Assignment 3: Time Based Drawing (Drawing Studio 2 - Winter 2026)

 Assignment 3 Description and Summary

The Time-Based Drawing assignment must involve traditional drawing materials and/or traditional drawing processes in relation to one or more of the time-based mediums listed below:

• Sound (student example from a first-year drawing course)
• Video
• Animation
• Book works (including flip books)
• Performance (student example from a first-year drawing course)
• Process with materials
• Kinetic sculpture or kinetic installation (drawing machine) (student example from a second-year drawing course)

 

See other examples of Time-Based Drawing assignments by students on UM Learn

 

Students are strongly encouraged to combine multiple time-based approaches, as hybrid approaches often offer the greatest potential for conceptual depth and formal resolution.

 

This project emphasizes a hybrid approach to drawing, integrating traditional drawing materials and/or processes with time-based methods. The assignment introduces thematic layers that are conveyed through drawing processes of transformation over time that could also include, duration, repetition, or performance.

 

In this assignment, aesthetic considerations (formal visual language) must be synthesized with conceptual and thematic concerns. The work should shift toward process-based, performative, and/or time-based approaches, where traditional drawing materials remain central. In this context, what is produced becomes secondary to the process through which it is generated. How the drawing process is presented becomes very important.

 

What Does “Time-Based Drawing” Mean in This Assignment?

In this assignment, time-based drawing refers to drawing practices that unfold, change, accumulate, or are experienced over time. Time may be introduced through duration, repetition, erasure, movement, performance, sequencing, or material transformation.

Time-based drawing does not require advanced technical skills in video or animation. Drawing may occur before, during, or after a time-based action, and may exist as a live event, a recorded process, or an evolving material system. Traditional drawing materials must remain central to the work, even when combined with digital or performative elements.

 

Purpose

The goal of this assignment is to have students combine traditional drawing materials with contemporary and time-based art practices.

Material options may include traditional drawing materials such as graphite, conté, and/or oil pastel; paint; and two-dimensional surfaces such as paper and/or board. These may be combined with video cameras (including cell phones or tablets), projection, printed matter, found or constructed objects, sound, and installation strategies.

Students may also choose to work with live performance, incorporating text, image, sound, and/or movement in conjunction with traditional drawing materials.

 

Documentation and Ephemeral Work

Some time-based works may be temporary, performative, or process-driven and may not result in a fixed or permanent object. In these cases, documentation becomes a significantly important component of the project.

Documentation may include video, photographs or other materials that clearly communicate the process, duration, and intent of the work. Documentation does not replace the work itself, but serves as a record and means of evaluation for projects that exist in time or are no longer physically present.

 

Potential Subject Matter and Themes

1. Dynamics of the gaze, including power relations involved in looking, representation, and interpretation. Students are encouraged to consider ways of subverting or complicating these dynamics through process-based and/or performative work. Themes may include personal identity, ritual, and embodiment within hybrid or blurred disciplinary approaches that foreground traditional drawing materials.
2. Open-ended themes may include non-linear narrative, identity, time, aging, transition, loss, political struggle, memory, repetition, and cycles. Students are encouraged to avoid overly literal interpretations. Literal themes may be used as a starting point but should be pushed toward more layered or metaphorical readings.
3. Exploration of drawing materiality in the digital era, including tensions between analogue and digital processes, permanence and ephemerality, and physical labour versus mediated representation.
4. Students are encouraged to consider materials and processes as conveyors of meaning, whether fictional or documentary. The body may be understood as a site of political, social, or cultural critique. Cultural critique may be integrated through the use of drawing tools, prosthetic extensions, performance devices, or material systems that extend traditional drawing practices.
5. Themes not listed above are also permitted, provided a brief written description (1–2 sentences) is presented or submitted to the instructor for discussion and approval.

Start with a basic idea. Do not wait for the perfect idea or a perfect theme to begin working. Starting with a process and then a theme can always come later.

 

Artist Examples of Time-Based Drawing

 

(Many more artist examples are possible. Students are encouraged to conduct additional research.)

• Heather Hansen

https://vimeo.com/147588442

http://www.heatherhansen.net/film/

 

• Rebecca Horn

Pencil Mask

http://www.dreamideamachine.com/en/?p=48068

 

• Kanti

https://www.kantikanti.com/info.html

 

• William Kentridge

https://www.euronews.com/2017/02/17/thick-time-a-new-william-kentridge-exhibition-at-denmark-s-louisiana-museum-of

William Kentridge book work example:

https://www.facebook.com/UBSart/videos/671491483023705/

 

• Sand art examples

While these examples are conceptually limited and imagery at times could be cliche, they demonstrate important ideas related to ephemerality, material process, and time-based drawing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oHT5S3dTa4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zphbnum0_BY

 

 

Examples of Student Work for Time-Based Drawing Assignment

Examples from previous Drawing Studio 2 courses:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCueGEntXdpQisV0h7KV9TQA/playlists

 

https://vimeo.com/404450675

 

Example from a Video Projects (2^nd Year) course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sICa1tinHpg&t=7s

 

See other examples of Time-Based Drawing assignments by students on UM Learn 

 

Evaluation and Grading Breakdown 

for Time-Based Drawing Assignment

The Time-Based Drawing assignment will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Layers of concepts and themes – 20%
• Formal visual language and technical skill – 75%
• Synthesis of concept and intention with formal visual language – 5%

 

Time-Based Drawing Assignment Example

 

As part of the process, as the person intermittently rotate the drawing surface and continue drawing by tracing over cast shadows.

 

They would repeatedly trace/draw the cast shadow from the stick sculpture. 

Very good idea, but just needed to be taken further! Video recording, process changes, and transformations would have significantly improved this assignment.