Cave Hill: Day Two (forecast)

Sunday evening, too early to forecast tomorrow's weather. The 'official' forecast for tomorrow says: "Scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe, High 91F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%." It also said about the same thing for today, but I didn't run into any raindrops, although it was pretty hot. I'll post tomorrow morning after looking at the satellite forecast.

However, one thing to consider is that it will be very warm tomorrow. So if we are not derailed by thunderstorms, please dress for warm weather and bring a bottled water or two with you.

Check back in the a.m.

Our First Cave Hill Day

Our first Cave Hill day was fairly productive and I think there were some pretty interesting starts on many of the drawings I saw. I missed many folks today during the session although I found many cars. Sorry I couldn't find the bodies that went with the cars.

There were some challenging issues that came up during the session that need to be considered, and some of them will be further individually addressed on Monday during our next session in Cave Hill. A few folks exclaimed, "I can't draw (fill in the blank)." For example (I know that Connie won't mind me using her as that example), she said, "I can't draw water." There are two misconceptions to that statement. One, the word "can't." That one word holds more people back from their creative potential than any other word. PLEASE, erase that word from your vocabulary, it is a tremendous detriment to your growth. The other, in the case of this example, is "water." Drawing water is no more difficult than drawing a sphere. It is about looking and seeing. We all interpret what we see through the art elements: line, value, shape, texture, and color. When I look at water, I see the same visual ingredients that I see on the sphere, all the art elements. No subject is more challenging than any other subject, it's imply how well we see it and how we arrange the elements.

I was talking to Cynthia (my wife) about it this evening (she did the cigarette drawing that hangs in the drawing studio), and she told me that she could actually remember when she changed from the left-brain way of looking at "water" to the right-brain point of view that was about line, value, shape, texture, and color. It was an epiphany that changed the way she saw the world. And I suppose on some level, it is an epiphany, to switch from seeing "water" to one that is about the art elements that we manipulate on a daily basis, and getting those elements to say 'water.' It goes beyond epiphany, it becomes the basis for an aesthetic philosophy that permeates our work.

So think about changing your way of thinking about your subject, let your process 'describe' what you see instead of letting a definition hold you back. Think about "how can I achieve that" rather than "I can't."

On a final note, the Cave Hill experience should yield two finished drawings. How you focus that work is up to you, so be open to visiting your favorite places at Cave Hill during the weekend and even next Wednesday. Here are some images from today:

Once Will got settled, he began his drawing looking down through a slight valley and across the lake to where Shawn was working. He objected somewhat, as only Will can do, to the difficulty of getting his oil pastels to "cover the paper." Of course, working on colored pastel paper is so the color of the paper can be incorporated into the drawing. The blue of his paper and the fact that its texture made it difficult to cover only enhanced the overall quality of the drawing. The blue sparkles through in many of the areas thus providing a unifying feel.

Shawn was on the opposite side of the lake taking in a great deal of space which will bring him all the way to his immediate foreground. He's also using oil pastels, and after I stopped back by around 4:00, I was pretty impressed with the 'painterly' quality of the image. He had blocked in some colored shapes and was blending in lights, darks, cools and warms.

Randilynn was positioned with a point of view that intersected Shawn's and Will's, so we'll have some nice lake drawings after they spend another day on the ones they started today. Randilynn was having a little bit of struggle getting the leaves to look "right," so I told her not to think of them as leaves but as clusters of texture, working light colors over the darker colors to get the sense of form and space.

Rachel put her focus on the plant life on the hillside next to the lake, and although I didn't see it in the later stages of the day, she had a pretty good start, although she may move on in her next effort.

Louise and Rachel found a shady spot to work from. Louise was focused on the circular fountain out it the lake. Both were working fairly small scaled so I'm meeting with them for a chunk of time on Monday to work through some stuff that they'd like to address.

Connie was out in the sun (impressive) working on one of the mausoleums because she had decided not to work by the lake. She said of the drawing on Monday that had I been around I would have heard her cussing me for my requirement that water be included in the 8" x 10" drawing. She said, "I don't know how to draw water!" That'll change soon.

Allison was close by to Connie's drawing site but worked on a different mausoleum, she was very focused on her drawing in spite of the impromtu visit by Jerrye from last summer's drawing class (it was good to see you, Jerrye).

Have a productive weekend and I'll see you Monday. Be sure the check the blog or ONCOURSE for any last minute changes.

Cave Hill Tomorrow Afternoon

The forecast for tomorrow is partly cloudy and 87 degrees, humidity about 60% so it'll be warm. Bring a garbage bag to sit on as the ground may be wet, or if you have a little folding chair. See you tomorrow between 1:00 and 1:15 on the main avenue of Cave Hill.

Please don't think that because we're meeting in a cemetery that you have to do drawings with monuments, you can just focus on the landscapes. If you choose to incorporate a monument, look for ones that have figurative elements instead of the "expected" graveyard stuff.

See you tomorrow.

On to Landscape

We're going to be exploring landscape for the final five drawing sessions. The landscape brings in a whole new range of complexities that are quite different from still life and figure drawing. Ultimately, though, its commonality is observation. Some tips that might be helpful:

1. Try not to use your eraser unless you're using it to draw with, such as controlling light. Every line you draw in a landscape is important. Your mark-making process is the basis for a unique creative development.
2. Try to incorporate blind contour drawing, looking at your subject and letting your pencil follow the lines of your subject. Sometimes trees will look more natural if you don't get caught up in drawing what you think you know about trees, but rather drawing waht you see.
3. Drawing negative spaces can make landscape drawing a little less complex than following the lines of positive forms. It also helps to develop stronger observations skills.
4. Squint your eyes to see the light and dark patterns.
5. Us your pencil to take measurements such as what you did with still life and figure drawings.
6. Find ways to respond to the textures of the landscape instead of trying to draw all of those leaves.

Over the next five sessions, be sure to check in with our blog and with ONCOURSE to see if there are changes in the calendar. On those days when we are meeting at an off campus site, if there is a strong chance of rain, I will notify you through both portals, so be sure to check prior to the session.

Mid-Session Critique

Just a few comments about our critique before it gets too far away from this past Tuesday. The grouping format worked well and seemed to generate a lot of constructive and instructive comments to which everyone seemed receptive. I think posing some pre-critique questions for consideration was also helpful. Based on that experience (a few more questions):

• From the response of others, are people seeing what was intended, or are you seeing one thing while everyone else sees another?
• Can you resist pressure to be pushed in a direction you are not interested in, but remain open to other's ideas at the same time?
• When you hear constructive criticism, can you listen without feeling defensive?

At this halfway point, it is now important to budget time, set priorities, and move toward a cohesive group of completed drawings that inform, inspire, engage, educate, and move us. Looking forward to the 22nd!

Shawn, Allison, Sue, Kim, and Greg the secretary, discuss their responses to Miri's drawings of distorted and skewed points-of-view.

Connie, Elle, Aberlyn, Will, and Randilyn discuss Shawn's diptychs of psychological narratives.

Series of Interest

This is an installation view of a series of charcoal drawings by a drawing student named Anna Claire Shapiro. I don't know where she is a student, but I thought her series was pretty impressive. She began the series with drawings of coral on 18" x 24" paper. Her goal was to do 50 quick drawings from observation in order to get to know the coral and its visual potential. She engaged in a process of toning, erasing, toning, erasing, pulling form forward and pushing it back. The installation if made up of several finished drawings 22" x 30" and up to 40" x 60" that were not part of the 50 sketches. Of course this is a very ambitious project and one that is the result of a full 16 week semester, but take a look at how it evolved.

This is one of the more finished drawing included in the installation. Each drawing has it's own strength and stands on it's own. The installation was an after thought, and not part of her original intention. Be open to those possibilities.

This is another of the finished series and you can see how she took the forms and responded to the lights and darks to create these surreal and abstract images.

This drawing also grew out of the 50 quick sketches and remains more closely connected to both the coral and the abstraction of the coral.

This is one of the original 50 sketches when Shapiro was "learning" about her subject. You can see how the finished pieces above grew out of these sketches.

This is the first of the 50 sketches, now look back at the installation to see how it grew into something much stronger and much more engaging. Shapiro left open the possibilities for the unexpected. This is a good example of the artist "listening" to the drawings, letting one drawing lead to the next, a sort of "let me start here and see where it takes me." Scroll back up the page so you can see the development.

The forms modeled with strong lights and darks and the skilled creation of space show a strong grounding in basic drawing methods, but Shapiro also pushed much further toward a personal statement. They are not just drawings of coral. She built an imaginative world where the coral forms became a metaphor for skeletons and suggestions of images appear in the abstraction.

It'll be interesting to see where we are on Tuesday and hear about the potentials that are evolving your series.

Happy Memorial Day.

Drawing From Life

We had our first session with the model yesterday, and for the most part, there were some positive results. It is a building process, so please be patient. As mentioned, drawing from the human figure has been going on for centuries, and it gives us the tools, or vocabulary, for creating drawings, paintings, sculptures, or prints, from Renaissance classical to contemporary abstraction. It's because drawing from life provides such an essential foundation for all other creative expressions that we spend some time with the subject every semester. Of course a summer session compresses the experience considerably so you have to utilize your sketchbooks for additional experience.

One cannot learn how to draw simply by having someone describe the process or explain how it's done, as we did with gesture yesterday. Just like learning to play a musical instrument, learning to draw requires an investment of time spent in diligent practice, and looking at the drawings of other artists who are exploring the same subject. Check out this website for a lot of information and examples by many artists who use the figure. Be sure to hit the "Figure Drawing" and "Life Drawing" buttons as well as the "How to..." buttons. It will help you to see many possibilities.