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.
WOW, well I can tell you one thing, I was exhausted, very intense. I liked her very much, she had some much energy and I appreciate her working with the model, showing us ways to capsure the figure and the motion. I specifically liked working in just shadows.
ReplyDeleteI can say that it was definitely a workout. I do feel that I learned a lot and I enjoyed her helping everyone with the principles involved. At times it was mind boggling especially in the faster sketches since I am not that fast yet.
ReplyDeleteThis workshop was good. Fast. Intense. The drawings I saw around the room were really good. Some were blowing me away.
ReplyDeleteHowever///
In regards to...
"Artists in any discipline should never be obliged to make stylistic or aesthetic choices merely to avoid technical limitations"
Pollock was a failed painter in one regard. His kitsch painting are what made him. He was merely "making stylistic or aesthetic choices to avoid technical limitations."
Though theory and classicism are some what of a requirement to drawing, art is not.
Which paintings of Pollock's are you calling "Kitsch"? Also, I don't think his aesthetic choices were to avoid technical limitations. He had a very strong "technical" grasp of drawing. And, could you elaborate on that last sentence about theory and classicism? I'm not sure I understand.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree. Pollock's surreal work was more of an evolution. He started with serious technical drawing skills. He painted and engraved traditionally from drawings and sketches. In his later work, he started working more spontaneous. He was well respected before he got into the crazy stuff. Art and drawing cannot be separated. Drawing is all about practice and learning to see. It is a learned skill. There are never any excuses for any not developing drawing. "My own personal style" is one excuse I hear most budding artists who are just too lazy to practice or just want to avoid criticism. As an beginning student I don't even feel I have earned the right to have a style or call my work art yet. It's just graded practice. Hopefully I will have learned and earned my own style by the time I graduate. Then I'll either be a short-order cook or an artist or both.
ReplyDeleteI met an elderly art teacher in Germany. He was talking about his teaching experiences, and he told a story about one time when he had his students doing studies of old master paintings. One of his students expressed concern about losing his own personal style by emulating these techniques. The student said, "But I don't want to paint like one of the old masters."
ReplyDeleteThe teacher replied, "Risk it, boy. Risk it."
Learning from the old masters is a valuable tool to have and practicing all the defined technical aspects of drawing can only make you technically stronger. This can be quite frustrating indeed, but if you stick with it, your creative dreams can start to be accomplished. This is when, I believe your own personal style will blosoom on it's own.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to another intense drawing class on Tuesday...well maybe I am.
OOPS! Spelled blossom wrong, sorry. That blew that "intelligent" comment right off the canvas!
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad that we had the chance to do the exercise with 'just one gestural stroke' on the five second sketches. I believe that really helped me to get a better feel of the gesture. Thanks so much for having her come and teach us, Brian! :D
ReplyDeleteTomorrow's final session with Claudia will be a really good session. She is bringing a new model along with her that she has worked with before and that she thinks highly of as a life drawing model. Mark has "resigned" as our model.
ReplyDeletehe "resigned"?? I guess claudia was too hard on him. I never felt like he enjoyed being there anyway.
ReplyDeleteI wondered if it was physically too hard for him. He appeared to have had a lot of surgeries, maybe he couldn't take the physical stress of it. Hope Claudia model is good.
ReplyDeleteIt has to be difficult to get up there and pose in the buff. I have to admire anyone who has the nerve for it. This poor guy, however, just did not want to be there in my opinion. Maybe Brian just doesn't pay well enough. In any case, it's more fun just to blame Brian.
ReplyDeleteGlad to know who we can blame it on :-)
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't pay enough, but I'm working on an appealing retirement bonus for future models. Actually, it is a strenuous job as everyone may recall from the gestures we all did a few weeks ago. I'm glad we'll have someone new tonight.
ReplyDeletewe should draw at a ballet studio.
