Abstract

This study describes the integration of writing exercises into a college-level drawing course. The written exercises encouraged students to think metaphorically about and reflect on the technical processes of drawing, as well as the personal meanings which underlie the expressive side to their drawing. Through participant observation, this study describes how novice drawers' use of this written component enhanced students' understanding of the drawing process within the art studio classroom. This study attempts to prove that a teaching approach which consciously links both visual and verbal languages can be helpful to some students in the art studio. What is important is that by bringing the written word into the drawing classroom, students were given a means of expanding their thinking about the products and the process of their drawing activities. By making students more aware of the visual and verbal processes involved in the drawing studio, by helping to illuminate the possible meanings underlying their work, and by allowing them to understand the story of their drawing experiences, the written word became a vital tool in this drawing curriculum. For these students, drawing became not only a means of capturing the students' perceptions of the observed world, but also a means of furthering their reflection of, and creating meaning out of those perceptions.