artamaze by Katherine Hilden

Seduced by Rhythm

Posted in Achievement, Composition, Illustration, literalness, Roundness, Technique and Demo, tagged illustration, Jeanne Mueller, rhythm, shadow, thw way we were on May 31, 2017| 2 Comments »

How can something so wrong be so right?

Because you enjoy looking at this drawing you may not immediately see that the shadows are all wrong. How are the shadows wrong? Can those horizontal scratches even be called shadows? No, they’re not shadows in the sense that they help define the roundness of the figures. Yes, they evoke the idea of a shadow.

When you’re looking at this, the “shadows” trigger in your mind the association to three-dimensionality and that’s so satisfying to you that you don’t look more critically. You don’t even want to look critically because your mind is seduced by the rhythm of the composition. Those “shadows” emphasize the rhythm. Rhythm in any work of art is hypnotic. Your mind likes the hypnotic state.

Compare the above, second, drawing of this motif to the artist’s first version. Your mind is now functioning differently. It’s now

examining the figures for literal accuracy. A drawing tells you how it wants to be looked at. This drawing wants to be looked at as an illustration.

Now go back to the “shadows” version and you’ll notice that your mind has just switched to a different mode. Your expectations are different. You’re not looking for an illustration of anatomy here. Instead you’re struck by the total effect. You’re not analyzing, you’re experiencing the whole. You’re having an aesthetic experience.

Drawings by Jeanne Mueller

The photo we worked with was taken from a book of old photos called “The Way We Were.”

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/a-good-pout-and-strong-shadows/https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2017/01/28/scribble-for-life/https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/10/08/how-it-sits-on-the-page/https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/drawing-sculpture/https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/ptolemy-in-ulm/https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/take-the-a-frame/https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/vanitas-flip/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2017/01/10/celine-frown/

A Good Pout and Strong Shadows

Posted in Achievement, faces, Technique and Demo, tagged Celine, frown, Jeanne Mueller on May 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Céline ads are a great source for drawing faces. You don’t feel obliged to make it pretty and add eyelashes. Just draw!

Drawing by Jeanne Mueller, graphite.

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/10/08/how-it-sits-on-the-page/

Scribble for Life

Posted in Achievement, Composition, Illustration, literalness, Negative space, Technique and Demo, tagged aquarellbale pencil, figure, gloss paper, Jeanne Mueller, neatness, scribble on January 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »

I encourage my students to draw the whole figure rather than one anatomical part at a time. Drawing the whole figure right from the start means scribbling and making quick adjustments when you notice that what you’ve put down on paper doesn’t hang together. Scribbling is messy. Now, remember when you were in third grade and your teacher encouraged you to be messy? No, you don’t, of course not. This veneration of neatness that’s taught so early is hard to overcome. But you can’t make art worshiping in that shrine.

The pose in the photo is so dramatic that if you approach it one bit at a time, you’ll inevitably make it stiff. When I introduced this photo in class I first did a demo drawing with everybody standing around me. It took a couple of minutes and it’s a mess. But you must admit, it isn’t stiff or boring. It doesn’t pretend to be finished. But I hope it conveys the excitement of the artist getting into the process.

Jeanne Mueller worked with the Aquarellable Pencil on gloss paper.

This means she was able to change lines and shadings by just swiping the paper with a damp paper towel. Notice what major changes were made before she arrived at the finished drawing. Notice also, how the invented background of stripes transforms the drawing from an illustration of a figure into a complete composition.

At right is the earlier, more literal version of her drawing.

Jeanne Mueller, Aquarellable on gloss paper, 17” x 11”

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/drawing-sculpture/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/ptolemy-in-ulm/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/take-the-a-frame/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain-by-betty-edwards/

Drawing Sculpture

Posted in Achievement, faces, literalness, Seeing, Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged Betty Edwards, Florence, Jeanne Mueller, Medici, Michelangelo, Photo, three-dimension, two dimension, Upside-down drawing on October 2, 2016| 2 Comments »

More precisely, drawing from photos of sculpture.

If you think of drawing as translating, then drawing from sculpture is easier than drawing from life, because the sculptor has already done the half the work for you. He or she has simplified the forms for you.

Taking this a step further, drawing from a photo of a sculpture means that two-thirds of the work has been done for you. The photo takes the additional step of flattening the three-dimension orm into two and two dimensions is where your drawing functions. Piece o’ cake.

Well, no, not exactly simple. You still have to get over naming what you’re drawing because naming—the whole verbal mode—gets in the way. To that end, we turn things upside-down. And to turn a Michelangelo sculpture up-side-down, it’s really handy to have a photo of the humongous thing, especially if the original is in Florence.

