Series Spectacular!

The series projects were unveiled over the past two days during two critiques. Even though we've had glimpses of each one in-progress, the finished groups are pretty amazing for the most part. Unlike the past times when I posted examples from each series, I am posting each entire group of images. I do apologize for some minor cropping and color changes, but for the most part it's a pretty good representation of the works. If you want to see a closer view of the work, just click on the drawing.

Veronica Greenwell's series explored the connections and relationships between art and science. Using the brain as motif, Veronica utilized string, wire, encyclopedia and thesaurus pages to create intimate and complex representations of left brain/right brain influences on our needs for linear reasoning and creative expression.

Todd Brewer's group explored the landscape from his back porch. He originally planned to create drawings of different times of day or seasons of the same place, but later changed to the same time of day but interpreted through a variety of media. Each drawing is roughly 18"x24", and utilizes oil pastel, Prisma Color Art Stiks, soft pastel, and graphite.

Stephanie Smith's three drawings are created on layered vellum with imagery drawn on all sides. She wanted to bring to her images the effects of being deaf in her right ear, hence the more faded part of the image represented on her right side. She was attracted to a run down, dilapidated building that served as the space for both the calmness and the chaos of hearing from only one side.

Shawn McPheron's 4' x 12' panoramic view of the Ohio River is a very ambitious set of panels executed with oil pastels. This site is one of his favorite places to draw and he would often haul one panel at a time there to catch a detail that slipped by his on previous trips. It is a remarkable piece in that the space is so vast and so well observed.

Phil Lawrence's three drawings in charcoal and graphite examined the juxtaposition of environment and emotion and the idea that we are, or are not, products of our environments. The influence of place and how we acquiesce or contest its impact on the individual. Each panel is roughly 22" x 30".

Philip Carlton's four graphite drawings, each 23" x30", are deftly drawn episodes of the mundane experiences that can often be defining experiences in our lives. He used a teddy bear as the star of each episode, adjusting its scale to fit the space and activity. The sense of humanity in each image is very compelling, as they are rife with the wit, compassion, melancholy, and introspection.

Miri Phelps created this three-panel installation as a sequential examination of time, moments in and a continuum of, by utilizing photographic sources of water being poured over the heads of her friends. Executed with charcoal and acrylic paint, each panel measures 26" x 20".

Lori Richie, often attracted to creating images of nature, instead explored nature's effect on her physically as manifested in her severe allergies. Each image is drawn on paper with soft pastels, then framed, and then the drawing is continued on the plexiglass glazing with markers, setting up an interesting contrast in color and line quality. The top image has light reflecting off the plexi (sorry about that). Each panel is 24" x 36"

Joy Wilson utilized graphite in these three panels that explored gender issues and perceptions. Using the same female model for each image, she morphed from the more "girly" to the androgynous, finally to the masculine.

Dani Maudlin's five panels used the skeleton and its posings as a metaphor for the various physical and emotional pains she has endured over the past few months. Each panel is 29" x 41", and started with a black and white monotype on which she pulled the skeleton out of the visually textured surface using oil pastels.

Alex Strach began this series by asking "old" people on the street if she could take their pictures, and then she asked them about their aging process. Some of those responses are included in the negative areas of the images. She combined charcoal and graphite in each 22" x 30" panel.

Aberlyn Sweetland May created these four compelling images by drawing, painting, tearing, collaging, sanding, scoring, and screaming at these 21" x 30" photographs that originally served her as sources for her paintings. The process that unfolded over the past six weeks is an exciting one to see in her work, and once she let go of the photo-reality to create one less pretty, the new reality became very beautiful.

It has been a very fast and compressed six weeks summer session, and one unlike any session I've ever experienced. We had four very engaging visiting artists in who discussed their work and taught us something new about the drawing process. One of those visiting artists, Emily Sheehan, will be joining the faculty starting the fall semester. She will be bringing new ideas and approaches to our drawing curriculum, and we're very excited to have her.

Also unlike any previous summer session, we didn't have even one day of landscape drawing and only one week of the figure. Changes happened almost daily with our schedule. However, everyone endured and made the best of the situation, for which I'm both thankful and grateful.

Our critiques and discussions about the work that was developing during the session took many different directions, especially toward the end as the intent and purpose of the series projects were more fully embraced. The discussions that last few days were often enlightening, entertaining, challenging, and rewarding. Nicely done, all.

Have a great summer.

Critique Time

We're going to spend the next two days critiquing the series projects, 200 level today and 300/400 levels tomorrow. I've already seen three of the upper level projects-in-progress and feel very confident that the individual explorations and expressions from those groups will inspire some very engaging discussions. The 200 level group has been more candid about their projects and only during the progress critiques have we seen glimpses of their directions in-progress. Today's critique with them will be exciting, not only to see the entire groups of finished drawings, but to also participate in those discussions. Check back in a few days to see the results of their labors.

