In Line with Nature Juxtaposition: A Mixed Media Drawing Adventure with Line, Shape, and Texture - Inspired by Cajal's Observations

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the renowned Spanish neuroscientist, created an extraordinary body of work that showcased his unique ability to observe and record the intricate details of nature through drawing. Instead of approaching his drawings from a designer's perspective, Cajal relied on perceptual observation to uncover the inherent design of nature. His drawings served as a tool to observe, discern, and recount microanatomy structure, capturing the essence of nature's complexities with actual lines and implied space. Cajal's artistic philosophy centered around the belief that he was at the service of nature – recording and reporting the truthfulness of sight's journey.

Inspired by Cajal's attention to detail and descriptive lines, this blog post will explore an exciting mixed-media drawing assignment that encourages artists to closely observe and capture nature's beauty through line, shape, and texture. We'll explore the role of line variation and texture in adding visual dynamism and the importance of capturing the inherent "movement" or "gesture" of your chosen object. So, let's embark on this artistic journey together and uncover the truthfulness of sight's journey, just as Cajal did.

Introduction 

Nature has always been a source of inspiration for artists. In this blog post, we will explore an exciting mixed-media drawing assignment that brings together found objects from nature and your creative inventiveness. This project will utilize line, shape, and texture to create a captivating and descriptive piece. We'll also study the role of line variation and consistency in adding visual dynamism and the importance of capturing the inherent "movement" or "gesture" of your chosen object. So, let's dive into the details and embark on this artistic journey together!

Above, Dawn Hunter's study of an original scientific drawing of Cajal's housed at the Instituto Cajal. Photo © by Dawn Hunter.

The Assignment

Our goal is to create a mixed-media drawing that incorporates a found object from nature, juxtaposed and overlapped with imagery from one of your shape and texture inventories. The final piece should demonstrate your ability to engage the edges of the composition fully, create a descriptive drawing with overlapping images and lines, experiment with the juxtaposition of shape and texture, and participate in a visual critique process.

Materials You'll Need:

1. Found object from nature
2. Charcoal
3. Pencils
4. Ink
5. Two sheets of 18" x 24" drawing paper

The Process: Begin by developing four thumbnail sketches on a quartered sheet of paper. These sketches will serve as the foundation for your final piece, so be sure to measure and divide the paper evenly using a ruler or by neatly folding it. 

Above, Renee's thumbnail drawings, pastel, marker, charcoal, India ink and graphite on paper, 18" x 24."

Above, Cisnes Idrovo's thumbnail drawings, marker, charcoal, India ink and graphite on paper, 18" x 24."

Above, Katlin Jeffcoat's thumbnail drawings, pastel, marker, charcoal, India ink and graphite on paper, 18" x 24."

Once your sketches are complete, select one to develop into your final drawing. As you work on the piece, consider the following strategies and questions:

1. Composition and Format: Pay close attention to the edges of the composition and the placement of your found object. Consider whether a vertical or horizontal format would be more visually pleasing.
2. Line Variation and Texture: Experiment with overlapping lines, varying their size, direction, speed, and degree of value. This technique will enhance the illusion of texture, adding depth and descriptiveness to your composition. Reflect on how line variation and texture contribute to visual dynamism in your artwork.
3. Capturing Gesture and Movement: Think about the dominant "gesture" or "movement" inherent in your found object – if it were moving with velocity in a particular direction, which way would that be? Consider the factors that created this movement, such as the growth of a branch or the impact of wind. Contemplate the effects of enhancing this movement with texture and line direction to create a more engaging and visually striking piece.

Above, Renee Kinney's final drawing, graphite, India ink, charcoal and pen, 18" x 24."

Above, Cisne Idrovo's final drawing, graphite, India ink, charcoal and pen, 18" x 24."

Above, Katlin Jeffcoat's final drawing, marker, pen, India ink, and graphite on paper, 18" x 24."

Conclusion

This mixed media drawing assignment is an excellent opportunity to explore the natural world and develop your artistic skills. By focusing on line, shape, and texture, as well as considering visual dynamism and the inherent movement of your chosen object, you'll create a unique and descriptive piece that showcases your creativity and highlights the beauty of nature. So, gather your materials, venture outdoors to find your inspiration, and start sketching your way to an unforgettable artistic experience!

To view more examples of this project, visit my teaching portfolio website, here.

Above, Katlin Jeffcoat's Texture Inventory drawings, India ink, graphite, and charcoal on paper, 18" x 24." project based on Mary's Stewarts Texture Inventory exercise.

Above, Cisne Idrovo's  Texture Inventory drawings, India ink, graphite, and charcoal on paper, 18" x 24." project based on Mary's Stewarts Texture Inventory exercise.

Above, Renee Kinney's  Texture Inventory drawings, India ink, graphite, and charcoal on paper, 18" x 24." project based on Mary's Stewarts Texture Inventory exercise.

