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Chihuly’s Drawings

October 25, 2025

By Louise Irvine

“Drawing is a fluid process, as glassblowing is a fluid process.”

Dale Chihuly once said that people become artists because they have a certain kind of energy to release. This is certainly the case with the renowned glass artist, who paints with exuberance to express his ideas. He works quickly, often while standing, brandishing brooms and mops and squirting acrylic paint from squeezy bottles to realize his vision. WMODA has recently acquired more of Chihuly’s expressive works on paper, and they can now be appreciated at the Hollywood museum.

“I don’t do much with preconceived ideas. In the course of a day of blowing glass, I might do 15 or 20 drawings.”  Chihuly

For Chihuly, drawing is a critical part of his creative process and as natural as glassblowing. While a student, he made precise pencil drawings of objects, but his approach changed after he lost sight in his left eye following a car accident in 1976. He began using his work on paper to explore ideas and communicate them to his gaffer and glassblowing team in the hot shop. He experimented with graphite, ink and watercolor, as well as unconventional materials including tea, coffee, and wine. Sometimes he burned the paper with molten glass.

Discovering Golden’s high-flow liquid acrylic colors led to bold new drawing techniques as he squirted, sprayed, splashed, and stroked paint onto increasingly large sheets of paper on the floor. Some paintings stand over 8 feet tall.  His visualizations of his glass forms, including his giant ikebana flower arrangements, baskets, and floats, became increasingly abstract.

“The drawings have given me a new freedom – if I can do it on paper, I can do it with the glass.” Chihuly

Chihuly’s paintings epitomize his exciting unpredictability.  He talks about drawing as a workout; the bigger the paintings are, the more physical they are. He often worked alongside his glassblowing team during demonstrations, and the sheer physicality of his process, which used his entire body, became a form of performance art. Even his paint-splattered shoes became works of art.

Charcoal sticks, made from fire and burned wood, became his favorite form of expression during his collaboration with Lino Tagliapietra, the Murano maestro, in 1988. As they worked together on the Venetian series, Chihuly’s drawings became bolder and more spontaneous, matching the bizarre eccentricities of the glass sculptures. WMODA has a charcoal and wax crayon drawing of a frenzied Venetian that conveys the dynamism of Chihuly’s art.

Chihuly’s bold signature often becomes an important element in his paintings, and occasionally he adds titles in a fluid script, such as the Navajo Blanket. Chihuly collects these colorful Native American blankets that inspired the pick-up drawing techniques he uses in his blown-glass cylinders. You can compare the Chihuly works on paper with the spectacular soft cylinders at WMODA.

“The drawings have given me a new freedom – if I can do it on paper, I can do it with the glass.” Chihuly

Previously WMODA displayed just two Chihuly paintings, created for Wolfgang Puck's Postrio Restaurant in San Francisco in 1996. They can be seen in the Hot Glass Gallery alongside Chihuly’s spectacular Persian wall, originally made for the restaurant and now a highlight of the museum. Visit WMODA again soon to see more of Chihuly’s energetic works on paper.

Read more about Chihuly’s work for Postrio Restaurant

Chihuly on Paper | Wiener Museum

Read more about Chihuly’s paintings

Chihuly on Paper | Wiener Museum