Jay Pressnell – ‘FROM ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL AND BACK’ A journey of art making, traversing across the creative disciplines via interactive technologies and traditional mark making techniques’.
Examining the creative potential of traditional analogue mark making techniques is still a huge motivation for teaching. Formally trained as a wildlife illustrator in the Brecon Beacons in South Wales in the late 90’s, drawing and observing from life played an integral role in how I saw the world. The nature of wildlife means that it never stays still, it has to be captured in movement and reacted to quickly in order to visualise it in an authentic way. Capturing the experience of observation was as equal to the final artwork. Moving into the world of Art and Design education, echoed this notion that we have to move with what we observe, it never stays still quick enough for us to become complacent or comfortable. Art teaching should never be comfortable or encourage us to stay still. The students we now currently teach move at a different speed, they are used to multi-disciplinary platforms for learning and accessing information. Fortunately, those traditional skills of mark making, ie painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and animation still remain relevant and accessible for young people. Yet, there is also the notion that we as art educators continue to move forwards with them in a complementary and dynamic manner to enable us as creative educators, to remain relevant and accessible. New interactive technologies and immersive mark making, traversing scale and environments, can offer ways for our students to move forward in exciting ways beyond assessment and formal national qualifications. Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Immersive animation, Projection Mapping, 3D scanning, Digital Painting and Drawing are not new, but they offer pathways which, alongside traditional art making skills and techniques, to develop multi layered thinking, varied outcomes which move within and beyond the four walls of the classroom, supporting students to respond to the world around them with confidence and relevance.