Marks On Paper

Today you make marks on paper. That is all. A mark is anything your hand puts down. A dot, a line, a curve, a scribble, a shape. There is no good mark and no bad mark. There is only the mark you made and the next one you will make. Long before any child learns to write, the hand already knows how to grip a stick of charcoal, dip a finger in haldi, or drag a pencil across the back of an old notebook. Drawing is older than writing. Your hand has been ready for years.

Three shapes are enough to start. The circle, like a roti or the moon over Lahore. The line, like the edge of a charpai. The triangle, like the roof of a small village house in Bahawalpur. With these three shapes you can draw almost anything in the world. A cat is two circles and a triangle. A truck is a long rectangle, two circles for wheels, and small squares for windows. A kite is two triangles joined at the base. Try them slowly. Lift the pencil. Place it again.

Look at one thing in your room. A glass of water, a slipper, a small piece of fruit. Do not draw it from memory. Draw it while looking at it. Your eye moves slowly along the edge. Your hand follows. The drawing will not look exactly like the thing. That is fine. The drawing is a record of looking, not a photograph. Looking carefully is the real lesson. The picture is just the gift looking leaves behind.