Content uploaded by Howard Riley
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Howard Riley on Dec 04, 2023
Content may be subject to copyright.
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjvp20
Journal of Visual Art Practice
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjvp20
A contemporary pedagogy of drawing
Howard Riley
To cite this article: Howard Riley (2021): A contemporary pedagogy of drawing, Journal of Visual
Art Practice, DOI: 10.1080/14702029.2021.1980278
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14702029.2021.1980278
Published online: 21 Oct 2021.
Submit your article to this journal
View related articles
View Crossmark data
A contemporary pedagogy of drawing
Howard Riley
Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Swansea, UK
ABSTRACT
This article reviews 20 years of attitudes to drawing pedagogy and
looks forward with a studioful of post-pandemic optimism. It
reiterates the importance of drawing in art schools as the most
direct and economic means of nurturing our intelligence of seeing.
Throughout the period, neoliberal policies directing the UK
higher education curricula towards market-oriented criteria of
success have eroded the foundation of a visual arts pedagogy:
the exploration of the perceptual and its communication through
visual language; educative activities of wider import than market
concerns. An articulacy in drawing –visualcy –is fundamental to
human culture, let alone preparation for professional practice in
the visual arts and design disciplines. A remedial pedagogy is
proposed, structured upon the two fundamental theoretical bases
of visual perception and visual communication, illustrated with
students’drawings and the author’sefforts to practise what he
preaches.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 13 July 2021
Accepted 10 October 2021
KEYWORDS
Drawing; pedagogy;
intelligence of seeing;
visualcy; neoliberalism;
creative arts economy
Introduction
Some 20 years ago, as the Journal of Visual Art Practice was emerging, an optimism about
drawing pedagogy in UK art schools appeared well-founded. The 1998 Loughborough
conference Drawing Across Boundaries, where Richard Wollheim (1998) explained
‘why drawing is interesting’, had been an indication, followed by the Wimbledon
Drawing Symposium, November 2000, marking the opening of their Centre for
Drawing. In February 2002, the Drawing Research Network held its first symposium at
Kingston. I contributed to all these events, as well as a January 1998 presentation at
the Royal College of Art (RCA), where Deanna Petherbridge had inaugurated the
Centre for Drawing Research in 1995.
But in the same year as the first issue of this journal, 2001, the RCA Centre closed after the
Trustees of the College turned down an offer of financial support for a permanent Chair of
Drawing (Petherbridge 2019, 14). By 2010 the Wimbledon Centre too had lost impetus.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), during that first decade of the century, the term ‘neoliber-
alism’was entering common vocabulary (Maisuria and Cole 2017, 604), and in the time
since, its fundamental dogmas ‘self-interest’and ‘marketisation’(Maisuria 2014, 287),
driving government policies, have become ‘naturalised’in the H.E. context. The effect
upon the art school curriculum is ominous: the increase of attention to entrepreneurialism
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Howard Riley howard.riley@uwtsd.ac.uk
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE
https://doi.org/10.1080/14702029.2021.1980278
and competition in an artworld market context is usurping time previously allocated to
drawing, causing a decline in drawing ability confirmed by recent UK surveys (Fava
2020; Owen 2020). This article offers a contemporary approach to drawing pedagogy,
emphasising its prime function in nurturing an intelligence of seeing (Riley 2001) appliable
to all disciplines within the creative arts sector and beyond. The cultural importance of such
a project is evident inthe succinct observation of the first professor of linguistics in the UK,
John Rupert Firth (1937, 45): ‘Speech and drawing are nine-tenths of humanity’.
In the first volume of this journal (Riley 2002, 150), I proposed visualcy, a neologism
akin to literacy and numeracy, describing an articulacy with visual elements in both com-
posing and interpreting drawings. Recent research indicates the roots of this faculty:
…evolutionary survival pressures, recruiting the functions of symbolic cognition and the
imagination, contributed to the rise of the earliest arts …utilitarian application of ochre
sparked imaginative expansion into body painting displays. (Zaidel 2020, 71)
Cognitive neuropsychologist Dahlia Zaidel’s research establishing the reasons for
human mark-making prompts me to probe the provenance of present-day educational
priorities: no-one would challenge literacy or numeracy, but their progenitor, visualcy,
is still barely recognised, despite W.J.T. Mitchell’susage(2008), and my own recent elab-
oration (Riley 2021). Visualcy relates to the oldest evolutionary functions of symbolic cog-
nition and imagination: finding drawn equivalents for perceptual phenomena and our
attitudes towards them; a shareable means of drawing out alternative representations of
the spatial and temporal relationships between the individual and their physical and
social environments, a means of visually reconstruing the commonplace, a means to
new knowledge beyond the reach of discourse. As Sunil Manghani (2020, 326) argues,
in favour of the figurative, ‘…discourse falls short. It is a closed system of meaning
limited to what can be read’, endorsing Jean-François Lyotard’s(2011)Discourse, Figure
an earlier elevation of the figurative realm over the discursive because of its semogenic
potential, facilitating meanings that have never been anticipated, let alone existed before.
Acknowledging research (Zaidel 2020,2016; Mattson 2014) reaffirming drawing as a
fundamental ‘evolved behavioural predisposition’(Dissanayake 2016, 123), this article
argues its nurturing is essential to visual arts practices, based upon the following premise
The primary endeavour of drawing pedagogy is to impart knowledge of, and to stimulate
inquiry about vision; the structuring of light and materials in communicable forms
through experimentation with processes of visual perception and visual language so as to
develop cognitive abilities relevant to the production of perceptually- and conceptually-
intriguing
1
work in the widest range of materials and media, affording new understanding
and knowledge of our world.
After all, the one domain of inquiry distinguishing the visual arts from other disciplines is
surely that surrounding the faculty of vision. And the most direct and economic means of
engaging with and communicating results of that inquiry in a pedagogical context is the
language of drawing. By the way, this position does not obviate other activities, for
example, the performance choreographed by Madeleine Lohrum Strancari, winning
the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020, but locates them peripherally, exploring
boundaries between established disciplines. An online discussion of the prize hosted
by the Arts University Bournemouth on 29 April 2021, titled The Grammar of
Drawing, prompted me to elaborate: having established the credentials of drawing as a
2H. RILEY
bone fide language in this journal (Riley 2019), in terms of the systemic-functional model
of language developed by Michael A.K. Halliday, the leading socio-linguist until his death
in April 2018, I define its grammar as a system of ‘syntax-morphology’(Halliday 1978,
43). Syntax refers to the culturally-specific rules governing the combination of the
elements of drawing, for example, syntagmatic conventions such as geometric projection
systems or the juxta-positioning of contrasting shapes of textures, tones and colours
producing illusions of depth; morphology refers to the variations of form available in
each drawn element: for example, the variety of line qualities indicative of choices
from the paradigms of mark-making implements and textured grounds. Table 1
illustrates the dual processes of selection and combination which facilitate meaning-
making in all codes of communication, here specifically related to drawing.