Drawing by Jeanne Mueller, graphite on paper, ~14” x 11”

Michelangelo Buonarotti, 1475-1564. The Medici Chapel, 1520-1534

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/ptolemy-in-ulm/

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulmer_M%C3%BCnster

Ptolemy in Ulm

Posted in Achievement, literalness, Seeing, Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged Betty Edwards, choir stalls, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brainwards, Jörg Syrlin, Jeanne Mueller, Ptolemy, sculpture, South Germany, Ulm Minster, Upside-down drawing on September 30, 2016| 3 Comments »

When I bring in photographs of figures or faces to draw, my students more often than not choose to draw upside-down. This may seem counter-intuitive. I must have been persuasive, about three years ago, when I presented Betty Edwards’ theory and research on the subject: when you draw something upside down, you are able to disconnect your expectations and verbal labeling, allowing your brain to go into visual. And then–ta-tah!–you actually see.

Yes, the drawing you see here was made as you see it, upside-down, from a photo that the artist/student was looking at, also upside-down.

This is Ptolemy with is model of rotating heavenly spheres. He is one of the many historical and mythical figures that the sculptor Jörg Syrlin the Elder (1425 – 1491) carved out of oak for the choir stalls in the Ulm Minster, around 1470.

Here’s the sculptor, portraying himself at the end of a row of his figures, surveys his work. These sculptures, btw, are perfectly preserved. 1470! Very moving.

Building on the Ulm Minster in Southern Germany was begun in 1399 and completed in 1890.

Drawing by Jeanne Mueller, graphite on paper, ~14″ x 11″

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain-by-betty-edwards/

Take the A-Frame

Posted in Achievement, Cartooning, Composition, Life drawing, Semiotics, Technique and Demo, tagged Alexander the Great, Jeanne Mueller, madonna, New Yorker, Queen Victoria, Raphael on August 18, 2016| 1 Comment »

This person is powerful, authoritative and in control. Not because of who she is (we don’t need to know) but because of how she sits. More important than her pose is how the drawing sits on the page. It’s the composition that conveys authority: the stable triangle.

The artist/student worked from a photo I had found in The New Yorker.

This woman clearly wants to intimidate us with her stare, her full-frontal symmetry, the loosely clasped hands ready to attack, the machismo in the spread legs and feet firmly planted for maximum balance.

Despite these theatrics, the photo doesn’t work. She’s ridiculous. She wants to look tough but, look, she’s a shorty—those platform shoes!

I know, Victoria, queen & empress, barely came up to five feet and Alexander, the so called Great, was a runt, but photographers, painters and sculptors had tricks to make them look grand anyway.

That trick is composition. The most authoritative and stable compositional trick is the triangle. This is nothing new. If you look at the dozens of madonnas that Rafael painted you will always find him squeezing the figures into a triangle. Here are two examples.

You can be sure that he started his drawings for the paintings by roughing in a triangle, just as I’ve done here in green.

For our exercise in class, working from that New Yorker photo (magnified on the Xerox machine), the students started with a tall triangle on their page. Way at the top, a short horizontal line marked the chin line. A little farther down, a horizontal line marked the end of the torso which coincided with the knees. The assignment then was to fit the sitting figure into that A-frame.

In this drawing by Jeanne Mueller you can still see the lines of the A. I encourage students to minimize erasing and to leave in preliminary outline and guide lines.

The drawing becomes powerful because of the composition. Compositional thinking will free you from the temptation to obsess about details. Notice that there’s no need to articulate those staring eyes. There’s no need for harsh outlines. The line quality is actually fleeting and open. Look how asymmetrically the hair is drawn. We don’t need any literalness or precision. The power is in the composition.

Take the A-Frame and your drawing won’t derail.

Raphael, 1483-1520

Vanitas Flip

Posted in Achievement, Composition, Left-Right, Roundness, Seeing, Semiotics, Still life, Technique and Demo, tagged 17th century Dutch painting, genre, Jeanne Mueller, mirror, mortality, skull, symbols, vanitas on July 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

This drawing has four of the standard elements of a 17^th century vanitas image: skull, book, mirror and hint of a plant. All are symbols of the passage of time and the futility of holding on to anything. Hence, the category “vanitas.” “Vanitas” is a genre that the Dutch painters of the 17^th century often worked with. More on that in the next post.

As I looked at this drawing on my screen, I felt conflicted between looking at the skull as the major element and at the mirror image as the focal point. The skull won. But the skull is not as interesting as the mirror image, is it. So I flipped the image in Photoshop.

Ta-tah! Here the skull is still the most poignant element in the drawing—it’s the strongest and most complete symbol of mortality. But look what happens to the circular mirror with the partial profile of the skull.

Here the compositional lines lead UP to the circle. The circle holding the skull reflection now has an upbeat, optimistic feeling. This goes against the vanitas theme, which is supposed to be a warning against pride. Forget pride and preaching. This drawing, seen in the flip version (flip!), is ironic and witty.

We’ve seen in previous posts how flipping an image will change how it feels. Same information, very different feeling. But this vanitas drawing, flipped, is uncanny.

Drawing by Jeanne Müller, graphite, ~16”x20,”