On Not Being Able to Draw a Mousetrap

A hundred years ago officers entering the Royal Navy took an exam where they had to draw a mouse-trap. At the time there was much discussion, and some despair, about competence, and about teaching. For amateurs, drawing manuals provided instructions on how to render a still life in 3D, or draw a running figure, tasks that would now be effortless given current software. Today much debate about drawing, its purpose, and about ‘digital drawing’, and de-skilling. Graphics programs are designed for ‘realism’. But contemporary drawing looks in the opposite direction: into the processes of drawing; the expressive mark; and the structure and character of the line. Those who deal with the evolving gadgetry of digital drawing have had to contend both with unhelpful software, and with an art world that has yet to realise the scope of this new visual universe.