Hither, thither and yon: a workshop to explore spatial depth in urban drawing.

Part 1: About Hither, Thither and Yon, and an introduction to depth bands

This blog is being written to provide some background information for participants in the USk BCN 2013 workshop, “Hither, thither and yon”. I hope that it will be helpful, but it is not required reading! The workshop itself will begin with a briefing, which will be enough, I hope, to set participants on the way.

I should clarify at the outset that the workshop does not present a recipe or formula for making successful drawings. The workshop itself is intended to be exploratory – an opportunity for participants (and that includes me) to think about our drawing. I have no idea how, or if, the ideas behind the workshop can be applied to make successful urban drawings.   Let’s find out!

What this means is that there are no right answers. There isn’t anything you can get wrong. I hope that the workshop may give you some insights into how you see and draw the world, and I’ll be pleased to hear about those.  But it’s also ok if you discover by the end of the session that the ideas in the workshop don’t have any relevance for your practice at all.

The drawing’s the thing. I hope that participants will feel that the workshop helps them to see, and  draw,  the urban environment in a slightly different way to their usual practice. Then it’s up to you to decide if there’s anything to take forward into your drawing in the future.

Experiencing space – the three bands of our environment

The theme of this workshop arises from theoretical and experimental work on perception, which I first encountered in “Drawing Distinctions” by Patrick Maynard . (If you wish to read more about this I’ll be giving some sources in a later post)

This research work suggests that we (humans) experience the visual world as three distinct zones or bands, expanding outwards from ourselves. There is an English expression: “hither, thither and yon” that neatly captures this distinction.

 

These zones are distinct from each other, and are not arbitrary in size, although their depth may vary and their boundaries may not always be clear. In the science of pereption they have been given names, which I shall be using in the workshop:

The band nearest us, extending up to about 2 metres, has been labelled by perceptual psychologists as ‘personal space’. Within this space we could easily touch objects by reaching out, perhaps taking a step or two. We are generally very aware of objects (and people) in this personal space because they are so close to us, and we can interact with them directly and instantly (and they can interact with us!)

From the edge of personal space, to a distance of about 30m away, is a zone labelled ‘action space’. To interact with objects and people in this space we need to move towards them, to walk, or even run. We can interact with this part of our environment, but it will take a little effort. Conversely things in this space cannot interact with us without some warning!

Everything visible beyond the far boundary of action space (about 30m) can be called ‘vista space’. This can extend of course, to the far horizon. Here, things are too far away to interact with.

(Next post: more about these depth bands...)