Drawing, Well-being and the Exploration of Everyday Place

Over 200observational drawings created every dayfrom the same window reveal life in an ordinary Englishstreet in extraordinary times. This visualrecord and accompanying prose is aunique meditation on place, nature,community, time and mental well-being.Through this qualitative work we gaininsight into the individual and collectiveexperience and place-specific impacts ofthe pandemic, as opposed to thequantitative statistics of mortality andinfection rates that characterise dailymedia soundbites and scientific discoursesurrounding lockdown. Five themes arecentral to the drawings, highlighting theenvironmental and social factorsinfluencing daily life, and how these canbe perceived and recorded viaobservational drawing: 'framing space'foregrounds the importance of widows asan interface between interior and exteriorworlds; 'observing nature and the builtenvironment' celebrates the street andgarden as sites of human-nature relationsthat support well-being; 'watching people'focusses on the activities typify livingunder lockdown including isolation,socially distanced interactions andworking from home; 'drawing' reflects onthe multiple professional and personalbenefits of drawing; and mindfulawareness is discussed throughout,affirming the value of appreciatingeveryday life through drawing practice.