Can a group of people make a good drawing?

Can a group of people create a beautiful and compelling piece of art? Yes, of course. There are hundreds of great examples ranging from the ateliers of the Renaissance masters who had teams of apprentices working on large, complex paintings, to the studios of Walt Disney in the 1930s who changed the face of animation forever with the release of Snow White, through to the thousands of people in China who collaborated to help create Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds installed at the Tate Modern in 2011. Lots of people working to create art that looks as if it were made by one hand.

The reason for involving other people in the creative and production process is very often due to the simple fact that one person, working on their own, can’t do it all by themselves – either because of the range of skills required or the sheer volume of work. To coordinate the creative effort of teams of people, an organisation needs to be created with reporting lines, decision hierarchies and clear roles and responsibilities. Whether it is the master painter or the film director, these creative processes have someone in charge of the process to ensure quality and consistent adherence to a vision.

But what about the humble drawing? Drawing is largely a solo activity and, as John Berger points out, knowing that drawings are done by individuals, not teams, means when we look at a painting we are reminded of the subject, but when we look at a drawing we are reminded of the artist. However, given that drawing is such an individual creative process, is it possible for a group of artists, working without a clearly defined role structure, to make a coherent and compelling drawing?

Over the last few months I have attended some life drawing classes at the Prince’s Drawing School in Shoreditch, London. www.princesdrawingschool.org In a recent session we did a short exercise where we each drew the model for five minutes. At the end of the five minutes each person moved to the easel to their left and took up the drawing that was already in progress. For the next five minutes we were encouraged to engage with the unfamiliar drawing on its own terms and not be afraid to rub out parts and fix things that we didn’t feel were working. The aim was to try to continue the drawing, but improve it in some way. We carried on doing this every five minutes for about a half an hour, each time making additions and corrections to the different drawings in the circle.

At the end we took a look at the results. Most of the drawings looked as one might expect – a mish-mash of different approaches jumbled together to create something interesting at best, but not terribly beautiful or compelling.


But one drawing stood out from the rest. For some reason, one of the images worked and created an interesting piece that had something clearly special about it. Without discussing it ahead of time, each of us had somehow played to our strengths. The resulting marks, instead of competing against each other, harmonised. This drawing had a sense of coherence and appeal that none of the other images had.

Not only does this image challenge a few assumptions about the nature of drawing as a solo activity, it also raises an interesting question about authorship. If there is no one in charge of the creative process, whose drawing is it? It’s like a fantastic conversation with a group of friends. The conversation itself is the product of the collaborative interaction of the group, but no one person can claim ownership to the output. Like a conversation or a dance with a partner, this drawing is an unspoken interplay of decisions and contributions. Part of its charm lies in the feeling of having made these connections with other people through the mark making process.