Philosopher Patrick Maynard (2005, xv) observed ‘…when photography receives
much public notice …little is said directly about drawing. But drawing is far more impor-
tant than photography’. He was referring to its function as the fundamental stage of all
manufacturing processes, but research since has confirmed a much wider area of
influence: how drawing enhances specific acuities; judging angles and proportional
relationships, improving visual memory (McManus et al. 2010); changes in brain struc-
tures pertaining to fine motor control, procedural memory and visual imagery (Chamber-
lain et al. 2014); Kozbelt and Ostrofsky (2019, 588–589) report ‘…skill in drawing appears
to be associated with domain-specific and domain-general advantages in visual percep-
tion, attention, knowledge and decision-making’. Not only these but the study of art
history is also enhanced (Qvarnström 2019). Even beyond the visual arts, the argument
for sustaining a pedagogy of drawing is equally imperative: Wu and Rau (2019) review
multiple studies indicating how drawing benefits learning across STEM disciplines.
Such research evidence affirms a fundamental intelligence evolved for the enhance-
ment of our species’development. An intelligence with provenance.
The intelligence of seeing
Mark making has been the principle (sic) mode of our species’capacity for material signifi-
cation and creative material engagement. Malafouris (2021, 95)
The emergence of visualcy in human culture occurred long before literacy and numeracy:
we have been drawing for c73,000 years.
2
The reasons offered are many: Childe (1942, 48)
suggested the Palaeolithic ‘artist- magician’who, by capturing its image, ensured
Table 1. Combinations of selected elements communicate meanings.
Paradigms of Elements (Selection) Syntagms of Elements (Combination) Communication
Point
Line
Shape (2D)
Texture
Tone
Colour
Plane
Contrast
Proportion
Scale
Pattern
Rhythm
Spatial depth
Force
Direction
Movement
Volume, Mass, Weight
Balance
Symmetry
Structure
Form (3D)
Surface properties
Observer’s position(s)
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 3
capturing the beast for food; but there is ‘…little correlation between the depicted
species and excavated food remains from camp sites’(Whitley 2009, 30). Lewis-Williams
et al. (1988; Lewis-Williams 2002) claimed that an altered shamanistic state of conscious-
ness induced entoptic phenomena, projected and fixed on cave walls, refuted by Paul
Bahn (2010) and Patricia Helvenston (2014,2015); Steven Mithen (1996) theorised
that humans evolved three domains of intelligence; technical, social and natural
history, which, when combined, triggered a ‘cultural explosion’, the visual evidence
being cave drawings; Iain Davidson (2020) identifies drawing as the second earliest of
six communication revolutions: language (speech), iconic imagery, writing, printing,
communication at a distance and the digital electronic revolution. Hodgson and
Pettitt (2018, 605) offer a plausible sequential argument:
(1) Humans evolved to ‘think about’animals due to their critical importance to the sur-
vival strategies of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. As a result of this, the brain estab-
lished a ‘hair-trigger’response with a tendency to interpret natural features as
animals.
(2) Art probably evolved as decoration of the body and processes associated with it, pro-
viding the means (pigment, engraving) for creating marks, for example, the use of
ochre and shell necklaces that pre-date the Upper Palaeolithic …It makes sense
that the earliest manifestation of art should be peripersonal.
(3) Caves and other stimulating environments activated the brain’s‘hair-trigger’mech-
anisms, acting on its projective ability in terms of elements of the body (e.g. hand-
marks) and animals, stimulating the transferral of images from the body to objects
and places.
(4) The earliest of such ‘transferred’art related to the body, i.e. non-figurative hand and
finger marks, representing a direct extension of the body (or if preferred, self) to the
external world. This was done by Neanderthals and, later, by Homo sapiens, although
whether the two are connected remains to be seen.
(5) Later, caves, rock-shelters and open-air landscapes, triggered inherent projective
capacities –and hence the completion/creation of animal depictions.
More recently, doctoral research (Sakiro, Pettitt, and Ontañon-Peredo 2020) hypoth-
esises that morphological features of cave surfaces prompted the addition of drawn marks
to ‘bring out the beast’, enhancing the resulting three-dimensional scene with a sense of ani-
mation as viewers perambulated the spaces. (‘Walkies’before ‘Movies’or ‘Talkies’!)
Whatever the reason, the drawn evidence indicates ‘a foundational evolved human
capacity’(Dissanayake 2016, 101), an innate compulsion demonstrated from our early
childhood, vital to the cultural development of our species. An activity naïvely regarded
as anachronistic in our age of instant imagery, in danger of being reduced to a whimsi-
cality of pseudo-therapeutic activities, or as the egotistical expression in the context of
fashionable art market trends, simply because the case for drawing as relevant to a
wider cultural credibility is not articulated clearly enough for the current crop of edu-
cation administrators (political and managerial) to recognise.
The concept of the intelligence of seeing, which I introduced at the first symposium of
the Drawing Research Network 2002, can be understood as a process of subject-reflexive
action: behaviour informed by reciprocity between visual stimulus and response,
4H. RILEY
informed in turn by a sense of anticipation and understanding of future consequences of
planned action, as opposed to subject-reactive behaviour exemplified by the eye-blink in
response to a puffof air (Witkin 1974, 14). In the context of drawing pedagogy, the intel-
ligence of seeing may be construed as relating two of the basic human activities crucial to
our survival; firstly, the perceiving of environment and our positions within it; secondly,
the drive to communicate –share, teach –those perceptual experiences. A first indicator
of such intelligence is a versatility of vision transcending what John Halverson (1992,
389) identified in cave drawings as ‘fundamental features of visual perception …
figure-ground distinction, Gestalt principles of closure and good continuation’, a versa-
tility informed by awareness of how to extract different levels of information from the
scene observed: haptic, distal and proximal levels, elaborated below. A second indicator
is the degree of visualcy in the ability to communicate a range of drawn equivalences for
perceptual experiences, relevant to the aims of the drawing, functioning to convey the
drawer’s attitude, as well as positioning viewers in terms of their mood and attitude
towards the subject-matter represented, thus facilitating social interaction, a social
semiotic (Halliday 1978). Both these indicators are capable of being nurtured through
a pedagogy of drawing, as we shall see.
