Wild Drawing
The art of noticing through embodied, eco-centric mark-making.
Photo credits (below): Ai Narapol (also above), Martina Colova, Ewelina Ruminska, Summer Walker
Drawing IN, OF & WITH NATURE
Wild drawing is a gentle, creative practice of tuning into the myriad ways in which we are interconnected with the natural world. It is formed of simple, playful, experimental and sensory-led mark-makings, with each exercise helping to heighten bodily awareness of one’s contact with the natural environment, whether through sound, touch, breath, movement or sight.
The purpose is not to create works of art that are considered aesthetically pleasing or realistic but, rather, reconnect with nature from bodily states of awe, attentiveness and humility.
In the past, Bryony Ella has led guided wild drawing walks across the UK and in Tobago and New York, and shared her practice with academics to support public and community engagement with climate and environmental research (for example, see Drawing Heat). In 2024, she wrote about the emergence of wild drawing as a method of processing grief in the midst of the pandemic in the book Wild Service.
Today, wild drawing continues to be integral to studio R&D, not only providing source material and inspiration for new collections but, perhaps more importantly, nourishing and supporting state-shifting from mind to body. Ella’s Shadow Dance collection continues to evolve, whereby she tries to capture fleeting moments of light and dark, collecting shadow shapes as they move across landscapes that hold cultural meaning and/or personal significance.
Film: Cultural Reforesting residency at Orleans House Gallery. Footage by Ellie Mackay, 2021.
Shadow Dancing
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On the greek island of Ithaki
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In the woodlands of Orleans House Gallery
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In the orchards of the Garden of England
wild service
The emergence of Wild Drawing is shared in ‘Belonging’, a chapter in Right to Roam’s Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You. The chapter describes how, in the midst of global uncertainty and grief, drawing helped to cultivate a sense of connection and belonging to the wider natural world.
The book science, nature writing and indigenous philosophy to call for mass reconnection to the land and a commitment to its restoration, arguing that humanity’s loss and nature’s need are two sides of the same coin. It was published by Bloomsbury in 2024.
“The artist Paul Klee once said that “a line is a dot that went for a walk” and that was exactly what it felt like I was doing. Just a few hours ago my whole being had felt condensed to a tiny dark point, a shocked to stillness clay-body retreating from the human world. Here now, though, it felt like the act of drawing was playfully guiding me out into the vastness of the more-than-human world, calling my attention to the myriad life forms that tumbled and glided and scurried around me. Or rather, alongside me.”
