their companions they chose small works to fit in. Joana’s was a tiny square compositional sketch which dangled precariously off a wonky nail next to the room’s light switches; Nuno’s pairs of beans, made on little squares of card from tea packets, sat on the table and small drawing from the evacuation manual on the aeroplane aligned with the studio’s emergency instructions. He uses unusual materials, painting on stretched towel fabric and circles of resin - hung in the margins and within the studio’s plants. The visual connections they created in the show allowed extremely varied materials and aesthetics to sit in close proximity.

Desenho means drawing in Portuguese. Ideas around translation were important as these works travelled to a new city. Joana organised a wonderful evening of poetry readings across languages which we drew to. Translation brought meaning when the linguistics had only allowed me to understand something on a rhythmic and non-verbal emotional level. Drawing can be a form of translation in itself as we visualise ideas and translate them in the process.

A heartfelt thank you to Joana, Nuno, and to all of the artists involved, and the writers and poets too!
Muito obrigada!

It started with a pile of materials left in the corridor midway through a workshop - things that had sat around in Kathy and Anne’s studios for too long. Over the weekend of the 23/24 Nov and brought with them a burst of energy which transformed the studio into a collective space for generating ideas and a space to allow thoughts to grow - a sort of ‘City of the imagination’. The underlying thought was the memory of walking through the city, something Anne and Kathy enjoy doing together. Mapping, lines, trajectories underpinned the raw beginnings - this weekend of making together wasn’t about finishing or resolving things, more about how we start off on a project, and seeing where ideas can lead you.

Alongside Anne and Kathy were guests: brought both text and ink figures into the mix; Iarla Prendergast Knight bounced text back across the table and painted wet on wet with sticks and quink; .ruggaber_ made clouds bringing the weekend’s weird weather inside, clouds of paper, twisted wire, bungy rope, and fluffy filler. Victor Rees joined to read a moving text about walking in the city, and friendship. In the background a wonky, filmic journey on a bike made with Super 8 by Dan Knight played on the projector.

Works were strung from the ceiling beams, linking to a drawing wall layered with postcards, cuttings, and drawings, as threads emerged. Sculptural objects sprouted from the floor and hung from the ceiling.

At the end of the weekend Anne talked to a gathering of artists and students about not having an endgame, instead thinking about crossovers, and stories interacting, the seeping of ideas. Don’t worry about using things ‘properly’ - work with trials and mistakes and learn by doing, by being active. Notice how things sit together, little things, allowing things to remain open to allow others in.

What a privilege to have this group of artists together in our studio, for just two days, like a whirlwind but leaving behind so much to think about.

How can we draw something as manifold, subjective, and transitory as music? This was the starting point and challenge of Flynn Mccardy
and Will Walford’s workshop last week.

Scattered on the floor of the studio in a cluster were several instruments, some traditional, a guitar, keyboard, melodica; and some ad hoc ones, a yoghurt container, a rain stick, an egg slicer imitating a lyre... (Flynn and Will welcomed us into the studio by improvising a piece)

A highlight of the evening was their comprehensive presentation mixed in with short drawing exercises. We began by thinking about how music relates to shape, specifically certain aspects of music for example Melody. Our short drawing exercises helped us receive ideas from people such as: Marian Rezai and Mattew Shlomowitz, Otomo Yoshihide, Mats Kussner, Phil Niblock and more. We drew from sounds, noting the difference between drawing we listened (performative drawing) or only after listening and from memory (contemplative drawing). With additional materials coloured pencils became devices to notate different layers of sound, charcoal could be a sustained noise, and ink pens tools to make expressive shape scores.

We shifted from classical melodic recordings to non-pitch, dissonant sounds, drawing to the live improvisation of Flynn and Will, they performed our drawings as scores. Using balloons, melodica’s string, spoons, pots, pans, switchboards and a mic they turned the pencil marks into sounds. Next was our turn, we brought ‘noisy’ items from home and mixed them into the jumbled assortment of tools. Half the class improvised using a few of our earlier drawings as a form of score. The other half of the class drew our interpretation. Making the music felt like an entirely new side of drawing, drawing with music. How does line translate to instrument? Is a thick line louder than a thin one? And is a yellow spiral sound made by a mini trumpet or a metal tray spun in a circle across the floor?

Thank you to Flynn and Will for such a well researched and engaging final workshop and to everyone who came.

Often the devil is in the detail in our current show Desenho - open this weekend 12-6pm. The attention to detail is partly within each piece, colours chosen, the sensibility to surface, or the artists’ use and mix of very varied materials. Also the works have been so sensitively and playfully placed by .galego and - the drawings talk to each other - a visual conversation that richochets around the studio.

Drop in to see the show over the weekend before it closes on Sunday!

Images - all details:
1 -
2 Sara Fonseca da Graça - About Care
3 .arega - 2 images of the same ghost, with the same name, at the same time, in the same space
4
5 Caterina Real - Conjunto de Desenhos T e F
6 - (Bosch)
7 - Conjunto de Desenhos T e F
8 - Segunda árvore-estrela
9
10

How do Poetry and translation relate to our current drawing show ‘Desenho’? On Saturday evening we invite you to join us for poetry readings in different languages with experiments in translation from 6-8pm. .galego who has organised this evening explains what the relationship between drawing, poetry, and translation is to her:
“Drawing and poetry have the quality of smoke to me, in a way. They bring something unnamable to presence, through evocation, through mist. A simple and very thin line becomes a feeling, or a wash gains the weight of a whole memory. When I read certain poems I can’t quite pin down what makes so much sense in them to me, but they have that same invisible bonding capacity. As if they had hands that held mine, inside my guts! Anyway. And then translation. I grew up laughing in Portuguese and now I’m here dreaming in English. And this is just to mention two languages. But the potential for loss and connection in the process of translation doesn’t sound that distant from the personal communicating thing that drawing can be, with its hits and misses in revealing something that was hidden.”

We look forward to being joined with readings in person, and remotely from other countries by: Stephani Rodrígues, Alex Priestly, Becca Drake, Gilles Madan, Ben Westley Clarke .

Come and join us to see drawing, poetry, and translation interwoven.

POETRY EVENING - relating to Desenho
Curated by Joana Galego & Nuno Gonçalves
Sat 30 Nov, 6-8pm, Tickets £5 (including a drink)

More info and booking link in bio

Image: From Desenho - (left to right) 2x by Matilde Martins , Mafalda Costa , 2x Eva Magalhães

Desenho installation is underway - getting ready for tonight! The works were unpacked and laid out then and .galego have been finding the right place for each of these diverse drawing based works: a fake album cover (on the amplifier); a duo of clocks; embroideries (kept in place by stones). The works are infiltrating into spaces and shifting the way you look at the studio - you have to look carefully for some of these discreet interventions.

We hope you will join us to see this beautiful, mixed media collection of current drawings from a wide range of artists Nuno and Joana admire.

Desenho is a show
Curated by Nuno Gonçalves & Joana Galego
PV: Wed, 27 Nov, 6-9pm - everyone welcome!
Opening times: 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 12-6pm daily
Location: Eye to Pencil Studio, 1st Floor, 26 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE

& ‘s last workshop entitled ‘ History Gallop’ took the form of a time machine. They started in ancient Greece with togas (and jello shots for everyone) and jumped around temporally to: a Victorian parlour; the Great Depression; 200 years in the future… The workshops they have curated this term (though not so much in the past) have mostly been based on performance, being ‘in character’, with a theatrical transformation of the studio. This workshop was certainly in that vein.

It was packed, with a collective energy within the room as we squeezed into a big circle to draw on the floor. We drew Issey and Alex sat either side of a basket of artificial fruit but in each iteration they had shifted costume and pose and the scene was reset by Mack through a verbal description of where our tardis had landed. In the background a film made by Issey set the scene further.

Two string musicians accompanied this time travel with contemporaneous music - thank you to Danny Andrews on cello and Laura Gutierrez Muurisepp on violin.

What was this all about? It was certainly entertaining, and also created a fun space to draw in. As much as anything this bonanza was a celebration of the final term from 3 years of graduate-led workshops. These have been extraordinary; and have brought in a community of drawers into the studio. A huge thank you to everyone (there are 50+ of you) who has run a workshop for us - they have been full of thoughtfulness combined with humour and a bit of experimentation.

Working alongside Issey and Alex has been wonderful and eye-opening with several years of fascinating conversations as we worked. Thank you, to you both, for all that you have put into Eye to Pencil to help it to grow. A final thank you to everyone who came along, not just for this workshop but to all of the others.

Our next project Desenho opens on Wed, 27 Nov, 6-9pm with works by over 20 artists. is travelling here from Portugal with the final batch of drawings - we already have 2 boxes and several bags of drawing related works in various media waiting to be unpacked and installed.

The final week in the studio is a snapshot of some of the exciting work coming out of Portugal - curated by .galego and Nuno who studied Fine Art together at the University of Lisbon.

This image is a tiny peek at a detail of one of the works in the show by Ana Maça who combines drawing and embroidery… much more to come. We hope you will come along to one of the evening openings or an afternoon visit (with tea!).

DESENHO
PV: Wed, 27 Nov, 6-9pm
Opening times: 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 12-6pm
Poetry Evening: 30 Nov, 6-8pm

Location: Eye to Pencil Studio, 1st Floor, 26 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE

Come along today or tomorrow - Sat 23 and Sun 24 Nov - to see how the studio can be used by artists to initiate and test out ideas. and are making a 2 day drawing and sculpture project in collaboration with their guest artists: Iarla Prendergast Knight, .ruggaber_ , . With Victor Rees reading a short story about walking.

The studio is open today (Sat 23rd Nov) 3-6pm to watch as work develops. Then 3-6pm on Sunday 24th, with drinks from 4.30pm and an artists’ Talk.

It is unusual to glimpse behind the scenes to see artists in work mode and the studio in full flow - we are really lucky that we are getting to do this such generous, experienced artists who remain so open in the way they work. Drop in if you can!