Nurturing visualcy through drawing
The premise stated in the Introduction is in danger. Attitudes to drawing in any given
period are fundamentally related to the ‘structure of feeling’in that period. Raymond
Williams’(1954, 21) phrase is applied here as a set of received attitudes which hegemo-
nically serve to naturalise cultural ideologies, cloaking the creed dominating the last 20
years, the effects of which the UK Group for Learning in Art and Design (GLAD 2019)
coyly termed ‘instrumentalist governmental metrics’, alluding to the neoliberal regime
following the Browne Report (2010) on arts education. David Willetts, Minister for Uni-
versities and Science 2010–2014, champion of neoliberal policies, had decreed, not so
coyly, in 2013: ‘…unleashing the forces of consumerism is the best single way we’ve
got of restoring high academic standards’(Willetts, in McGettigan 2015,2)
3
. But just
as design and craft courses are becoming more aware of opportunities in a ‘circular
economy’(Kneese 1988, 281–282) challenging the mass-production/-distribution/-con-
sumption/waste economic system and its concomitant need to instil a desire to acquire
via commodity aesthetics (Haug 1986), others such as the fine arts provide opportunities
for enriching social engagement and aesthetic consciousness, their cultural worth best
assessed using criteria other than market values. Dean Kenning (2019, 116) expresses
concern about the Browne Report’s assumption that higher education equates to
higher employment and monetary remuneration:
There is immediately a problem with the student-as-rational-investor model when it comes
to creative degrees such as fine art: they are a seriously ‘bad bet’. Government commissioned
research published in 2011/12 showed that the ‘graduate premium’–the extra lifetime earn-
ings of graduates compared with non-graduates –simply does not apply to students of Art
and Design courses …
No university can operate independently of its socio-political context, but the trend of
foregrounding business strategies raises specific concern about consequences for art
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 5
schools –perhaps unintended? –of reducing the time allocated to drawing activities for
reasons noted early by Petherbridge (2010, 232):
More recently, under the democratic, pluralistic but also hegemonic imperatives of univer-
sities …individual practice in art departments has become increasingly fragmented through
modular teaching and self-directed learning, with students looking outward to the art
market and its officiates.
Modules exhorting notions of ‘enterprise’and ‘entrepreneurship’aligning the curriculum
with a competitive commercial art world whilst abrogating responsibilities for nurturing
visualcy via the teaching of drawing.
I would advocate a pedagogical focus upon the prime function
4
of visual art; that of
challenging the complacency of everyday seeing so that our experiences of the world
may be construed with flexibility resulting in fresh insights, understanding, new
knowledge.
Teachers in the contemporary art schools are not affecting ignorance in order that their stu-
dents may come to personal conclusions: their ignorance is all real …They do not begin to
know what they do not know. (Willer 2018, 30)
Jacob Willer’s stark generalisation demands a robust rebuttal. Perhaps some are ignorant
of the ideology driving curriculum changes, but many teachers are quite capable of
demonstrating versatility in aligning practice with its fundamental knowledge bases of
visual perception and visual communication, and are aware of contemporary research
to support them: most recently in the work of Lyon et al. (2018), Ludwig Qvarnström
(2019), Chorpening and Fortnum (2020) and Seymour Simmons (2021).
As far back as the 1850s, the pedagogy of drawing has been aligned with the perceived
requirements of its social context. The main alternative types of art school curricula have
been identified by Nicholas Houghton (2016), Table 2 correlates them with their philo-
sophical bases, so that the historical shifts in attitude towards the social uses of drawing
are related to the prevailing philosophical positions, from the notion that reality is an
objective, unchanging state, to a more relativist position, from which realities are con-
strued as socially-constructed.
A Constructionist philosophical base embracing the range of ontological positions
identified in Table 2 facilitates experimentation with the two main theories of perception;
the computational theory proposed by David Marr (1982) and the ecological approach of
James J. Gibson (1979), and is therefore advocated for a pedagogy of drawing under-
pinned by a carefully structured eight-step approach to observational drawing, the
importance of which is highlighted by Petherbridge (2010, 233)
Learning to draw, while no longer a privileged activity in either school or specialist art teach-
ing, remains an activity of enormous importance and potency for education as a whole.
Learning to observe, to investigate, to analyse, to compare, to critique, to select, to
imagine, to play and to invent constitutes the veritable paradigm of functioning effectively
in the world.
The steps of this strategy are familiar to all competent teachers of drawing, but rarely
coordinated in an organised way. Here is such a plan, tested in a series of drawing
workshops held at the RCA, 2012–2016. The workshops were inclusive, specifically
designed for both dyslexic and non-dyslexic students by the author and Qona
6H. RILEY
Rankin, coordinator for dyslexic students at the RCA (Rankin et al. 2017; Rankin and
Riley 2021). The workshops are based upon post-doctoral research reported in Riley
(2014) and Chamberlain et al. (2015), which indicates a correlation between the
Table 2. Philosophical bases related to the teaching of drawing.
Philosophical base Ontological attitude to drawing
Epistemological
attitude to
drawing
Houghton’s(2016) six
curricula related to the
teaching of drawing
OBJECTIVE: Reality as
absolute
Analytical 1. Apprentice curriculum:
Before Henry Cole’s 1853
network of art schools,
drawing considered as
craft. Skills passed on from
master to apprentice.
Orthographic projections.
(1). Rationalist
(2). Empiricist
Observational 2. Academic curriculum:
Legacy of Italian
Renaissance: first art
academies designed to
raise the social status of
artists. Application of
anatomical knowledge,
perspective geometric
projection. Distance-
values emphasised.
3. Formalist curriculum:
Bauhaus constructivism,
epitomised by Moholy-
Nagy and later, the ‘basic
design’movement in
England. Application of
measurement techniques
based on the natural
sciences. Ruskin’s
‘innocent eye’.
Coldstream’s‘measured
verification’. Haptic and
proximal values.
(3). Subjective Idealist SUBJECTIVE: Reality as an individual
experience
Psychological 4. Expressive curriculum:
Bauhaus expressionism,
epitomised by Kandinsky
and Itten, advocating
drawing as self-
expression.
(4). Pragmaticist EXPEDIENT: Reality as continuous flux,
from which the mind selects according
to the interests of the perceiver at the
time.
Expedient 5. Conceptual curriculum:
Post-Duchamp, post-1970
deskilling. Concept over
percept. Art-Language.
6. Professional curriculum:
Emphasis on
entrepreneurial skills,
marketability,
employability.
(5). Constructionist RELATIVIST: Realities recognised as social
constructions, including the above
categories
Semiological Cross-cultural visual studies.
Explicit experimentation
with both viewer-centred
and object-centred
representations.
Ecological relationships.
Distance, haptic and
proximal values.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 7
ability to draw objectively and the development of intelligence of seeing, explained to
students as an awareness of the inter-relationships between ways of seeing, social
belief-systems and ways of drawing. The workshops are structured upon procedures
adapted from Nist and Kirby (1986), reported in Nist and Mealey (1991) and Tilly
Mortimore (2003). The eight-steps:
(1) To focus attention upon the subject-matter and its relationship with the surround-
ings (figure/field relations); relationships of format (portrait, landscape, square or
other), and scale, (related to the choice of drawing medium, since medium dictates
scale) and positioning of the drawing within the picture-plane (the drawing sheet
itself) relevant to the main axes of the drawing sheet: the central vertical axis, the
central horizontal axis, the two diagonal axes and others, such as the Golden
Section.
(2) To construct a general structure or scaffolding: in terms of life-drawing, this would
relate to the main axes of the model’s pose, using, for example, the ‘N-grid’, lines
running across the figure that connect salient points such as nose, nipples, navel,
(k)nees and (k)nuckles. These axes might be the vehicle by which students hone
their skills of accuracy in drawing angles and lengths in proportion so that the repeti-
tive, low-level exercise is perceived to have contextual meaning for the student.