Last Drawing Session

This summer session seems to have flown by amazingly fast. Today will be our last actual drawing session, the end of our figure studies. In spite of only having three sessions with the model, there have been some nice improvements getting at the gesture and the dynamic of the figure in the space. I strolled through the studio to get some shots and most of the long poses from Tuesday had already been removed, but I did catch Aberlyn's and Philip's still resting on their drawing boards. I shot a few more but the amount of coffee this morning resulted in blurry shots, and only the two below were passable.

Philip had a side view that allowed him to really take advantage of the space and the reclined pose. The figure almost appears to have been sculpted by the way he used his charcoal and the continuous tones between the light and the darks.

Aberlyn's point of view was a pretty extreme foreshortening which starts to describe the figure in more abstract terms, stacking and abbreviating form on top of form, which affects the figure's normal symmetry and proportions.

Today, we'll get a bit more involved in composition and breaking up the pictorial space, maintaining our objectivity in analyzing the figure and focusing on physically observable things, such as the play of light, the structural relationships of form, and the model's spatial position and relationship to its environment. See you soon.

One more time!

With the current heat and humidity, it looks as though we'll not have an outdoor outing this session, and there aren't enough windows for everyone to find a good 'window-scape' to draw, so we're going to spend one more day with light and dark values, color, gravity, shape, texture, line, and composition. Although as a prelude to our work next week with the figure, this might be a good place to start putting a little more emphasis on gesture. I can see this subject developing quickly with both line and mass gesture. We'll experiment and see what happens.

The Figure

We'll be spending our final week of the summer session with the figure, so next Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday make sure you have plenty of newsprint. Given the short amount of time we have with the figure, our time will be spent exploring some of the basic vocabulary and concepts necessary to begin drawing the human form and then progress to more analytical study of proportions. Line and mass gesture will get us started.

Life drawing provides an essential foundation for all other forms of creative expression, and has been a part of our art program for a really long time. However, a course devoted to Life drawing would be the ideal, but for now we'll at least have some experience drawing the figure as a discipline and for further honing our visual skills.

The Series Thread

Connie has asked several times for a series arena in which to discuss what's happening with everyone's work, so here it is, start discussing. Remember that our next series crit/discussion is now on June 6, when we will get to see actual work from everyone. Aberlyn and Dani were the only two that had images to sink our teeth into last time, so this next go-around will be a much more chewy discussion with works-in-progress from everyone. Also, don't forget how the series will be assessed: the average of the two highest progress reports. I'm, of course, assuming those will be the last two. OK, Connie, you're on....

New Drawings Feast

Here are the rainy day drawings in lieu of the landscapes we had hope to get started on last week. Theses are pretty sweet though. It would have been good to see some get a bit more focused time, but it wasn't in the cards for us this week. And it probably won't next week either with the visiting artists coming into the studio.

Veronica's juxtaposition of the broken pot and the deep and dark red drapery is pretty dramatic. Including that cooler space creates an almost surreal quality to the image.

Todd only had about a day to work on this due to the weather standing him at home for the first day, but the start is a good one, and we're going to work on those ellipses, make them go all the way around.

Stephanie's drawing has a stage presence, and her mark-making seems to be getting stronger with the oil pastels. That might be worth more exploration.

Shawn explored one the the hidden worlds of the still life and the mysteriousness of the space starts to suggest an interesting narrative.

Philip's intuitive use of color is very strong in this image, and the layering of space and light pulls into the image nicely.

Phil moved with more confidence in this image, perhaps due to the faster sketching medium. The transparency of the large vessel works very well.

Miri's painterly approach to drawing is pretty remarkable and she maintains a sense of energy throughout the entire process and resulting image.

Lori made a positive step with this drawing. She may start getting into activating her surface with marks instead of pushing her pastels into the paper. The drapery has a good sense of volume to it.

Joy took this drawing on an interesting journey with oil pastels, mineral spirits, and then finishing with soft pastels. It also feels very painterly.

Dani also captured the mystery of two hidden spaces, the broken vase and the cool recesses of the underneath. She did this with colored pencil, so the surface markings are very much involved with cross contours and subtle textures.

Connie also had a shorted drawing session on this and started to get the forms positioned the way she wanted them. A little more time defining details would have worked well

Alex did some pretty interesting things with the grapes and the light on the small vessel. However, the vessel itself could use a bit more focus on proportion. The light on that corner almost pushes it out of the picture plane.

3rd Still Life

The weather is being very uncooperative and we're stuck inside extending our two week still life exploration into a third week. It's a good thing, though, since a still life drawing can function on may levels and have many purposes. Working in color on the current one will help us understand how color acts in real life, how light moves around the space an forms, lending and barrowing colors throughout. Still lifes can teach us how an arrangement of colors and values can bring a special mood to the drawing. In the case of black and white drawings, used by the majority of us in the last still life, the purpose is different. A still life pencil or charcoal drawing can help us study shapes more closely and see how they interact on our eyes, we learn how to measure correct proportions, and we pay more attention to the details because we're not making the same kinds of decisions as we do with color. In either case, though, how we see the subject and respond to our media can make the difference between a good drawing and a remarkable drawing.

Still lifes are the most available subjects in the world, and while some people may consider still life drawing boring, the fact is they teach us a lot. When you have no idea of what to draw in your journals, just make an arrangement of things you have at home and start drawing. If you keep practicing on drawing still life subjects you will find out that you have a much better understanding on how light works, and how objects relate to each other within a particular space and within a composition.

Below are a few points of view of our current creative problem.

Here are the images from our two day, a little into the third day, anti-gravity, tension, wrapped boxes, missiles, cones, and spheres still life. There are some pretty cool drawings here and I think everyone very much enjoyed this process.

Veronica has a very delicate touch with her pencil and built the image with a pretty unique marking system. It may present more challenge to crop into a composition that allows a closer observation.

Todd got very involved in pushing the graphite around and then erasing into the image. In fact, he may have gotten too caught up in that and never made it to the white forms. Let's try charcoal and see if things move a little faster, or crop into the subject a little tighter.

Stephanie got into charcoal with her drawing and did some abbreviating on some of the folds in the fabric. It's a pretty good range of values on the white forms, let's push to see an equal range on things that are not white.

Shawn used the prisma color stiks and got some pretty nice color layers to move the space around, nicely composed as well.

Philip used graphite here and really did some nice spatial things with the negative area by bringing in the skeleton. That drapery looks great.

Phil moved along slowly with his initial process, but once he found where he was going, the image almost appeared in one afternoon. It would be good to see the detail focus on all of the areas.

Miri painted with charcoal and created a really strong image of contrasts and movement. Beautifully composed.

Lori got into her pastels, and got the local colors of the form down and started to work in the other color shifts before the session ended. It would be good to see more of the details and the effects of colors lending to one another.

Joy used charcoal, pushing it around and then pulling it back out until the abstract elements started to take hold. Keep pushing to see the in-between value range.

Dani built her image one piece at a time. It would be good to see how the negative area might be built so that top plane could have some more drama. Nicely drawn.

Connie confessed that she never uses black...hmmmm...maybe this is the image to give it another chance. Very painterly oil pastels, but needs some darker areas.

Alex's perspective sort of denied the gravity issue creating a fabric encased totem pole. Let's see if some of the finer nuances of the subject can make it into some subsequent works.

Aberlyn move around the form in a one-step-at-a-time approach that created a very strong composition. Very Stephen Posen-esque.

Two-Day Still life

We'll explore the above still life for two sessions which should result in some pretty amazing work. I think the elements of gravity and tension will provide for some pretty unique interpretations. Check back in a few days to see some of the creations.

Stripes and Stuff

I though the still life for yesterday's drawing session was pretty inspiring based on the drawings we saw at the end. The 200 level line exploration I thought went fairly well, although I hope there will be additional efforts in your sketchbooks. Such a deliberate approach is one of the most expedient ways of training the eye to observe accurately, which is a huge benefit to anyone who wants to represent perceived reality. Drawing from close observation eventually prepares us to visualize things that exist only in our imaginations, such as the cloud drawing series I passed out the first day of class. You can clearly see that Brace had a strong visual vocabulary to draw from in her work, she has spent a lot of time looking and drawing.

The value work of the 300 and 400 levels also went well. In our brief discussion, there was a point made about perhaps reducing the scale of the format to insure a more resolved, or finished work by the end of the session. In those cases, it may also be a good plan to try to bring up the composition as a whole rather than piece by piece.

Another point in the discussion had to do with abbreviating. Not saying it's bad, but when the focus is to communicate what you see, there might be too much essential information being filtered out.

So, we'll move on with a new still life next week. Maybe extending it over two classes and using paper worthy of a six hour drawing, I'll see what I have on hand. We'll also take a look at more drawing candidate portfolios, and discuss some series ideas.

Hope the sketchbooks are cooking. Hope your ideas are cooking. See you Monday.

Drawing Visual Pretest

After going over the syllabus and skimming along through other materials, an hour was devoted to our first drawing exercise. Everyone was given a 10" x 11" piece of 2-ply bristol and a No. 2 pencil. A clear glass lantern was place on a draped cube. The instructions were to draw exactly what was seen with no erasing. Moving from top left to right, and each is numbered (you may click on the image for a more detailed view):

1.Well done utilizing the space with a pretty delicate but wide range of values. Seeing more of that textural surface would add more interest to the image and perhaps redirect some of the attention away from the lantern wick housing.

2. Unified and detailed, although chopping off the top puts a lot of emphasis on the bottom third of the image where the drawing process seems to have lost some interest. No.2 pencils are limiting, but pushing for a wider range of value would be good.

3. Good range of value, but perhaps a bit too generalized, especially given the amount of texture and pattern that was on the lower part of the lantern. Where the lantern wick resides is the best observed, other parts become too abstract for direct observation.

4. Same as 3. above, perhaps too generalized, but well drawn and the scale holds the space well. Abstract qualities are stronger than the observed qualities. The challenge was to draw exactly what you see.

5. Interesting how the values on the right negate the space between the lantern and the back wall. Other details are well handled, but try not to get too smudgy with your values. Keep them clean and crisp on subject where they need to be clean and crisp.

6. Careful with placement, proportions handled pretty well, but the line work is a bit hesitant and fuzzy, making the image feel nervous. Practice in your sketchbook drawing forms from observation, start simple then work to more complex to develop a confident line.

7. Although a No.2 pencil is not very versatile, a wider range of value would be good here, also try to expand seeing from the general to the specific. You suggest the textures, now try to represent them.

8. The lantern is well drawn, but so tiny that the drapery dominates, try to expand the scale and move visually into the space. Watch the surfaces that are perpendicular to you, their shapes will hint at the perspective.

9. Like 9. above, the lantern is tiny, even tinier, so tiny it would be hard to say its a drawing of a lantern. Look harder, expand your space, avoid the unnecessary. There's almost more emphasis on everything but the lantern.

10. This one moved in pretty tight so one would expect to really see the detail. Try to see all of the essentials. Those dark areas on the edges become something other than passages of value, maybe there should be more transition in them to relate to the space.

11. Shape, proportion, and detail need some closer observation, but a good range of value. Careful with composition as well. Back ground marks aren't saying too much other than space fill. Be sensitive to your mark making.

12. Try not to get too smudgy with values and watch your proportion and scale, also be aware of how your composing. Practice in your sketchbook drawing symmetrical forms.

13. General shapes are close, but detail is too generalized, values in lantern suggest colored class rather than clear. What makes the class dark..would that be background? The darer side panels adds an interesting element to the composition.

14. Consider your composition, why run it off the bottom? The use of texture adds an interesting element to the image, but the back ground marks aren't saying too much other than space filler. Be sensitive to your mark making.

For an hour long drawing on a small scale, there are some pretty good responses. My responses above are not biased by the expectations of the various levels of drawing, but rather how the image works relative to direct observation - draw exactly what you see - and the formal considerations of line, value, texture, shape, and composition. Of course the 200 level is reinvestigating those elements, while the 300 and 400 levels should be well versed in those areas by now, and maybe only need some 'getting back on the bike' practice. In all of these drawings, if I were to see such images in sketchbooks, I would consider them substantive.

Later.

Summer Session 1

Another summer drawing session begins today. It'll be fun to see everyone eager to spend the next six weeks immersed in the creative process of looking, drawing, thinking, seeing, experimenting, sketching, talking, considering, empathizing. As in past semesters, we will explore the process of creating a series of images. There's lots of reference to that process in past posts on this blog, and examples of some series highlights, such as the ones below.

Alex Kennedy's Madonna and Child image that led to the beautiful exhibition that is currently in the Barr Gallery. If you haven't checked our the current graduating BFA senior exhibition, do so before it closes.

Danny Palafox's magnifications of nuts and bolts were beautifully done drawings, rich in texture and color.

Louise Clausen's figures in water was a two semester exploration that eventually led her to new ways of considering the drawing process where she combined liquid and dry media.

Greg Truesdel's series was close-up examinations of bugs. Greg's is also currently exhibiting a series of 'Circus Posters' he created for his BFA thesis, complete with a circus tent he constructed for the installation. Very dramatic. Go check it out.

Aberlyn May's series of three portraits were connected into an alteresque type triptych that explored familial connections and identity.

It's exciting anticipating the new work that will be created during this first summer session. Several new series, all allowing us to see things a little differently, to think differently about what we see, and to find out something new about the artists and their process.

See you soon.