PAPER TRANSPARENCY

What if you draw on transparent medium?

Decades ago, I used to make drawings on plexiglass. The drawing at the top of this page is an example.  I used a Rapidograph ink pen, and drew a series of planes on the plexiglass. With the transparency of the plastic, you can of course see thru the drawing.  I suspended each drawing in front of the other.  This enabled you to walk up to a drawing / object hanging in space, and look into it.

And when you looked from one point in space, all of the transparent drawings lined up to create a sense of depth.  It was therefore absolutely Cartesian;  the full effect was not achieved unless all of the planes came into perfect alignment.

So I guess it was ironic that while my analogue drawing had a three dimensional physicality, it only really worked from one point in space.  Boy, it is amazing how difficult it is to escape the Albertian picture plane mentality that is a deep cultural artifact.

With a layered analogue drawing like this, are you drawing in three dimensions?  I’m not sure.  If you separate individual analogue drawings with space, is the net result a three dimensional drawing? That’s a question.

With a layered analogue drawing, is it Transparent Drawing?  Yes, it is, because it now includes time.  Time is drawn because the layers are separated by space.  Time is also drawn because by moving your head, another projection or understanding is realized.

In the light of Transparent Drawing, layered analogue drawing certainly deserves more attention.  Various art movements incorporated transparency.  For example, we saw that Moholy-Nagy assembled layers using transparency.  There is of course the transparency of the Large Glass.

Separate thought.   Before, I said that one of the requirements of analogue drawing is that is is on a piece of paper.  Maybe the word medium should be substituted for the word paper.

This leads to the question, will drawing on transparent medium aid in our quest to create resolved three dimensional forms that solve problems?  That deserves greater thought and attention.  Stay tuned.