(3) To understand and apply concepts such as contrast boundary in place of the common
term ‘outline’. This immediately engages the student with the variety of tonal and tex-
tural values across the whole subject-matter and, in particular, allows the student to
notice how the contrast boundary fluctuates at the edges between figure and field.
The concept of negative space (spaces between those items in the visual field normally
labelled with language), can also aid students to look without language, to apply specifi-
cally non-verbal methods in the process of drawing. Thirdly, to pay attention to the
visual vertices, simply described as T and Y junctions apparent as edges where two sur-
faces are occluded by a third. (Biederman 1987; Ostrofsky and Kozbelt 2012).
(4) To repeat these first three steps at the beginning of every new drawing. The tutor
might demonstrate the steps at this point.
(5) To discuss with the tutor the process underway on the drawing board.
(6) To repeat the recommended strategies with support from the tutor.
(7) To draw independently at unsupervised open-access drawing sessions.
Table 3. Group responses pre- and post-workshops. Likert Scale range: ‘Strongly Disagree’rated 1, to
‘Strongly Agree’rated 7.
Dyslexic students Non-dyslexic students
Pre-
workshop
Post-
workshop
Pre-
workshop
Post-
workshop
Seeing ‘Negative Spaces’is easy 5.00 5.63 4.60 5.60
Seeing ‘Contrast Boundaries’is easy 3.00 4.13 2.00 3.80
Controlling ‘Proportion’is easy 2.88 3.50 4.00 5.00
Judging ‘Length & Angle’is easy 4.25 5.13 2.80 4.80
Fitting drawings into the sheet is easy 2.38 4.38 4.20 5.60
Awareness of ‘Main Axes’3.13 5.63 3.40 5.60
Awareness of ‘Invisible Grid’3.00 6.00 3.20 5.40
Awareness of ‘Primary’and ‘Secondary Geometries’2.38 5.88 3.20 6.20
AcrossRCA 2016 results.
8H. RILEY
(8) To reflect upon and critically assess the practices and strategies in order to reinforce
them. This procedure takes the form of a group pin-up crit session with guidance
from the facilitators.
Results and examples of drawings produced from the workshops are reported in detail
in Rankin et al. (2017). Table 3 shows a generalised summary, indicating the positive shift
in attitudes towards key topics related to observational drawing.
The results from this teaching model are encouraging and indicate that the approach
described here could benefit the whole education system, from primary level through ter-
tiary level.
Five pedagogical approaches to the nurturing of visualcy
The next stage is to integrate the teaching model with a drawing curriculum premised
upon five aspects of perception and communication theories relevant to visual art pro-
duction (Table 4). This can become the means of integrating theoretical and practical
components of art school pedagogy. Since such a core curriculum was first proposed
in this journal (Riley 2007), it has been elaborated.
Levels of perception
The legitimate endeavour of working artists is to practise the art of structuring light. (Gibson
1966, 238)
The fundamental condition which defines drawing is a contraperception, the visual
equivalent of a contradiction: the dialectical relationship between the material qualities
of the ground and the marks upon it which constitute a drawing, and the illusion of
spatial depth conjured up by those marks upon the ground. Richard Brettell (1999, 14)
introduced the categories ‘transparent realism’and ‘mediated realism’.Transparent
realism plays down all indications which would otherwise draw attention to the
surface qualities of the ground so that the viewer’s gaze is transported directly into the
virtual space produced by projective geometries and tonal and textural contrasts.
Figure 1 is a good example.
Table 4. Five approaches to the nurturing of visualcy.
1. Levels of perception:Haptic, distal and proximal values: textural, depth of field and pattern information contained in the
structure of light arrays arriving at the eyes; negative spaces: the shapes between objects in the scene; contrast
boundaries: edges in the scene, visible because of different tones or textures either side of the boundary; ‘T’&‘Y’
junctions: pattern of edges where one surface overlaps two others in the scene (these may be seen at various levels of
scale, i.e. fractal structures). Key text: Gordon, Ian (2004). Theories of Visual Perception. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
2. Seeing and believing: Awareness of how cultural beliefs inform (1) ways of seeing and (2) ways of representing those
beliefs in visual work. Geometric projection systems represent space on a flat surface. Key text: Willats (1997)Art and
Representation, New Principles in the Analysis of Pictures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3. Functions of drawing:Representational (subject-matter); Compositional (how the subject-matter is presented in visual
form); Interpersonal (how compositional choices position viewers in terms of mood and attitude towards the subject-
matter). Key text: O’Toole (2011). The Language of Displayed Art. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
4. Strategies of visual communication: Rhetorical tropes: metonym, metaphor, oxymoron, pun, ways of enhancing
perceptual and conceptual intrigue. Key text: Danesi, Marcel (2017). Visual Rhetoric and Semiotic. In Oxford Research
Encyclopaedias, Communication. Oxford: OUP.
5. Drawing as process of transformation: From primary geometry (3D) to secondary geometry (2D) (representationalism);
from cultural values into material form; from individual feelings to social communication (expressionism); from mental
concept to visible percept. Key text: Maynard (2005). Drawing Distinctions. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 9
Mediated realism prioritises the surface qualities of the ground –the materiality of the
mark-making medium and its supporting textural surface –before illusions of depth.
Figure 2 epitomises this, in which the varieties of texture and scale of the crayon
marks, and the bared surface of the paper vie for the viewer’s attention prior to a
reading of the scene depicted.
The opposition between transparent and mediated realism had already been addressed
by the psychologist James Jerome Gibson (1979) whose explanation of visual perception
involves what he termed an ecological approach. Gibson sub-divided his exploration of
the visual perception process into two parts: the perception of the world of surfaces,
edges, colours, textures and slopes; and the perception of the world of signification –
of signs made upon surfaces. He argued that perception of the one is radically
different from the perception of the other (Gibson 1980, xi), setting up the notion of a
‘duality of picture perception’:
A picture, photographic or chirographic, is always a treated surface …a plaster wall, or a
sheet of canvas, a panel, a screen, or a piece of paper …The picture is both a scene and a
surface, and the scene is paradoxically behind the surface. (Gibson 1979, 281)
It is apparent that Brettell and Gibson both articulate the fundamental condition which
defines drawing, one which could inform and enhance the pedagogy of drawing in our art
schools today.
Three levels of information crucial to visual art practice can be identified in the struc-
ture of the light arrays arriving at the eyes. Robert Witkin (1995,63–64) identifies these as
‘sensory modalities’:contact values, distal values and proximal values. They may be
explored in the studio or elsewhere through exercises designed to focus attention on
Figure 1. Robert Newell Harlech Grits, Towards Moel Ysgyfarnogod. Pencil and wash on paper. 49 ×
68.5 cms.
10 H. RILEY
Figure 2. Howard Riley Mwnt. Coloured pencil on A3 paper.
