ABSTRACT
Chapter 12 is about drawing as a body, drawing as a noun. Drawing practitioners sometimes speak about a particular drawing as a living body: at some point in making the drawing, it becomes a living thing with which the maker interacts until it is complete. Since the most common surface for drawing media is paper, I describe how paper is experienced in terms of: cost and availability, the pleasure of handling papers, and the unsuitability of papers that call attention to themselves as material objects. Since many drawings are done as practice or preparation for other works, I discuss the practice of throwing away drawings. The chapter ends with a reflection on the inimitability of an individual’s mark-making, and the practice of saving drawings because they trace an individual’s life in graphic form. This chapter is also the conclusion of the narrative about drawing my sister on the train.
