FIGURE DRAWING AS LEIT-MOTIF

As a trained zoologist, educator and figurative artist the author has long recognized family resemblances between the scientific method, the creative process and embodied learning. The problems encountered in attempting to draw the human figure are a leit-motif of the Homo discens project. A figure drawing boils down to sequential marks on a page that trace an individual artist’s encounter and connection with a fellow human being. Rendering the model is a vehicle for something more profound than merely copying pastterns of light and shade. Problems of Figure drawing mirror problems of perception, understanding and identity; in this sense we can recognize that the artist is, quite literally, attempting to draw the human condition.