Contemporary Drawing: Key Concepts and Techniques

by Margaret Davidson

Drawing is experiencing an unparalleled surge in the art world. Passé notions that once defined drawing as being a preparatory stage for painting or sculpture have long since been cast aside. Drawing is now fully recognized as its own art form—in the biennials, art fairs, museum exhibitions, and beyond. Drawing has come of age.
           
Contemporary artists are increasingly discovering that drawing is something unique and different from painting. It is an intense, sensitive, compelling, personal, and utterly direct art form, one with its own concepts, characteristics, and techniques. In addition, contemporary drawing is not governed by any particular imagery, but rather encompasses a variety of approaches, including realist, abstract, modernist, and post-modernist.
           
Contemporary Drawing delves into the essential and far-reaching concepts of this medium, exploring surface, mark, space, composition, scale, materials, and intentionality in turn. Key techniques, such as using nature to induce marks and working with a checklist to determine a drawing’s problems, are introduced throughout. Plus, an in-depth chapter examines a number of artists, such as William Kentridge and Gego, who are breaking traditional boundaries that separate one artistic discipline from another.

Lushly illustrated by a wide range of highly accomplished contemporary artists, Contemporary Drawing offers a broad perspective on this expansive and energized field of art.
 


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Art, Drawing, Reference, Nonfiction, School

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 19, 2011

About the author

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Reviews

[Gala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I have a drawing in this book. When I was contacted to have a drawing used in a publication by local (Seattle) teacher and artist, Margaret Davidson, I was honored, but also imagined that the content would be more instructional and use local artists' work as illustrations of concepts. On receiving the book, I was delighted to find some favorite artists of mine whose work was also used (William Kentridge, Kiki Smith, John Cage). And it has been a real pleasure to read. Unlike the other reviewer (so far) for this book, I don't find Davidson's text pretentious in the least, but rather poetic-- sometimes reverent, sometimes analytical and deeply invested.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book added so much to my drawing knowledge (I majored in sculpture). *NOT pretentious, actually so accessible for anyone that wants to understand the elements that make a drawing interesting. 4 stars because I wish there was a little more meat about composition and maybe some examples of viewing and assessing a drawing as a whole. But I loved it and truly learned so much…let’s see a second edition with newer drawings!

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh so pretentious.

The descriptions of the art just killed me. I read this out loud to my husband, "The collection of marks in this drawing work on the cellular level in that they each relate and react to the marks directly adjacent to themselves when viewed up close, and then also coalesce into a great whole when viewed from a distance. Pentheroudakis (artist) is interested in both, showing us unique individualism in the marks themselves and the idea of a united community in the drawing as a whole."

Then we laughed.

I actually liked quite a bit of the modern art in this book, but I did not enjoy reading the criticism. I skimmed a lot and just enjoyed the art.

[Volha · Rating 4 out of 5]

the book is well structured on different aspect of drawing (surface, mark, materials, scale etc). it was helpful to write my theses.
it has quite a lot of illustrations, but i wish to have more examples of contemporary artists/works (even not picture, but mentioning) .

[Linette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fabulous modern art. The text was very in depth and in places became very heavy going.

[Sue Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at a typically disregarded art form. Drawing isn't what it used to be and has come into it's own. Understanding the depth of choices that go into a drawing truly elevate it above the basic ideas. It's like having a rudementary understanding of abstract art - most of it doesn't make sense as to how anyone would see it as art until you get the reasons why and how behind why it was done. Very interesting. Very thought provoking.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some excellent examples of contemporary drawing and good explanations of the ways drawing take into account space, the marks themselves, marks on the surface or the marks and surface combined. Also good descriptions of drawing implements and papers.
Some of the explanations/critiques of the drawings left me scratching my head at the elaborate account of why and how but I'm not an art critic so cannot comment on the comments.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of contemporary drawing by a great drawing teacher. Not a book for learning how to draw, but for those already drawing who are interested in what's possible, what is being done, things to think about in one's own drawing, etc.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I became a fan of Margaret Davidson's writing and her art. She dissected the act of drawing into basic components and addressed the motivation and mindset of artists creating drawings in such a varied spectrum. loved it.

[Nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a good materials reference chapter.