Claudia Hammer Part I

Last night's initial drawing session with Claudia was great.  I appreciated that she was so attentive to everyone during the process and that she reinforced so much of what we've been applying to our figure drawing process.  Looking and seeing are vital to drawing; they are vital to all creative disciplines.   As we all know, many art movements of the past few hundred years have challenged the Renaissance notion of illusionistic space.  However, even today, there is still tremendous value in learning to draw from observation (not memory). The better you know your subject, the better you'll be able to draw it.  Drawing from observation offers insights into the mechanisms of visual perception.  Jackson Pollock's drips and runs, for example, emerged from a background of intense observation and representation. Honing our powers of observation strengthens our creative abilities whether we're making art with it or without.  Developing our ability to see and draw is a versatile tool for visual problem solving in any artistic discipline, and it works as a baseline against which to compare and contrast alternative aesthetic and conceptual approaches. It's fundamental to artistic awareness and self-awareness.

As a practicing artist, I understand and defend the primacy of creative freedom in an environment involving art-making, and I think the range of expression in our out-of-class work attests to that freedom.  However, as an art teacher, I also understand the equal importance of discipline, visual sensitivity, patience, eye-hand coordination, a rigorous work ethic, and a developing conceptual base as the essential tools to take advantage of one's creative freedom. I'm confident our in-class activities work in that regard  As it says on our class syllabus, Artists in any discipline should never be obliged to make stylistic or aesthetic choices merely to avoid technical limitations.

Having Claudia in the studio with us last evening was inspiring.  I got a lot from it, and from some of the drawings I saw at the end of the session, I think many of you did as well.  I look forward to her return on the 31st.

Life Drawing Workshop

Claudia Hammer will be conducting life drawing classes during my evening drawing class on Tuesday, March 17 and Tuesday, March 31. Claudia has been working with the figure for many years and is keenly aware of the importance of building a strong power of observation. She has studied at Parson School of Design in Paris, France, the Chicago Art Institute, the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy, and may other institutions and workshops. She teaches a range of classes in her studio from basic to advanced life drawing, plaster cast drawing, and portrait and figure painting. You can see some of her work by clicking on her name above.

A Show of Hands

Will Garner
Shawn McPheron
Christopher Little
Ashley Cornelius
Alex Kennedy

The evening drawing class looked at the expressive potentials of their hands, and they explored that idea with many different interpretations.  Will Garner mapped life's abrasions; Shawn McPheron contemplated his call to the visual arts, particularly drawing; Chris Little did some searching into physics and the metaphysical; Ashley Cornelius explored her own personal library of symbols and paid respectful homage to Annie McCollum's work; Alex Kennedy picked up an unfinished beer and had an epiphany.

There were other strong interpretations, some that still need further thought and processing, but for the most part it's an enlightening group of drawings that allow us to see how everyone saw their subjects, and how those points-of-view related to each individual expressing themselves through images.

 

Some Food for Thought

Lyndsey Cooper's Ice Cream Cones
Kimberly Stidham's Twizlers
Courtney Howard's Kiwi
Ahsley Begley's Cheezits
Allison Jones' Animal Crackers

It's about 3:00 and I'm still plowing through midterm evaluations in order to get work back to everyone so that revisions can be made before the next out-of-class project arrives.  But after a long process of looking and thinking and assessing improvements, I decided to take a little break and get some of the food images posted.  The ones here are perhaps at a more resolved state, although each has some things to address as was discussed in our critique yesterday afternoon.

Lyndsey is going to work on the ribbing of the ice cream cones so they wrap the forms more spatially. Kimberly is going to being in some crisper highlights. Courtney is going to break up some of the implied lines near the edges. Ashley is going to pump up the value on some the crumbly textures. Allison is going to give more context to the animal crackers on the top and bottom edge.

These drawings, and the several others that I'll get posted after the resubmissions, enabled each artist to push their powers of observation and to more fully understand the function and strength of line, shape, value, and texture on a two-dimensional surface. They also became more aware of the expressive qualities of their drawing processes.  Enjoy.  

More About Gesture

In a few more days, the evening drawing class will begin working from a live model.  We've been exploring gesture during the last few classes in preparation.  Everyone in class has now had experience doing short poses, so the empathetic process is starting to solidify.  After last Thursday's session, I think many were exhausted by the end.  We all stood at the drawing horses instead of sitting, allowing the gestural process to become more animated.

When a live model assumes a pose, especially the short ones for gestures, it's not a bad plan for those of us who are drawing to twist or bend in a similar pose to help us understand the nature of the movement the model is making, helping us to empathize with that energy.  Then when we look up and down the figure it might be a little easier to see - even imagine - the line in the pose that summarizes the main force of the gesture.  It might be the arc of the back, or a strong diagonal line through the torso and down one leg, such as in a contraposto position.  Ideally, that line that we find will have a strong role to play in the model's movement: twisting, bending, turning.  Then using your whole arm, not just your wrist, draw that line, that energy. Again, we're not worrying about detail here, we want the energy and the character of the movement.  Stating the contour doesn't do it, we have to work from the inside out.

After that first forceful line, we continue searching with both our physical vision and our drawing utensil to find another complimentary and energetic line in the pose to include with the first; not thinking, just drawing, but maintaining the same priority of the energy of the pose, and of that first line  Keeping a fast pace, we add other parts, but not as arms, legs, hair, etc., but rather as lines of energy that act in tandem with those already on the page.

Gesture drawing is an excellent warm up exercise every time we draw, even when we're working on something less animated than a live model.  See you in the studio.