Double Feature @ the NLM and USC

Feature #1, NLM, Communing and Giggling with Cajal: 

I am honored and humbled to have had another opportunity to write for the National Library of Medicine's Circulating Now.  The new piece, Communing and Giggling with Cajal, expands upon my work as a Fulbright España Senior Research Scholar investigating the Legado de Cajal located at the Instituto Cajal, Madrid.  The article specifically focuses on my examination of his first sketchbook from Valencia.  Below is a highlight feature from the article:  

"What can one discover about Cajal beyond visual aesthetics through the task of drawing?  Through drawing, one can engage in “active looking” which is another level of perceptual involvement.  How and who we are with and in our work matters.  It determines how we conceptualize, realize, understand and share.  Toni Morrison wrote in The Bluest Eye “Love is never any better than the lover.  Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly…”  Line qualities within a pictorial composition are behaviors that have ideographic subtext.  When retraced, they reveal the content of the maker’s reasoning and ideology beyond technique.  The eye always seeks quality in the perceptually drawn line. The line’s merit invariably betrays the artist through the sight of the other. Study someone’s drawings, and you can study some of their components as a person, value system as a maker, or at a minimum the underground agenda with their work.

On the pages of Cajal’s histology sketchbook, it appears as if his imagination is synchronized with popular concepts in 19^th century Fantastique literature.  Strewn with jottings and drawings examining the inner workings of rabbits, mice, cows and pigs, his sketchbook, like Alice’s world has no real order:  it is upside down and backward, there are different points of time in departures, varied research themes, inconsistent goals, plus blank and missing pages.  Alice metaphorically falls down the rabbit hole; however Cajal’s sketchbook is the rabbit hole.  On the page marked “medual conejo” (rabbit marrow), he enters the matrix with unquestioning, commanding lines while sketching the cells of a “fresco” rabbit all the while taunting himself with a “Cheshire” like face hidden in a cell with the words “absolutemente maligno” written beside it.   This cellular Easter egg was a delicious discovery I made one day while recreating that page.   I, and others, had looked at the page previously, but the process of active looking through drawing refined my observation in a manner that allowed me to notice this blast from the past and share a private giggle with Cajal."

Feature #2, USC, Sojourn to Spain:

I am so flattered to have my project about Santiago Ramón y Cajal featured on the University of South Carolina's College of Arts and Science web site, Sojourn to Spain.  My experience in Madrid was thrilling, and the access to the Legado de Cajal exceeded all of my expectations.  I am so honored to have this opportunity to share my experiences with colleagues and others within the USC community and beyond.  Thank you Mary-Kathryn Craft and Peggy Binette. 

“Heroes and scholars represent the opposite extremes... The scholar struggles for the benefit of all humanity, sometimes to reduce physical effort, sometimes to reduce pain, and sometimes to postpone death, or at least render it more bearable. In contrast, the patriot sacrifices a rather substantial part of humanity for the sake of his own prestige. His statue is always erected on a pedestal of ruins and corpses... In contrast, all humanity crowns a scholar, love forms the pedestal of his statues, and his triumphs defy the desecration of time and the judgment of history.”  

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Advice for a Young Investigator

¡Feliz Cumpleaños Cajal!

What better way than to spend the month of May?  With Santiago Ramón y Cajal in Spain of course! - his birthday month, born May 1, 1852.  A big thank you to Jeff Diamond, Juan De Carlos, Ricardo Martinez, Rosario Moratalla, and Fernando De Castro:  It was a privilege to participate as a symposium speaker and exhibit my work about Ramón y Cajal at the Instituto Cajal in Madrid as part of the second annual collaborative symposium between the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD and the Instituto Cajal, Madrid, Spain.  Below are some photos (and drawings) from the May 24th symposium in Spain and some of my new drawings completed this month at the NIH of Cajal's scientific drawings currently on display in the John Porter Neuroscience Research Center.

Dawn Hunter, Portrait of Cajal from observation of Jorge Zockoll's oversized photograph at the Instituto Cajal, Madrid, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Diana the Huntress, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, drawing of the Cajal statue in Retiro Park, Madrid, Spain, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

The NIH participants from left to right: Jeff Diamond, Benjamin White, Bruno Averbeck, me and Yarimar Carrasquillo seated in the Banco del Duque de Alba, en la Residencia de Estudiantes.  

Photo by Juan De Carlos Segovía.

Dawn Hunter, drawing of NIH researcher Benjamin White's talk, marker on paper, 11" x 14" 

Dawn Hunter, drawing of NIH researcher Kenton Swartz's talk,  marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14" 

During the installation of my Cajal Inventory work at the Instituto Cajal.  For more information on the Cajal Inventory work, click here:  Cumulative Effect:  Cajal Inventory drawings.

Dawn Hunter, study of Cajal's Intestinal Villi, Interstitial Cells of Cajal, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, drawing of Cajal's Development of Granule Cells in the Cerebellum, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, study of Cajal's Olfactory Bulb, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, study of Cajal's Diencephalic Nuclei, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Portrait of me with Cajal's Nobel Prize, photo by Ricardo Martínez.

Installation of the Cajal Inventory drawings at the Instituto Cajal, May 2017.  Photo by Dawn Hunter.

