Think through Drawing with me
An invitation to observe, discover and invent together
I’m excited to begin sharing occasional thinking through drawing prompts as a way for us to explore ideas through drawing together. I will share these prompts in the subscriber chat, and invite you to post your responses there.
In my book Drawing Thought (MIT Press 2022) I describe drawing as a tool for observation, discovery, and invention: a way of playing with your thoughts and perceptions on paper. When we draw, we don’t simply record what we see; we actively construct understanding through the coordination of hand, eye, and attention. Drawing slows perception, supports comparison, and generates possibilities that would otherwise remain out of reach.
These prompts grow out of that work, my subsequent teaching and research, and build toward a possible second book, tentatively titled Drawing Thought in Practice. They’re not “how-to-draw” exercises meant to produce finished drawings, though I’ll share tips and tricks along the way. Instead, they’re invitations to notice, question, and explore through mark-making.
There’s no expectation of skill, consistency, or completion. It isn’t about representation or self-expression. It’s thinking in action, as a means of working through uncertainty, exploring relationships, and generating insight by making ideas tangible and revisable.
I hope you’ll share an image of your response in the subscriber chat, with or without a sentence or two reflecting on the process, so we can learn together. The aim isn’t critique or comparison, but discovering how different people respond.
The prompts are intentionally open-ended and assume no prior drawing experience. What matters isn’t the quality of the marks, but what those marks allow you to think, notice, and question. You can engage with them briefly or return to them over time; use them individually or collectively; in studios, classrooms, research settings, or everyday spaces.
For now, these prompts are free and open to all subscribers. I’m sharing them as an experiment to see who might want to try drawing this way, and whether a small community might take shape around shared attention and curiosity.
Let’s use drawing not to perform, but to think together, and see what emerges.
Every morning and night, seven days a week, I draw to think. This practice has become an essential part of my life, helping me process my studio work. Even when I don't have a specific goal, the act of drawing leads me to new ideas, creating prompts that allow me to explore and dig into new areas of interest.
I had an interesting experience drawing last week. It was for work, I had to do a scale architectural drawing of an old marble gothic style fireplace for a new sculptural edition. I found that measuring and then putting the information to scale on paper, I became fascinated by the geometry of the fireplace and what felt to me a very different way to build or construct something that was made 100 years or so ago vs today's builds. It was a drawing I made to provide information for present use, but I felt as if I had opened a door to a different way of seeing and making something. All this prompted by a very fact based drawing that was about gathering information, but that aroused a curiosity in me that wasn't there beforehand.♡