In the next few posts we will see drawings by six students. The motif was a still life showing everyday kitchen objects. We were working from a photo of a famous painting by a famous 18th century French painter– to be introduced after you’ve seen all six student drawings.
I’m showing the drawings first because I would like you to not compare the drawings to anything. Let’s see if we can look at what’s actually there on the paper instead of “what it’s supposed to look like.”
At (1), energetic markmaking. This area reads as the background and as such is supposed to be “nothing.” But notice that it pulsates, it’s agitated, which injects energy into the whole drawing. Squint a little and try to imagine the drawing without that “background.” Imagine it white. Blah. Now imagine it solid, flat black, without the texture of the markmaking. Blah. There, you see.
At (2) the shape of the pear is articulated not by an outline, but by the background pushing against the contour and thereby indicating the shape of the pear. This is an advanced, a subtle way of seeing. A simple, beginner way of seeing is to draw a heavy line to delineate the object. What we have here instead is the complexity of seeing the interaction of foreground and background.
The articulation of the round form at (3) is accomplished by a contour line (at the left where it overlaps the pear) and by the background pushing against the upper arch. It’s a simple round form, but if you run your eyes over its perimeter, you’ll perceive it as a complex, three dimensional form. That’s because it’s not simply, consistently outlined. If it were, you’d read it as a flat disk. You can apply this way of seeing to the other round forms in this drawing, too.
The light is coming in from the left. Therefore, on the right side of the objects we see reflected light on the objects and also the deep shadow that the objects cast on the shelf. (4) Because of this technique these two objects, peach and mug, appear most palpably solid. This technique of reflected light plus deep shadow was developed by Renaissance painters in the 15th & 16th centuries. It is an exaggeration of how we perceive real objects in real space, but in pictorial space the effect is dramatic and mesmerizing.
The ellipse (5) is something we practice in just about every class, at the beginning, to get that hand swinging. I say “swinging” because you have to do it fast, otherwise it comes out stiff and lifeless. This takes a lot of practice, because when you’re working on a drawing you’re likely to be over-cautious and that means, you’ll draw it slowly and therefore, sorry, lifeless. We can see that this ellipse was drawn slowly, but for now let’s encourage more practice and move on to notice how the shadow cast on the inside of the cup makes the three-dimensionality convincing.
And now, the edge of the shelf/table at (6). Notice that there is a progression of three spaces, from left to right, from short to longer to very long, each indicated with different pencil marks. This is an invention of the student/artist, not a reproduction of the original 18th century still life. It’s ingenious because it creates movement, like a crescendo in music. Soft, louder, loudest. Even though it indicates a plain ol’ table top, a restful horizontal line, it’s not static. Pure invention! This can happen in beginning students, without suggestions from the instructor. To me, the instructor, this is deeply moving because it means the student was so absorbed in the drawing process that this effect emerged intuitively—out of intense involvement in the process.
More to come: the ellipse, the concept “still life,” markmaking, positive & negative space, movement in composition, the concepts perfection and not so, incomplete, rhythm…
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/the-ellipse-is-in-your-hand/
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artamaze by Katherine Hilden 