Cajal Inventory Paintings: Head, Heart and Spine

I am tremendously honored, humbled, and excited to have been awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to the Cajal Institute in Spain. I am looking forward to continuing my project and conducting research on Santiago Ramón y Cajal in Madrid! Many thanks to "all" who have encouraged my efforts (especially at the Cajal Institute!) and those who wrote letters of support:  Juan De Carlos, Fernando De Castro, Peter Chametzky, Jeff Diamond, Jill Downen, and Laura Kissel.

On September 30, 2016, I posted on this blog my "Cajal Inventory" drawings, installed as one work comprised of forty five drawings.  Those drawings have been used as the basis for a group of paintings, also identified as "Cajal Inventory."  Completed works from the "Cajal Inventory" paintings can be found in this post.  The works have been identified as "inventories" because within them I have compiled and fused imagery and narratives from his personal life, creative works, and scientific drawings.  They are also identified as "inventories" as they represent my interpretation and impressions of the content of Ramón y Cajal's life and research.  Images and ideas are layered in a surreal context which displaces linear time in favor of immersing one in the imagination inspired and conjured by Ramón y Cajal.

detail:  Silveria:  Head, Heart and Spine, acrylic on canvas, 2017

The University of South Carolina has one of the most beautiful campuses in the United States, so each spring and fall I have my students paint and draw on the Gibbes Green.  Last spring while my students were working, I found on the campus trail some of the most exquisitely beautiful feathers in the light dark complementary contrast of yellow and purple - a pure color of yellow and a shade of purple.  I am not sure what exactly happened to the poor bird, but judging from the condition of a couple of the feathers, it would seem as though the fowl had met a woeful, violent end facilitated by a predator.  The feathers were too beautiful to leave, so I collected them and replicated Mother Nature's remarkable craft of complementary contrast for the base color of my "Cajal Inventory" paintings.

detail:  Wren and Cerebellum, acrylic on canvas, 2017

Above, from left to right:  1) Complementary contrast feathers found on USC campus,  2) "Cajal Inventory" painting preliminary, and 3) "Cajal Inventory" color contrast preliminary in pure form

detail:  Silveria in Sanguine, 2017

detail:  Portrait of Cajal:  Conquest in Solitude, acrylic on oval canvas, 2017

Photo of Dawn Hunter's studio, March 17, 2017

"Cajal Inventory" preliminary studies:  Portrait of Cajal:  Conquest in Solitude, 

acrylic on oval canvas, 2017

Pyramidal Neuron Roots, acrylic on round canvas, 2017

"Cajal Inventory" preliminary studies:  Pyramidal Neuron Roots, acrylic on round canvas, 2017

Pyramidal Neuron Roots:  Using Cajal's oil painting "Shipwreck" as a starting point, 

Pyramidal Neuron Roots explores his fondness for romanticism, his infatuation with nature, 

and his passion for his research.

Wren and Cerebellum, acrylic on canvas, 2017

"Cajal Inventory" preliminary studies:  Wren and Cerebellum, 2017

Wren and Cerebellum:  The wren is an active bird:  vibrant, alert, and efficient.  A natural choice of image to juxtapose with the cerebellum, the little brain that, too, is vibrant, alert and efficient.  Cajal's untangling and rendering of the human cerebellum was one of his finest and most important achievements as a histologist.  I have discarded the contemporary medical reference of the latex surgical glove found on the hand in the preliminary drawing in favor of the natural hand in the painting.  The physicality of the painting inspired a reference of "actual" touch.

detail:  Silveria:  Head, Heart and Spine, 2017

"Cajal Inventory" preliminary studies:  Silveria:  Head, Heart and Spine, 2017

Silveria:  Head, Heart and Spine, acrylic on oil canvas, 2017

Head, Heart and Spine:  Cajal took many, many photos of his wife Silveria, however, he would lament in his writings that he was never able to truly capture her beauty.  In this work I am trying to highlight her natural beauty and to present her, too, as an idea juxtaposed in his imagination with the histology imagery of his work.   

"Cajal Inventory" preliminary studies:   Silveria in Sanguine, 2017

 Silveria in Sanguine, acrylic on oval canvas, 2017

Silveria in Sanguine:  Silvera is the hopeful and uplifting yellow -- sanguine, to the intense depths of Santiago's introspection that held company with his "butterflies."  Ramón y Cajal’s marriage to Silveria Fañanás García is an example of a highly functional complementary pairing.  Ramón y Cajal in choosing a mate selected a woman whose character attributes were what he perceived to be a “perfect” complement to his. In doing so, he believed that their union would be a great accomplishment or matrimonial disaster.  He said publicly many times that he would not be Ramón y Cajal if it were not for his wife and he credits her greatly with making his work and the depth of his research possible.  She incited his maximum vividness.  

"Like the enotmologist in search of colorful butterflies, my attention has chased in the gardens of the grey matter cells with delicate and elegant shapes, the mysterious butterflies of the soul, whose beating of wings may one day reveal to us the secrets of the mind." 

- Recollections of My Life, Santiago Ramón y Cajal

All of the "Cajal Inventory" preliminary studies have been created through a combination of researching Ramón y Cajal's biographies, photographs and observational drawing.  The drawings that reference his scientific drawings have been created through a direct observation of his actual scientific drawings on display at the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD and the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA.