← Sound journal

A dancer appears, one pencil line at a time

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They opened a sketchbook and started with a few loose lines. I don’t think even they knew what it was going to be.

Turned up, a pencil on paper crunches like fresh snow, and no two strokes sound alike: the grain of the paper, how sharp the pencil is, how hard it presses, how fast it moves and what the sketchbook sits on all change the sound.

Somewhere along the way, the whole table turned into a kind of trance: sound and drawing happening together, right in front of us. Then a dancer showed up on the page.

These are five moments from about four minutes of drawing.

The drawing is theirs, shared here with their permission.

Your sketchbook has a sound too

Bring the sketchbook you already draw in, or whatever’s in your bag. Your paper, your pencil and your hand make a sound nobody else can. About an hour at a Portland café, and your latte, matcha, or pastry is on me.

Count Me In
Count Me In Your latte, matcha, or pastry is on me