Figure 3. Haptic values. Howard Riley Surface Qualities versus Illusions of Depth = Visual Delight. Oil
pastel, graphite on A1 Fabriano paper.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 11
the ‘haptic level’, at which information about surface qualities of texture and colour may
be accessed; the ‘distal level’, to do with information about relative distance, size, scale
and depth of field; and the ‘proximal level’, which provides information about the
overall pattern and rhythm relationships in the visual field as a whole. The honing of
such discrimination of seeing is crucial if students are to manipulate and control the
degree of perceptual intrigue in their work. Drawing is the most direct means of contem-
plating these channels of perception. It is, therefore, best positioned to be the means of
release from our language-based complacency of vision; it is a primary means of making
the familiar strange.
An example of each level of perception is illustrated in Figures 3–5.
Seeing and believing
Perception is a part-innate, part-acquired skill of transforming the raw material of vision
into the ‘finished product’; and every period has its conventional formulae and methods
of interpretation for doing this. The ordinary mortal thinks most of the time in clichés –
and sees most of the time in clichés. His (sic) visual schemata are prefabricated for him;
he looks at the world through contact lenses without being aware of it. (Koestler 1975,
376–377)
If students are to develop the capacities necessary to manipulate the balance between per-
ceptual intrigue and conceptual intrigue in artworks, it is essential that projects are
designed to encourage the understanding that perception is capable of being ‘tuned’to
different levels of attention (Point 1 in Table 4), and also that it is culturally conditioned:
how we see the world is conditioned by what we believe. (Segal, Campbell, and Herskovit
1966). This is easily illustrated by showing the variety of ways cultures with differing
belief-systems about space–time, for example, have devised to represent the relationship
in pictures (Hagen 1986; Willats 1997). Once students are aware of their own ontological
constructs, they become more flexible about recognising the validity of those of others
and also more capable of inventing alternative constructs for representing time,
objects and space.
Figure 6 illustrates how a mixture of geometric projection systems –orthographic,
oblique, perspective –invites the viewer to move towards, around and through the
space. The understanding is that we experience the world from a moving path of obser-
vation, and incorporate that understanding in the geometrical constructions, unlike the
assumption of a single static eye inherent in artificial perspective.
Figure 7 explores the Aboriginal Australian convention of mapping important features
of the landscape from an imaginary high viewpoint, using contrasts of colour and texture.
In this case, the cafes and other food outlets on a university campus are identified.
Functions of art
…critical practice …has focused on …the representational content of a painting. Gestalt
psychology forced a reappraisal of the compositional elements …but these were not
related in a coherent theoretical way to what was represented. Of course, …perspective
involved the relationship between the painting and its viewer, …but the recognition of mod-
alities such as viewing angle, internal framing, the play of light and rhythm …was not con-
ceived as a distinct level of meaning in the visual arts. (O’Toole 2005, 84)
12 H. RILEY
Michael A.K. Halliday, a student of J.R. Firth, quoted earlier, theorised language as a
socially situated, meaning-making (semogenic) resource. Halliday (2019, 99) elaborated
the principle that language emerged at a particular moment in our evolution, and
argued that its organisation reflects the eco-social context of its evolution. Extrapolating
from this position, it becomes possible to teach students that drawing similarly functions
to construe the human experience, to construct the reality within which we live. Halliday
referred to this function as the ‘ideational’, which embraces the ways in which we both
construe and represent our experiences. Drawing also realises human relationships,
creating, maintaining or changing them, for which Halliday used the term ‘interpersonal’
function. But both of these functions depend upon a mode of discourse shared within the
Figure 4. Distal values. Howard Riley Coventry Auto-taxi. Pencil, pen and ink on A3 paper.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 13
Figure 5. Proximal values. Howard Riley The Albert Hall from the RCA. Pen and ink on A5 paper.
Figure 6. Howard Riley RCA Drawing Studio 1 & 2. Charcoal on A1 paper.
14 H. RILEY
interactions: this is Halliday’s‘textual’function; also known as the ‘compositional’or
‘poetic’, acknowledging Roman Jakobson’s(1958) explanation of the poetic function as
the means of attracting attention to the formal qualities of the inter-communication,
the message –the drawing –itself.
So, alongside the exploration of perceptual values and cross-cultural conventions
for the representation of space, students can also be introduced to this powerful theor-
etical basis of communication. This proposal is not so daunting as it might first
appear: students understand at an early stage that a mental concept, an idea for an
artwork based upon some aspect of our experiences of the world, needs to be trans-
formed into visible, tangible form in order to be shared. The teaching challenge is to
impart practical methods which can facilitate such transformation. Michael O’Toole’s
(2005,2011,2019) systemic-functional semiotic model of the visual arts adapts Halli-
day, producing a valuable, proven aid to structuring studio practice (Riley 2008,2017).
It has been a source of some amazement to me that O’Toole’s insights have yet to be
applied more widely to the study and pedagogy of drawing, which may also be
Figure 7. Samantha Geizekamp Journey Through Space. Gouache on A2 paper.
Table 5. Three functions of visual communication.
Experiential function
Poetic or compositional
function Interpersonal function
What is represented:
Experiences of the world
The artist’s selection and
combination of visual
elements
How the compositional choices position viewers in terms
of mood and attitude towards the subject-matter
represented
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 15
construed as a language (Riley 2019). O’Toole introduces the inter-relationship
between the three functions: the ‘experiential’or ‘representational’function, the
content carried by the mental concept; the ‘compositional’or ‘poetic’function, the
practical processes of selection and combination of visual elements, materials and
media in order to realise –make visible –the concept; and the ‘modal’or ‘interper-
sonal’function, relating to how those compositional choices both reflect the drawer’s
and affect the viewers’attitude and mood towards the subject-matter represented. The
three functions are summarised in Table 5.
Such clear structuring of the art production process may be imparted both through
illustrated talks and studio tutorials. For example, in Figures 8 and 9, although both rep-
resent similar subject-matter, the choices from the paradigms of colour palette, viewing
distance and focus in each image invite the viewer to adopt distinctly different moods and
attitudes towards the topic; from the macroscopic to the atmospheric.
Strategies of creative communication
It is evident that many devices studied by poetics are not confined to verbal art. We can
refer to the possibility of transposing Wuthering Heights into a motion picture, medieval
legends into frescoes …or L’Apres-midi d’un Faune into graphic art. (Jakobson
1958, 351)
Jakobson (1956) theorised the two poetic devices of metaphor and metonymy as charac-
teristic realisations of the two fundamental processes of selection and combination
Figure 8. Amanda Maria Plantasia project Charcoal and chalk on A2 paper.
16 H. RILEY
Figure 9. Heather Simmonds Plantasia project Chalk on A2 paper.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 17
through which the poetic or compositional, the function of communication operates.
Metaphor refers to the description of one thing (the ‘tenor’) in terms of another (the
‘vehicle’): in Figure 10, the negative connotations of the vehicle (the snail) are applied
to the tenor (concept of ‘progress’). Metonymy refers to the process whereby one sign
becomes contiguously associated with another: in Figure 11, the residual marks on
each sheet are metonymic –they are attributes of the various sources of force applied
to the paper.
The poetic function foregrounds the equivalences between visual elements of a com-
position, producing visual pattern, rhythm, symmetries and harmonies (or their oppo-
sites), which draw attention to the formal qualities, the look of the work. In
Jakobson’s(1958, 358) famous phrase: ‘The poetic function projects the principle of
equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination’.
An understanding of the power of these devices as vehicles to make visual equival-
ences of conceptual ideas will surely empower students’practice. Other rhetorical
tropes can also be employed to good effect in practice, and so oxymorons, irony and
puns can also be introduced and applied in students’work.
Figure 10. Tom Alberts Progress. Oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cms.
18 H. RILEY
Figure 11. Ashley Hay Metonyms of Force. Sheets imprinted with indices of forces applied through
various objects.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 19
Art production as a process of transformation
The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. (Spark 1961, 35)
Ultimately, drawing is construed as a ‘process of transformation’, leading to work developed
through the full gamut of media and processes. Examples of the transformational process are:
.Transformation from concept or percept to artwork via systems of geometry, lens-
based and/or time-based media or three-dimensional materials (the tradition of
representationalism).
.Transformation of individual perceptions into social communication (the tradition of
expressionism).
.Transformation of cultural values into material form (the tradition of art as a socio-
political comment or more contemporaneously, intervention in the social process
through site-specific installations, performances and multi-media presentations).
And, crucially, the transformation of abstract concepts into visible percepts: such a
process is illustrated in Figures 12–14,from the series Seeing Through Writing, exploring
the proposition that we see the world through language; language structures our realities,
we use it to structure order out of chaos.
In Figure 12 the metaphor of clean-cut symbols (incised to reveal an inchoate back-
ground), generating from the central square device connoting our multi-layered
Figure 12. Howard Riley Seeing Through Writing 1. Oil pastel, graphite, charcoal, pencil on Waterford
300 gsm paper A3 size.
20 H. RILEY
Figure 14. Howard Riley Seeing Through Writing 4. Glazed, with reflections.
Figure 13. Howard Riley Seeing Through Writing 10. Glazed, with reflections.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 21
capacity for structuring order out of chaos, alludes to the function of language struc-
turing our realities whilst masking the essence of its referents.
However, once the drawing is glazed for exhibition display (Figures 13 and 14), other
visual relationships become apparent: between the drawing’s surface, the viewer’s move-
ments and the environmental context (in these examples, purposely arranged to include
references to writing!). Glass, often regarded as a hindrance to the direct perception of
artworks, here provides multiples of visual focus, a metaphor for the layers of
meaning available to the viewer once the foregrounded filter of language has been dis-
solved. Looking without language. And of course, as the viewer shifts position, a constant
restructuring of the arrays of light arriving at the eyes, both from the reflective surface
and the drawing itself, stimulates enhanced perceptual intrigue conducive to challenging
the complacencies of seeing as well as the reliability of language.
The compositional devices illustrated and discussed here serve to enstrange writing
from its referents. Thus drawing can reveal the treason –not of images (pace Magritte)
–but of language itself.
Last words
…for all involved in art, craft and design education, drawing is a key skill. Teaching all
pupils to draw with confidence and creativity was too low a priority in too many schools.
If art, craft and design education is to play a full part in helping pupils ‘make a mark’in
the future, drawing can no longer remain a concern without a cause. (OFSTED Report 2011)
And what of the optimism mentioned in the Abstract of this article? The recent publi-
cation A Companion to Contemporary Drawing (Chorpening and Fortnum, eds. 2020)
is heartening, as is Seymour Simmons’(2021)The Value of Drawing Instruction in the
Visual Arts and Across Curricula. The continuing activities of the Drawing Research
Network and Tracey, the online journal of drawing research that emerged from the
Drawing Across Boundaries conference, are thriving, together with the international
network Thinking Through Drawing, all of which augers well for the future.
Notes
1. The degree of balance between perceptual intrigue and conceptual intrigue is a useful cri-
terion of quality assessment. ‘Perceptual intrigue’is the product of tension between textural
qualities of the drawing surface, and illusions of depth produced by the marks on that
surface. ‘Conceptual intrigue’refers to how a drawing can afford viewers fresh insights
which stimulate new understandings of the theme or concept to which it alludes: the
capacity of the drawer to employ rhetorical tropes in order to transcend whatever prosaic
subject-matter might be represented in the work so as to make available meanings at a
more profound level about our experiences of life, and the human condition in general.
2. In South Africa, a cross-hatched pattern drawn with ochre crayon on a silcrete flake is dated
73,000 years old (Henshilwood et al. 2018). We were certainly drawing long before we were
writing; Ewen Clayton (2020) states a generally-agreed date of c5,500 BP in Mesopotamia
for the first writing. In fact, our facility for depiction stimulated the very notion of
written language. Visualcy preceded –indeed, facilitated –literacy.
3. For an analysis of how such reasoning emerged, see Mark Carney’s(2020) Reith Lecture,
where he charts ‘…how we have come to esteem financial value over human value’.
4. Within the sociological tradition, theories explaining value are classed as normative since
they attempt to establish a standard, a norm. Gordon Graham (1997, 46) reviews three
22 H. RILEY
such normative positions: that the value of art lies in its capacity to give pleasure, aestheti-
cism; that art’s value lies in its abilities to facilitate the expression of emotion, expressivism;
and third, that art is valuable as a source of understanding, cognitivism. I take the view that
the most socially-useful value of visual art –its prime function –lies in its scope for contri-
buting to our understanding of our experiences of the world, without denying the social
functions of art as a source of pleasure or a means of self-expression.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
The author reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.
Notes on contributor
Howard Riley Ph.D. MA(RCA) CertDes FRSA FHEA studied at Hammersmith and Coventry Col-
leges of Art and the Royal College of Art. Doctorate of the University of Wales in the practice and
pedagogy of drawing. Teaching: Curtin University, Western Australia 1980–1991, Malaysian Insti-
tute of Art 1991, Swansea College of Art 1991–2015. Head, School of Research & Postgraduate
Studies 2004–2014. Publications: https://researchgate.net/profile/Howard_Riley. Drawings exhib-
ited in Australia, Malaysia, Finland, Serbia, USA and UK: https://howardriley.wordpress.com.
Riley is Professor Emeritus, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and Tutor, Classical Edu-
cation Forum, Cardiff.
ORCID
Howard Riley http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8682-2587
References
Bahn, P. G. 2010.Prehistoric Rock Art: Polemics and Progress. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Biederman, I. 1987.“Recognition-by-components: A Theory of Human Image Understanding.”
Psychological Review 94 (2): 115–147.
