The art of putting pen to paper has been celebrated by two recent exhibitions in Gauteng. Justified Jotting, at Magpie Gallery in Centurion, brought together 27 artists, ranging from students to the established. In turn, Drawing Show, David Krut Projects in Jo'burg, featured new unseen works by 12 of South Africa's leading graphic designers and illustrators.

In Justified Jotting, everyone interpreted drawing in a different way, making the celebration of what one could do with a pen or pencil, a piece of paper and even other materials and applications, richly diverse. From Berlin Karr, who escaped from paper and did illustrations on the actual walls of the gallery, to the work of Louis Minnaar who drew from the inspiration of sound, Ockert van Rooyen whose live illustration saw him creating a piece of art out of nonsensical words, and Duncan Reyburn who leaned towards the digital realm to create his drawings, all showed how the simple concept of drawing is actually made up of a world of endless possibilities.

On the other hand, Drawing Show, curated by Michael MacGarry, while starting from drawing as a nexus point, ended in limited-edition A1 archival inkjet prints. With this standard-medium output, the exhibition celebrated the variety of style and approach observable across South Africa's top graphic designers, including Johnny Kotze, Scott Robertson aka Dirty Sanchez, Jason Bronkhorst, Joh Del, Richard Hart and Roger Jardine of Disturbance, Olivier Schildt, Peet Pienaar, Garth Walker, the Am I Collective, Carina Comrie, and Givan Lotz.