Low Key With A Few Lights

It looks like a storm in the background. it's actually a mountain.

This is an hour sketch. Working on my speed skills.

Drawing and Probity

Drawing is the probity of art - Jean Dominique Ingres. I had to look up probity: uncompromising adherence to the highest principles and ideals. That could have more than one meaning.  

One is, you can't fake it in drawing. In painting, you can dress things up with color, texture, showie brushwork, etc. But in drawing its just you, your pencil and the paper. You are somewhat naked to the world showing all your strengths and your faults. 

This is good in at least 2 ways. First, it reveals what you need to work on. But more importantly, it gives you the most direct form of expressing your ideas and perceptions. 

Milton Glaser tells a wonderful story.* His wife brought home a gift, a new turntable for his classical records. The store owner said it was the best you could buy. It was just a slab of wood with a turn table and the stylus arm. No automatic retraction of the arm, no dials or controls except for an on and off switch. 

"What did you pay for this"?

"A thousand dollars".

Milton went back to the store and asked the owner what was up with this simple device costing $1000?

"Did you swindle my wife?"

"Did you try playing it?"

"No."

"Go try it and then come back."

Of course, when Glaser played it, his records sounded better than ever. When he went back to the store, the owner explained that for the best sound, you want as little interference between the initial signal and the final sound. Every time you add a spring for automatic retraction of the arm, a dial for this, a knob for that, you create interference.

In drawing, its just pencil and paper, dark and light. Straight from your perception to the final image with minimal interference. Probity.

*I can't find the original story so this is best as I can remember it. Details may be off but the basic idea is accurate.

Wiles of Mass Distraction

In her wonderful book The Language of Drawing, Sherrie McGraw coined the term, "Wiles of Mass Distraction". Among other things, she is referring to the superficial details that get in the way of seeing the underlying forms. The drawings I've posted here are just a few examples of how an artist can look at form.

I've been reading (actually, mostly looking at pictures) in a book my good friend Martin loaned to me. It is the Drawings of Antonio Lopez Garcia. Garcia is a Spanish hyperrealist. Here is an example of his drawing.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog about Richard Estes and photorealism, I often am not terribly attracted to hyperrealism. But as with Estes, Garcia is an exception. I will post later about his paintings and show why I like him so much. But for now, I just want to point out something in his drawing.

Masked by the high degree of finish in his final work is the fundamental, simple shapes that he is thinking about as he draws his forms. In this study of hands, look how he initially comprehends the fingers as simple circular cylinders. He then comes in with his contour lines and shading to bring the image to a higher level of resolution.

We see Pontormo, conceiving the fingers in a similar way, with blocks rather than cylinders.

Finally, Cambioso.

The Color of Brown

Last week I posted a plein air painting I did of this building in Phoenix. I wasn't overly happy with it but I felt there was potential. Here is a second version that I did in the studio. I cropped in closer and gave more thought to the color of the building. I like the compression of space that happens when you paint a small part of a distant view.

Here is last weeks version.

Line vs Tone…or…Line + Tone

The advanced drawing students I've been working with have been taught the value of tone and have learned the lesson well. I am now trying to encourage them to explore line more fully. A common misconception is that tone is the only way to create volume and mass. Tone certainly helps but the line drawing itself, when understood and used well can do much of the work. To illustrate, I did this demo for my class.

This final version shows the integration of line and tone that I tend to like in a drawing. Here is a wonderful example of what I'm talking about, a drawing by Jerome Witkin.