• Home
  • About drawing as the art of seeing
  • Facing the Portrait with Henry Raeburn, 2
  • Facing the Portrait with Henry Raeburn, 4

artamaze by Katherine Hilden

It's about the pleasure of drawing. You can do this. You can learn to draw with passion and conviction.

Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Facing the Portrait with Henry Raeburn, 4

MaryRaeburn

Raeburn’s portrait of Robert Brown hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago.  I admire it at every visit.  It is painterly, with quick, sure dashes of the brush: look at the hair, the edge of the collar.

Of all the student copies of this portrait (up-side-down) this drawing, by Mary, is most “painterly.”

When we see lines in a drawing or painting, our attention traces the line and we feel assured of clarity and rationality.  Lines delineate shapes, orient us and tell us what’s what.

Notice, there are no lines in Mary’s drawing.  Everything is effect, shades of gray, nuance. Imagine navigating over your drawing paper without the guidance of lines.  It takes intense concentration. This is quite an achievement.

When we draw portraits we are not satisfied with mere accuracy of facial features.  We always read the emotion in the face.  When you consider that this drawing was done up-side-down, is it not astonishing how such a process can result in such depth of emotion?

To review how this drawing exercise was set up, visit

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/facing-the-portrait-with-henry-raeburn-1/

To compare other students’ work:

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/facing-the-portrait-with-henry-raeburn-3/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/facing-the-portrait-with-henry-raeburn-2/

 

All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.

www.katherinehilden.com

http://facefame.wordpress.com

http://katherinehilden.wordpress.com

www.khilden.com

 

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

  • About me:

    I'm an artist, living and working in Evanston, IL, and I teach drawing and painting at the Evanston Art Center. Initially, this blog was only about drawing, because that's my great passion. But I soon branched out into all topics related to art. Now I talk about discoveries in my drawing and painting classes, as well as museum and gallery visits, the art scene, my own work and whatever I think will tickle your art-mind because it tickles mine...as if there were another kind of mind.----------------- Your comments are welcome!
  • Portrait of the artist with art, Evanston Art Center benefit, 2010

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 683 other subscribers
  • Topics

    • abstraction
    • Achievement
    • Architecture
    • Caricature
    • Cartooning
    • Collage
    • Color
    • Composition
    • Cropping
    • Cubism
    • Dance and Theater
    • faces
    • Failed Effort
    • Fluxus
    • Galleries
    • Illustration
    • Imagination
    • inspiration
    • Landscape
    • Left-Right
    • Life drawing
    • literalness
    • Master drawings
    • Negative space
    • Pattern
    • Quotes
    • Romantic
    • Roundness
    • Seeing
    • Semiotics
    • Still life
    • Surreal
    • Technique and Demo
    • Texture
    • Therapy
    • Uncategorized
    • Upside-Down Drawing
    • Watercolor
  • Started March 2010. To date, 547 posts

    February 2023
    M T W T F S S
     12345
    6789101112
    13141516171819
    20212223242526
    2728  
    « May    
  • Archives

  • Meta

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.com
  • Blogroll

    • Caricatures by K. Hilden
    • Caricatures Chicago and Beyond
    • Evanston Art Center
    • Facefame
    • Indianapolis Art Center
    • WordPress.com
    • WordPress.org
  • Categories

    • abstraction (180)
    • Achievement (236)
    • Architecture (15)
    • Caricature (17)
    • Cartooning (3)
    • Collage (31)
    • Color (117)
    • Composition (285)
    • Cropping (31)
    • Cubism (9)
    • Dance and Theater (5)
    • faces (64)
    • Failed Effort (17)
    • Fluxus (4)
    • Galleries (26)
    • Illustration (63)
    • Imagination (172)
    • inspiration (124)
    • Landscape (70)
    • Left-Right (33)
    • Life drawing (42)
    • literalness (97)
    • Master drawings (23)
    • Negative space (82)
    • Pattern (5)
    • Quotes (16)
    • Romantic (12)
    • Roundness (50)
    • Seeing (194)
    • Semiotics (66)
    • Still life (107)
    • Surreal (30)
    • Technique and Demo (298)
    • Texture (74)
    • Therapy (40)
    • Uncategorized (46)
    • Upside-Down Drawing (15)
    • Watercolor (8)
  • Recent Comments

    Keven Wilder on The Process
    Keven Wilder on Is This Hard?
    katherinehilden on Knead and Draw
    Keven Wilder on Knead and Draw
    Keven Wilder on Contrapposto Made Easy

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • artamaze by Katherine Hilden
    • Join 188 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • artamaze by Katherine Hilden
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: