Charcoal and Graphite

Another admirable drawing by Barbara Heaton. Here she prepared the paper as before (https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2015/02/15) but this time she mixed charcoal and graphite. At a distance this mixture reads well enough, but close up or viewed at certain angles, the graphite is shiny while the charcoal is dense and black. That’s what the camera picks up, too. You can see that the drapery is done in charcoal and the tall vase in graphite, an undesirable effect, I think.

The spiral on the left, like the one in the middle of the drawing, suggests a ball made of twine, but this one is drawn like a spiral without any three-dimensional shading. You can think of it as unfinished or you can think of it as suggesting a whole other way of seeing. The other way becomes more apparent when you crop, one of my favorite visual games.
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Hands Forever

Treat yourself to an afternoon of drawing hands!
Hands. Are you kidding?
The hand is arguably the most difficult thing to draw. It takes some practice. But, look, there’s no excuse, it’s always there. Just draw it.
Actually drawing your left hand (or your right hand if you’re a lefty) is not that easy, since it’s hard to hold it steady and in a comfortable position. Therefore, I recommend that you draw from photos of hands, which are ubiquitous in our ad-crazed culture. Your desk is full of junk mail showing hands holding a product or pointing to one. It’s not junk mail, it’s a treat.
Barbara Heaton in my drawing class worked from a photo of two hands. She drew with a graphite stick on white textured paper that she had previously rubbed gray with graphite powder. The white highlights were created by erasing the graphite down to the original white paper, about 12”x14”. Is this not breathtaking?
This is classical drawing. I hope it never gets boring.
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What’s on First?

Here’s a painting where every part is on first. By that I mean, every part is important and interesting. Nothing is “just” background. This is counter-intuitive and that’s precisely what makes this painting so wonderful to contemplate.
The large blue trapezoid (#1) appears to be on top of everything. But blue is a receding color.
Red (#2) is a forward color but it’s placed in the second tier.
The confetti strip on the top (#3) is spatially behind everything, but it jumps out at you because of its texture.
At the bottom (#4) we have what looks like a continuation of #2 and that further emphasizes the frontality of big blue (#1).
This painting presents a conundrum and there’s no solution. Try not to look at this. Good luck.
Painting by Jane Donaldson, acrylic on canvas, 30×40. 2015
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Are You Allowed to Do This?

Are you sure?
Well, now, let me get out the rule book and check.
That’s an imaginary exchange. I ask the question, are you allowed to do this, when there’s a splash on a painting and the painting feels finished. It’s a rhetorical question, since everybody knows the answer. What I meant when I first asked the question, months ago, must have been obvious. I think it might be the tone of my voice when I say those words. No student has ever said, no we’re not allowed to make a splash and let the paint drip. The answer is yes. YES! And yet, the questions needs to be asked over and over again.

Painting by Keren Vishny, oil on canvas, ~36×24. 2014
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