Sol LeWitt is an artist most well known for his conceptual wall drawings. The drawings are created by other artists following a set of simple but open ended instructions. The different interpretations of the instructions make each installation unique. In this project we were given six slips of paper with sets of instructions and six large sheets of paper. Some of these instruction were very clear while others were in german and had to be translated. The instructions and their corresponding drawings are displayed below:
rote, gerade Linien, etwa 30 Zentimeter lang, parallel, nicht berührend, gleichmaßig beabstandet, ausgelöscht, mit der größten Dichte auf der gesamten Papieroberfläche geradeaus gezeichnet eine halbe Seite vertikal eine halbe Seite horizontal
red straight lines, 30 centimeters long, parallel, not touching, evenly spaced, obscured, largest density on entire paper surface straight drawn half page vertical half page horizontal.
grüne, gerade Linien, etwa 30 Zentimeter lang, parallel, nicht berührend, gleichmaßig beabstandet, ausgelöscht, mit der größten Dichte auf der gesamten Papieroberfläche geradeaus gezeichnet eine halbe Seite vertikal eine halbe Seite horizontal
green straight lines, 30 centimeters long, parallel, not touching, evenly spaced, obscured, largest density on entire paper surface straight drawn half page vertical half page horizontal.
Create your own 6-9 step set of drawing instructions. Keep your instructions to one page of paper, and trade with a classmate.
- Draw a circle in the center of the page
- Draw two more shapes, any shape any size
- Add three colors to this drawing only
- Make sensitive marks, think about how you handle a snake or reptile
- You can mix your three colors, but only on the page, not before
- Draw 8 lines, all in different directions
(2500 mark drawing) On the paper surface use a hard pencil, place 50 points at random. Points should be evenly distributed. All of the dots should be connected by straight lines.
7-Instruction Drawing #102708b (after Sol Lewitt) Draw a big square that is not centered on the page. Draw a line though the square that bisects the page diagonally into unequal parts. That line is a tangent to a large circle that doesn’t overlap the square. Draw a smaller circle off-center inside this circle. Draw a tangent to the smaller circle so that one corner of the square lies on the line. Draw a triangle that fills one side of the paper whose corner is the center of the square.
50/50 – A square of 20” divided horizontally into two equal parts. The top half matte black. The bottom half glossy black. Within a circle, draw 500 black, straight lines and 500 black, not straight lines. All lines are randomly spaced and equally distributed.
Grace Dunham 