See a line for what it is

See a line for what it is from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Erasing 10 Drawings on Nov 25th 2008

Erasing 10 Drawings on Nov 25th 2008 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

6 Drawings from Nov 22nd 2008

6 Drawings from Nov 22nd 2008 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

If Picasso were Chinese

After a swim, on the beach at Golfe-Juan, we are talking about Chinese characters. A Chinese friend is drawing Chinese characters in the sand. Picasso has amused himself before by drawing his own ideograms in the sand: bulls, goats, faces of peace. He is fascinated by the interplay of Chinese characters, the strengths and economy of their construction.

"If I were born Chinese" says he, "I would not be a painter but a writer. I'd write my pictures".

The above text is from the book "Picasso on Art" by Dore Ashton. The original French text came from "L'Amour de la peinture: Goya, Picasso et autres peintres" by Claude Roy.

Interrelationship of calligraphy and painting

From a page at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art web site:

To understand the lack of color in many Chinese landscape paintings, one must fully appreciate the interrelationship of calligraphy and painting.

Calligraphy and painting use the same formats and tools (brush, ink, paper, and silk). The basic methods of handling a brush and ink to create the individual strokes of a Chinese character can also be used to create descriptive lines and textures in painting.

...

In this hanging scroll, entitled Woods and Valleys of Mount Yu, by the artist Ni Zan (1306–1374), the correspondence between calligraphy and painting becomes apparent.

...

Ni Zan, using abstract brushstrokes to suggest three-dimensional forms, exploits the tension between surface pattern and the illusion of recession to animate his composition.

...

To see the detail of this painting, follow this link and click on "Open full-size image".

6 Drawings from Nov 8th 2008

6 Drawings from Nov 8th 2008 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

6 More October Drawings

6 Drawings from Oct 25th 2008 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

6 Drawings Doodeo

A doodeo of 6 drawings done on Oct 8th, 2008.

6 drawings done on Oct 8th, 2008 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Unerasing Page 9324

Reverse playback of systematic erasure of abstract line drawing Page 9324.

Unerasing 9324 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Undrawing Page 9363 R

The undrawing and unerasing of the right half of abstract line drawing Page 9369.

Undrawing Page 9363 R from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Drawing Day Drawing Doodeo

20 drawings were made on the first Drawing Day. Below is the recording.

Drawing 1 to 8

Drawing 9 to 16

Drawing 17 to 20

8 Drawings Doodeo 080510

Pixo Drawing Doodeo 080510 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Undrawing 6 drawings

The first video recorded the undrawing of 6 drawings.

The second video is the exact same video, but play in reverse.


Undrawing Doodeo Page 9472 to 9477 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.


Unerasing Doodeo Page 9472 to 9477 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Sketchy Doodeo 9975

Sketchy Doodeo 9975 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

See finished drawing.

20 Drawings Doodeo 080327

These 20 drawings were done in a single session, non-stop, in 70 minutes. The playback here was compressed into 9 minutes. There was no planning ahead of time on what to draw. The drawings just came out the way they are. The accompanying music was by Manicure.

Correction: There is actually only 19 drawings. I thought I did 20.


20 Drawings Doodeo 080327 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Painterly Doodeo 080323b

Painterly Doodeo 080323b from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

View completed painting.

Sketchy Doodeo 9976

Sketchy Doodeo 9976 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

View completed drawing.

Drawing A-B-C

I came across this wonderful video through Drawn.ca.

I have never thought there can be so much drama in watching a child painting the alphabets.

This video also happens to be an excellent illustration of my ideas on ...

1) Writing being a form of Drawing (illustrated by young Gradus W. Wouters on the left), and ...

2) Drawing being a form of Writing (illustrated by Job Wouters on the right).

How I wrote a drawing

I have a stack of old business cards with the blank side filled with hand-drawn "writing parts". I use them as flash cards.

A number of cards was randomly drawn. In this case, I picked 5.

The "writing parts" on these cards formed the "seeds" to "grow" the drawing. They were applied to the drawing in the order that they were drawn from the stack.

What eventually got put into the drawing was not limited to the selected cards. These cards merely served as a device to get the drawing going. How the drawing evolves and finishes depended more on how the mind - and the hands - respond to the drawing in progress. Below is the finished drawing.

Draw a Writing / Write a Drawing

This is my personal "theory and practice" for drawing abstract line art.

1) Writing is a form of drawing.

All of us have "drawn" writings. It happened when we first learnt to lay down the strokes of an unfamiliar handwriting. The scenario can be a child learning to write A-B-C for the first time, or a Westerner learning to write Chinese or Kanji characters.

2) Drawing is a form of writing.

All of us have also "written" drawings. We call them stick figures. The convention is simple. The head is drawn as a circle. Body, arms and legs are simple straight lines.

3) The Theory

Drawing stick figures is no different from writing A-B-C.

To "write" more elaborate drawings, we need more "writing parts" - besides circles and straight lines, and be adventurous in how to put these parts together.

Just as we are capable of learning A-B-C and drawing stick figures, (my theory says) all of us are also capable of creating complex abstract line art - by treating it as a form of writing.

4) In Practice

Based on this theory, I have been experimenting with drawings that I collectively refer to as the The 10,000 Page Colouring Book. Through the experimentation process, I began to establish a set of frequently used "writing parts".