Eye Movements in Drawing Simple Lines

As part of an investigation into real-world drawing, eye movements and eye – hand interactions have been recorded for twenty subjects of varying drawing experience drawing simple straight and curved lines and a square. Two modes of eye – hand behaviour were observed. In the first, named ‘close pursuit’, fixations closely followed the pencil with a sequence of small saccades. In the second, named ‘target locking’, a stable fixation was made on the end-point of the line throughout the entire drawing action. Depending on subject and type of line, close pursuit, target locking, or a combination of these modes was used regardless of previous drawing experience. The results are discussed in terms of the role of the eye in the control of the movement trajectory of the hand.

Drawing & Cognition is the ongoing master programme covering eye movement and brain research pertaining to the activity of drawing. The methodology is based on the use of biomedical tools to investigate real-world drawing, and as such it is probably the only research programme at present anywhere in the world to address the subject of artistic production and creativity with the full rigour of scientific enquiry. Basic input data is provided by eye tracking tests performed in Camberwell on BA Drawing students and tests on both naïve subjects and professional artists. fMRI brain scanning data is obtained with the collaboration of Birmingham University and King’s College Hospital London.