Drama on the Page

You might think that this is a sketch, to be elaborated on later. You might think this is a hasty scribble on the back of an envelope, a reminder of the rough composition so that the artist would later work out details and make a “presentable, salable work of art.”
So wrong.
To be able to see like this!
This is a very advanced form of seeing.
It’s not about documenting the shape of the pots. The photo does that. It’s not about proving that you’re diligent, that you put in the time and now you’ll price the drawing according to the time you slaved over the drawing. There are people who think like that. So master-servant 16th century. And if you think your five-year-old can do this, well, you need to come to class.
What makes the drawing so great is the form. Not the shape of the pots. The form of the drawing! Seeing form is like reading between the lines in a story, reading deeper than the narrative. It’s seeing through the shapes, seeing deeper than what’s illustrated. The artist here is not illustrating pots. She is creating a page that stands on its own.
She creates a tug between positive and negative space. We expect the pots, being graspable things, to hold our attention. The ground they stand on is supposed to just passively support objects. But notice that the shape of the ground is more emphatically articulated than the objects. It’s dark and has a stepped shape of its own. The shape of the pots is predictable and our expectation projects more information into them that is actually given. Even though they are presented in casual curves and ellipses, we read them clearly. We as viewers are engaged in completing the presentation. A good thing. We also notice that the whole page is a dialogue between the severe,angular, rational edge of the black ground and the curved, flamboyant, irrational lines of the identifiable objects. So good.
Back to the sketch idea. The drawing, above, was preceded by a more elaborate working out of this motif. The artist put in some folds of the cloth that covered the table. In other words, details. This is also an interesting drawing, but not as exciting as the one featured here. The artist had to wrestle with details, with the impulse to represent more literally what she actually saw,  to attain the view of form that marks the stark drama of the final drawing.
Drawings by Maggy Shell, charcoal on paper, ~14”x18”
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The Big Brush

Some students in my painting class like to start with a photo taken during their travels.  Here’s one from the Galapagos.  Texture, shapes, lines, a bit of blue.  The photo itself looks pretty abstract already, but the ocean at bottom right gives it away as representational.

In order to help her disassociate the image from its literalness, Patty rotates the photo 90° counterclockwise.  She tapes it to the top of the easel, dips a 1” paint brush into some thinned sepia and draws the main lines on the photo onto her large fresh white canvas.   At this point, it’s safe to say, she may still be thinking rather literally, her loyalty latched to the Galapagos photo.  The more paint she puts on the canvas, the more her loyalty will shift to the canvas and away from the photo.  The paint takes over.  Easy to say.  In fact, paint comes with all sorts of frustrations; it just does not do what the sunny, equatorial photo does.

The challenge is to let the paint take over.  One way to move in that direction is to reach for the big brush.  How about this one here, brand new and clean and THREE INCHES wide.

Take a deep liberating breath. Ooh, now we’re paintin’!

Patty’s painting is not finished, but I like it already.

My students graciously put up with me when I consider their painting finished long before they themselves think it’s done.

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

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Face Studies, Deglamorized

Of all the things you can draw, the face will grab you the most.  We must have special wiring in the brain to make us respond so powerfully to faces. A baby, three to six weeks old, will respond with excitement when looking up at a mobile that shows faces.

One of the reasons we like drawing faces is that they’re emotionally engaging.  The emotion is the fuel that keeps us working at it, but it also gums up our perception of the larger picture.  The tendency—tell me I’m wrong here!—is to overdraw the face, to add too much detail, to want to make it appealing and “perfect.”

So, yes, draw the face.  But, try to see it as  one of the elements in your composition. The whole is greater than…

Here are some examples of how my students have been drawing the Almighty Face, but with a twist—or a line through it, or in shadow.  This is hard to do, emotionally.

Look at the little girl sitting on dad’s shoulders. The artist found it hard to pull the hat over that endearing face and then to scribble a shadow over it.  There’s a natural resistance to do that.  But without the shadow, the face would not be tucked in and the hat would not have a convincing brim.

In a still life that included the customary drapery, a silk flower,  a garden hose and a plaster cast of an academic head. Linné restrained himself from overdrawing the head, which  is always a temptation.  This is probably not a completed drawing, but the battle against the dominance of the head is already evident and it’s admirable.

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Gaby, “Head in Planes.”  Plaster cast of academic head in a still life set up.

Linné, “Liz.”  Two studies of Elizabeth Taylor.

Gaby, “Girl on Dad’s Shoulders.”   Drawn from magazine cover.  Aquarellable Pencil

 Linné, “Still Life with Head.”

Click images for enlargements.

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

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