Brettell, R. 1999.Modern Art 1851–1929. Capitalism and Representation. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Browne, J. 2010.“Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education. An Independent Review of
Higher Education Funding & Student Finance.”https://www.independent.gov.uk/browne-
report
Carney, M. 2020.“From Moral to Market Sentiments.”BBC Reith Lectures 2020. Accessed
December 2 2020. https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2020/Reith_2020_Lecture_1_
transcript.pdf
Chamberlain, R., C. McManus, N. Brunswick, Q. Rankin,and H. Riley. 2015.“Scratching the Surface:
Practice, Personality, Approaches to Learning, and the Acquisition of High-Level Representational
Drawing Ability..”Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 9(4):451–462.
Chamberlain, R., I. C. McManus, N. Brunswick, Q. Rankin, H. Riley, and R. Kanai. 2014.“Drawing
on the Right Side of the Brain: A Voxel-based Morphometry Analysis of Observational
Drawing.”NeuroImage 96: 167–173.
Childe, V. G. [1942] 1964.What Happened in History. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 23
Chorpening, K., and R. Fortnum. 2020.A Companion to Contemporary Drawing. London:
Blackwell.
Clayton, E. 2020.“Where Did Writing Begin?”British Library. Accessed August 19 2020. https://
www.bl.uk/history-of-writing/articles/where-did-writing-begin
Danesi, M. 2017.“Visual Rhetoric and Semiotic.”In Oxford Research Encyclopaedias,
Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Davidson, I. 2020.“Marks, Pictures and Art: Their Contribution to Revolutions in
Communication.”Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 27: 745–770.
Dissanayake, E. 2016.“Mark-making as a Human Behavior.”In Darwin’s Bridge: Uniting the
Humanities and Sciences, edited by J. Carroll, D. P. McAdams, and E. O. Wilson, 101–130.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fava, M. 2020.“A Decline in Drawing Ability?”International Journal of Art & Design Education 39
(2): 319–332.
Firth, J. R. 1937.The Tongues of Men. London: Watts & Co.
Gibson, J. J. 1966.The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Gibson, J. J. 1979.The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Gibson, J. J. 1980.“Foreword: A Prefatory Essay on the Perception of Surfaces Versus the
Perception of Markings on a Surface.”In The Perception of Pictures. Vol.1, edited by M. A.
Hagen, xi–xviii. New York, NY: Academic Press.
GLAD. 2019.“Call for Proposals, 22nd Annual Conference of the Group for Learning in Art and
Design (GLAD).”Manchester, December 2019.
Gordon, I. 2004.Theories of Visual Perception. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
Graham, G. 1997.Philosophy of the Arts. An Introduction to Aesthetics. London: Routledge.
Hagen, M. A. 1986.Varieties of Realism. Geometries of Representational Art. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1978.Language as Social Semiotic. The Social Interpretation of Language and
Meaning. London: Routledge.
Halliday, M. A. K. 2019.“The Influence of Marxism.”In The Bloomsbury Companion to M.A.K.
Halliday, edited by J. J. Webster, 94–100. London: Bloomsbury.
Halverson, J. 1992.“The First Pictures: Perceptual Foundations of Paleolithic Art.”Perception 21
(3): 389–404.
Haug, W. F. 1986.Critique of Commodity Aesthetics. Appearance, Sexuality and Advertising in
Capitalist Society. Cambridge: Polity.
Helvenston, P. A. 2014.“Comments on the Paper “Are Altered States of Consciousness
Detrimental, Useful or Helpful for the Origins of Symbolic Cognition? A Response to
Hodgson and Lewis Williams”, by T Froese, A Woodward and T Ikegami.”Adaptive
Behavior 22 (4): 277–281.
Helvenston, P. A. 2015.“Psilocybin-containing Mushrooms, Upper Palaeolithic Rock Art and the
Neuropsychological Model.”Rock Art Research 32 (1): 84–115.
Henshilwood, C. S., F. d’Errico, K. L. van Niekerk, L. Dayet, A. Queffelec, and L. Pollarolo. 2018.
“An Abstract Drawing from the 73,000-Year-old Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa.”Nature
562: 115–118.
Hodgson, D., and P. B. Pettitt. 2018.“The Origins of Iconic Depictions: A Falsifiable Model
Derived from the Visual Science of Palaeolithic Cave Art and World Rock Art.”Cambridge
Archaeological Journal 28 (4): 591–612.
Houghton, N. 2016.“Six into One: The Contradictory Art School Curriculum and How it Came
About.”International Journal of Art & Design Education 35 (1): 107–120.
Jakobson, R. 1956/1987.“Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances.”In
Roman Jakobson: Language in Literature, edited by K. Pomorska and S. Rudy, 95–114.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Jakobson, R. 1958/1960.“Closing Statement at the Conference on Style in Language: Linguistics
and Poetics.”In Style in Language, edited by T. A. Sebeok, 350–377. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kenning, D. 2019.“Art World Strategies: Neoliberalism and the Politics of Professional Practice in
Fine Art Education.”Journal of Visual Art Practice 18 (2): 115–131.
24 H. RILEY
Kneese, A. 1988.“The Economics of Natural Resources.”Population and Development Review 14:
281–309.
Koestler, A. 1975.The Act of Creation. London: Picador Edition. Pan Books.
Kozbelt, A., and J. Ostrofsky. 2019.“Expertise in Drawing.”In Cambridge Handbook of Expertise
and Expert Performance, edited by K. A. Ericsson, R. R. Hoffman, A. Kozbelt, and A. M.
Williams, 576–596. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lewis-Williams, J. D. 2002.The Mind in the Cave, Consciousness and the Origins of Art. London:
Thames & Hudson.
Lewis-Williams, J. D., T. A. Dowson, P. G. Bahn, R. G. Bednarik, J. Clegg, M. Consens, W. Davis,
et al. 1988.“The Signs of All Times: Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic Art [and
Comments and Reply].”Current Anthropology 29 (2): 201–245.
Lyon, P., P. Letschka, T. Ainsworth, and I. Haq. 2018.“Drawing Pedagogies in Higher Education:
The Learning Impact of a Collaborative Cross-disciplinary Drawing Course.”International
Journal of Art & Design Education 37 (2): 221–232.
Lyotard, J.-F. 2011.Discourse, Figure. Translated A. Hudek and M. Lydon. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota.
Maisuria, A. 2014.“The Neoliberalisation Policy Agenda and its Consequences for Education in
England: A Focus on Resistance Now and Possibilities for the Future.”Policy Futures in
Education 12 (2): 286–296.
Maisuria, A., and M. Cole. 2017.“The Neoliberalization of Higher Education in England: An
Alternative is Possible.”Policy Futures in Education 15 (5): 602–619.
Malafouris, L. 2021.“Mark Making and Human Becoming.”Journal of Archaeological Method and
Theory 28: 95–119.
Manghani, S. 2020.“Drawing Desires.”In A Companion to Contemporary Drawing, edited by K.
Chorpening and R. Fortnum, 325–341. London: Blackwell.
Marr, D. 1982.Vision: A Computational Investigation Into the Human Representation and
Processing of Visual Information. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co.
Mattson, M. 2014.“Superior Pattern Processing is the Essence of the Evolved Human Brain.”
Frontiers in Neuroscience 8: 265. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2014.00265
Maynard, P. 2005.Drawing Distinctions. The Varieties of Graphic Expression. Cornell: Ithaca.
McGettigan, A. 2015.“The Treasury View of HE: Variable Human Capital Investment.”
Political Economy Research Centre (PERC) Paper No. 6. London: Goldsmiths, University of
London.
McManus, I. C., R. Chamberlain, P.-W. Loo, Q. Rankin, H. Riley, and N. Brunswick. 2010.“Art
Students Who Cannot Draw: Exploring the Relations Between Drawing Ability, Visual
Memory, Accuracy of Copying, and Dyslexia.”Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the
Arts 4 (1): 18–30.
Mitchell, W. J. T. 2008.“Visual Literacy or Literary Visualcy?”In Visual Literacy, edited by J.
Elkins, 11–29. New York: Routledge.
Mithen, S. 1996.The Prehistory of the Mind. London: Thames & Hudson.
Mortimore, T. 2003.Dyslexia and Learning Style. A Practitioner’s Handbook. London: Whurr.
Nist, S. L., and K. Kirby. 1986.“Teaching Comprehension and Study Strategies Through Modeling
and Thinking Aloud.”Reading Research and Instruction 25 (4): 254–264.
Nist, S. L., and D. L. Mealey. 1991.“Teacher Directed Comprehension Strategies.”In Teaching
Reading and Study Strategies at the College Level, edited by R. F. Flippo and D. C. Caverly,
42–85. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
OFSTED. 2011.“Making a Mark: Art, Craft & Design Education.”Accessed June 16 2021 https://
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/
413334/Making_a_mark_-_art_craft_and_design_education_2008-11_-_high_resolution.pdf
Ostrofsky, J., and A. Kozbelt. 2012.“A Multi-Stage Attention Hypothesis of Drawing Ability.”In
Thinking Through Drawing: Practice Into Knowledge, edited by A. Kantrowitz, A. Brew, and M.
Fava, 61–66. New York: Columbia University.
O’Toole, M. 2005.“Pushing Out the Boundaries: Designing a Systemic-functional Model for non-
European Visual Arts.”Linguistics and the Human Sciences 1 (1): 83–97.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 25
O’Toole, M. 2011.The Language of Displayed Art, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
O’Toole, M. 2019.“Halliday’s Three Functions and Their Interaction in the Interpretation of
Painting and Music.”In The Bloomsbury Companion to M.A.K. Halliday, edited by J. J.
Webster, 396–385. London: Bloomsbury.
Owen, C. 2020.“Through a Glass Darkly: The Teaching and Assessment of Drawing Skills in the
UK Post-16 Art & Design Curriculum.”International Journal of Art & Design Education 39
(2): 333–345.
Petherbridge, D. 2010.The Primacy of Drawing. Histories and Theories of Practice. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Petherbridge, D. 2019.“The Drawing Experiment at the Royal College of Art 1995-2001.”In The
International Encyclopedia of Art and Design Education, edited by Richard Hickman, 1–20.
London: John Wiley.
Qvarnström, L. 2019.“Drawing Activities as Pedagogical Method in Art History.”Konsthistorisk
Tidskrift/Journal of Art History 88 (2): 80–94.
Rankin, Q., and H. Riley. 2021.Observational Drawing for Students with Dyslexia: Strategies, Tips
and Inspiration. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Rankin, Q., H. Riley, N. Brunswick, I. C. McManus, and R. Chamberlain. 2017.“Talking the Line:
Inclusive Strategies for the Teaching of Drawing.”Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice 2 (2):
287–304.
Riley, H. 2001.“The Intelligence of Seeing: An Inquiry into the Relationships between Perception
Theory, Communication Theory, and the Practice and Teaching of Drawing.”PhD thesis,
University of Wales. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.507928
Riley, H. 2002.“Firing Practice: Drawing as Empowerment.”Journal of Visual Art Practice 1 (3):
150–161.
Riley, H. 2007.“Beyond the Horizon: Future Directions for the Teaching of Visual Arts Practice.”
Journal of Visual Art Practice 6 (1): 73–80.
Riley, H. 2008.“Drawing: Towards an Intelligence of Seeing.”In Writing On
Drawing, Essays on Drawing Practice and Research, edited by S. Garner, 153–167. Bristol:
Intellect Books.
Riley, H. 2014.“Analysing Pictures: A Systemic-functional Semiotic Model for Drawing.”In
Multimodal Epistemologies. Towards an Integrated Framework, edited by A. Maiorani and C.
Christie, 83–93. London: Routledge.
Riley, H. 2017.“Drawing as Driver of Creativity: Nurturing an Intelligence of Seeing in Art
Students.”International Journal of Art & Design Education 36 (3): 273–280.
Riley, H. 2019.“Drawing as Language: The Systemic-Functional Semiotic Argument.”Journal of
Visual Art Practice 18 (2): 132–144.
Riley, H. 2021.“The Case for the Primacy of Visualcy Within a Neoliberal Artschool Curriculum.”
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 20 (2): 133–154.
Sakiro, M., P. Pettitt, and R. Ontañon-Peredo. 2020.“Upper Palaeolithic Installation Art:
Topography, Distortion, Animation and Participation in the Production and Experience of
Cantabrian Cave Art.”Cambridge Archaeological Journal 30 (4): 665–688.
Segal, M. H., D. T. Campbell, and M. J. Herskovit. 1966.The Influence of Culture on Visual
Perception. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Simmons, S. 2021.The Value of Drawing Instruction in the Visual Arts and Across Curricula:
Historical and Philosophical Arguments for Drawing in the Digital Age. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Spark, M. 1961.The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. London: Macmillan.
Whitley, D. S. 2009.Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit: The Origin of Creativity and Belief.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
Willats, J. 1997.Art & Representation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U.P.
Willer, J. 2018.What Happened to the Art Schools? London: Politeia.
Williams, R., and M. Orrom. 1954.Preface to Film. London: Film Drama Ltd.
Witkin, R. W. 1974.The Intelligence of Feeling. London: Heinemann.
Witkin, R. W. 1995.Art & Social Structure. Cambridge: Polity.
26 H. RILEY
Wollheim, R. 1998.“Why Drawing is Interesting”.Tracey.www.lboro.ac.uk/microsites/sota/
tracey/journal/dab/1998/wollheim.html.
Wu, S. P. W., and M. A. Rau. 2019.“How Students Learn Content in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Through Drawing Activities.”Educational Psychology
Review 31 (1): 87–120.
Zaidel, D. W. 2016.Neuropsychology of Art. Neurological, Cognitive and Evolutionary Perspectives.
2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
Zaidel, D. W. 2020.“Imagination, Symbolic Cognition, and Human Evolution: The Early Arts
Facilitated Group Survival.”In Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture, edited by J.
Carroll, M. Clasen, and E. Jonsson, 71–89. London: Springer.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL ART PRACTICE 27
