This research programme is based at Camberwell College of Arts (part of the London Institute) and develops and continues the Painter’s Eye Movements (PEM) project.

PEM was initiated in 1998 by John Tchalenko, with the collaborations of Humphrey Ocean, painter, Chris Miall, Department of Physiology, University of Oxford and Robert Solso, Department of Psychology, University of Nevada.  The project investigated with eye-tracking and brain scanning techniques some of the basic parameters entering into the creative drawing process.  The results are presented here in "Eye movements in Portrait Drawing" and "The Painter’s Eye on-line Exhibition" based on the exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery, London (1999).

Drawing and Cognition will extend our investigations to cover a number of persons who draw regularly in their professions:  artists, designers, architects, illustrators, technical draughtsmen, etc. as well as art students undergoing training.  Our approach will make use of the methodology developed previously in our work with Humphrey Ocean.  An example is given here in the pre-publications "Eye-hand Coordination in Portrait Drawing: a case study" and "Drawing from Memory: preliminary results".  Simultaneously we will continue to explore an intriguing aspect of eye movements, i.e. the eye’s ability to draw and write in space, described here in "Can the eye draw?"  This will also form the subject of a video installation "Free-eye Drawing No1" at the London Institute (TLTP exhibition, June 2001) and touring to Spain and the USA.