the travelling conté stick as found and as could be: not a touristic gaze roger mullin
drawing travelling light charcoal Iceland
Drawing enables you to understand, but what you see is not all that is there.
— Elin Corneil
A typical excursion can last weeks; once we land we orient ourselves and get grounded. Do we have what we need? Did I research the route sufficiently? I have travelled with groups of 10-12 architecture students many times, near and far. When we travel to Iceland it is in the summer. We camp, we stay close to the ground.…in constant sunlight at this 65°N latitude. The studio group arrives at our designation with a first design project in hand, a model in a box, a proposal for a remote shelter structure that supports the experience and study of natural phenomena. It is sited and situated in advance of travel, and is reviewed by the Icelandic architecture firm Studio Granda.
I’m travelling light No, you don’t travel light I’m travelling light No, no, you don’t travel light I’m travelling light You don’t travel light
— Tindersticks . ‘Travelling Light’ . Tindersticks , This Way Up , 1995. album
Travel: packing a bag, having a destination and some idea of how and where one will lay one’s head. Some travel is a necessary luxury — rest, wanderlust, friendship and curiosity. Twenty years ago, as a young teacher in a school on the east coast of Canada, I made a trip to Norway, invited by Carmen and Elin Corneil to be part of an informal group banded together to study and compare and contrast coastal settlements in the North Atlantic. There I was introduced to the drawing excursion, a multi- week workshop, tied together by a shoestring budget and the depths of mark making no matter what the weather.
All excursions have the same brief — mode: drawing inconveniently large (A2 standard)
media: conté, as it offers the least possible resistance to the capture of three-dimensional form and the way it is occupied or experienced as an environment. excursion: a whirlwind tour as a way of suspending dis-belief and staying focused on the problems and potential of reading and drawing new or familiar places. review: the critical response to, or reading back from, the ideas and accidents in the sketches.
all iomages Roger Mullin
Lucas McDowell and David Burlock, model in a box, proposal for a remote shelter in Iceland.
This experience has cast a kind of magic over my approach to studying landscape and architecture ever since.
First step, we review the lay of the land: Heading out (the excursion) Finding a space for productivity Watching the weather
Finding our way Finding Shelter Judging the light
Second, we review our tools and actions: the drawing kit the weight of paper travelling light
26 on site review 46 :: travel
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