Abstract

This thesis combines heuristic and visual methodologies to investigate how sketching artworks at a public art festival impacted participant engagement with these works. Through a series of drop-in ‘drawing club’ sessions, the public was invited to draw temporary art installations at the 2018 Works International Visual Arts Festival, in Edmonton, Alberta. Throughout 12 daily sessions, 68 participants contributed to four communal sketchbooks, as well as many conversations about art and the experience of drawing.

The public drawing clubs addressed the questions: How does drawing affect an individual’s engagement with art? How does drawing with others (the drawing club) affect an individual’s engagement with art? And, how do I as researcher elicit shared meaning?

This investigation considers implications for the use of observation drawing as a research method. It is connected to, and influenced by, a burgeoning interest in drawing across disciplines as a research method and a distinct way of knowing. Findings underline the multiplicity of ‘ways of knowing’ embedded in observation drawing, including: Affective engagement, sensory engagement, ‘flow’ as engagement, formal engagement, symbolic engagement, and creative engagement. The heuristic research method generates reflections to inform my development as researcher, artist and educator.

This research is undertaken in a public pedagogy framework and is interconnected with themes integral to the design of the drawing club intervention, such as: art interpretation and museum education; the practices of observation drawing and copying in art education; ‘I can’t draw’ attitudes; participation as an audience engagement strategy; as well as public art, public opinions toward art, and the politics surrounding art festival production.