ReplyDeleteThe last time Claudia came, I was exhausted by the time class was over. This time I left energized. I really feel the model had something to do with this. Glad he's coming back.
ReplyDeleteSo i:m sitting here and wondering... can you draw with paint? I mean i could dip a stick in the paint and draw with that, but then I might as well use a stick with bristles on the end...oh yeah then that goes from drawing to painting. or does it? So is drawing defined by the medium you use or the method by which it is applied? They make oil bars which is oil paint is a stick form? I really am not sure where the line is drawn but Im curious to see what some others think.
ReplyDeleteWe've used sticks in ink to draw in class. We've used pastels, some people consider pastels as paintings. You can do an "underdrawing" for a painting, with paint and a brush. I think the lines between the 2 mediums can get pretty blurred. We can take that even farther, in printmaking you mostly use drawing skills. I think drawing is the basis behind all most art forms.
ReplyDeleteSome fairly broad ranged information concerning Alex's question can be found at:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing
It's an excellent question that I hope can be further addressed in tonight's critique. That is, however, if anyone has taken advantage of the "You may use any drawing medium/media, or drawing media with mixed media on a good quality surface..."
There is a girl enrolled in a painting class right now who is allergic to paint but she can use pastels and it is still considered painting. I think certain tools with certain media define them. If you stick a paintbrush in paint, its a painting. If you stick it in ink or charcoal its considered a drawing. I think if you too a stick without bristles and dipped it in paint you would be drawing with it. Then again, these assumptions are just brought on by what we all were taught throughout are lives as traditional or normal techniques and we a free to challenge those as artists I guess.
ReplyDeleteClaudia reminded me of methods used in my first figure drawing class before I came to IUS. Our professor would have us measure everything with our pencil and make dots at key points like the head, shoulders, knees...and then draw lines through them, like shoulder to shoulder or knee to knee to get the position and proportion of the figure down. Then we would do built up gesture over that. It was time-consuming but really helped with proprortion. Claudias methods were frustrating at times but I like it because it allowed me to approach drawing in many different ways.
ReplyDeleteI like Alex's question. You can draw with paint and paint with pencil in my opinion. It's a matter of philosophy and media choice. However, academically, I have to distinguish between the two. As I get further along in my studies, the lines might blur, but for now I need to focus on them as separate skills. I would be afraid of getting too comfortable with one media. A student might prefer oil painting, but would lose valuable experience if all drawing was done in oil. Mixed media and exploration are great, but I need my drawing course to be primarily about lines, tone, and accuracy. Of course, the courses also reinforce each other which is why we require exposure to all disciplines for any degree. I guess you just have to ask yourself, "Why am I drawing this in oil,pastel,pencil,etc?"
ReplyDeleteIn our critique last Thursday evening, Wende presented an image exectuted with watercolor; Sue used markers and water color; Alex used paint and charcoal; Chris used collage and charcoal, and many others used other more "traditional" drawing media. In spite of the range of materials used for each expression, the discipline of drawing was the basis for those works. The discipline of drawing has been rejuvenated in the past decade, maybe longer, by an enormous variety of approaches and concepts; it's no longer about making
ReplyDeletemarks on paper with dry media. We now have a vast toolbox of materials and surfaces on which to flex our conceptual muscles. I would think and hope that we want our experiences in drawing, whether in a studio class or working on our own, to realize the expressive possibilities of drawing, and the manual, conceptual, and visual skills necessary to access those opportunities. Drawing has its own particular language rooted in direct tactile experience of media and the personal investigation of visual form, and it takes its strength, both historical and contemporary, from the direct connection between eye, mind, and hand. Drawing is a fundamental discipline of the arts and of itself.
First of all, I am super excited that the model resigned. He was horrible! I really enjoyed Claudia coming and working with us on figure drawing. I really liked some of her drawing activities. I particularly liked when she wanted us to use our eraser to erase the lights once our paper was dark from the charcoal. At first I was a little hesitant about what it would look like but it worked really well.
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