Abstract
Drawing is a complex and uniquely human activity that involves motoric, perceptual, and conceptual processes. Realistic drawing usually requires several hours for depicting structure, texture, and shadow. This study, based on Gibson's ecological approach, treated vision as perceptual systems (Gibson, 1966 The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems) for the purpose of understanding the process by which a realistic depiction is drawn on a surface. Two experiments examined the role of visual perception in drawing. Each task was performed under two typical conditions. In Experiment 1 (“vertical”), the participant, a skilled individual who had more than 7 years of experience with art, performed the drawing with an easel. In Experiment 2, (“horizontal”) this participant performed the drawing without an easel. The coordination of the actions that comprised the drawing process were examined according to the points at which shifts in behavior occurred. Observations revealed that perceptual–motor coordination can be classified into four basic patterns: (A) head and torso movements, (B) looking at objects, (C) depicting by hand, and (D) looking at the picture. The drawing process is characterized by transitions in the frequency and duration of combinations of these patterns. In particular, combinations including (A) influenced the results of both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. Moreover, the combination of (A) and (D) was more frequent under the vertical than the horizontal condition. These findings suggest that the control of the looking-and-depicting seemed to be supported by flexibility in postural changes and in the direction of the drawing surface.