Drawing commentary to art work is a way to express one’s opinion about art work through drawing.
It is a sketchy drawing on note paper, drawn collaborately by different authors. Drawings allow to
share ideas and evoke discussions about the art works which were commented.
2011 / Students from Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Portugal who participated in the Comenius project IDEAlaboratories.
Drawing commentary is a way to express one’s opinion about something through drawing. In current
context I will tell closer about commentating art work at The Contemporary Art Triennial for School
Students Eksperimenta! There are many possibilities to commentate art work – you may write an
article, hold a conversation, discuss art work in social media channels. One possibility to express your
opinion about an art work is through drawing sketches. The sketches may be added next to the art
work at the exhibition. This allows the visitors to see other peoples’ opinions about the exhibition.
I will describe closer the method of drawing commentary. You should get a number of note papers
and drawing tools (a black rollerball pen is sufficient, but you may also use coloured pencils or felt-
tip pens). After that you should select the art work from an exhibition, which evoke most emotions
or thoughts for you. Select for example 3 art work. If a thought arises about the art work, draw
your thought in the way which represents it the best. If the art work evokes a feeling, draw images
which correspond to the feeling, for example red coloured spots with sharp thorns. For being able to
create commentary about different art work in short time, it is good to use sketchy drawing style (for
example 5 minutes). You can add keywords to the drawing or write down a full thought. This allows
the viewer of your drawing commentary to get diverse range of information about your opinion. In
addition to drawing your thoughts and feelings, you can share your drawing with a companion for
further drawing. Your companion may add a drawing commentary about your drawing commentary
or just complement your drawing. For example a drawing commentary can be coloured by the other
person, they can complement it with new keywords or symbols or add a new element to the existing
ones. In this manner one drawing commentary can be drawn by many people. By this kind of drawing
method the drawing commentaries become collaborative creation without a specific author. The
drawing commentaries can be attached to the wall and the participants may be asked to select the
drawings which have the biggest effect on them and listen to their verbal commentaries about the
selected drawings.
Described drawing commentating took place during The Contemporary Art Triennial for School
Students Eksperimenta!. Exhibited art work was commentated by students who participated in the
Comenius project IDEAlaboratories from Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Portugal.