Motivation for Uber-Nerds

My Constant Companions
copyright Rose Welty
colored pencil on Ingres paper
(note that this was done from life, without my glasses on!)

I think I can finally declare myself an uber-nerd. Tell me what you think after you hear this true story.

The other day I was thinking of shirking the daily exercise routine on the elliptical. (OK, that's making me sound better than I am: I am trying to get into a daily habit of working off the pounds on the elliptical, I'm nowhere near daily yet. Perhaps ten times in the last few weeks.) But then I remembered, the Holbein book.

I've been treating myself to a read of my new book only when I am exercising. So, I quick changed my clothes and happily hopped on and went to sweating. As I got off later, disappointed that I had to stop reading and gawking and start stretching, I realized it. What sort of nerd are you if you motivate yourself to exercise by reading art history? Not even with a musical backdrop, just flat out reading. That, my friends, is an uber-nerd for you.

Even after this revelation and noting the social impacts, I was disappointed to realize that I have finished the Holbein book. Thankfully, I've got a few more of those "can't put it down" art history books waiting for me and the elliptical!

Have a good weekend everyone, whatever your reading pleasure!

Happy Birthday and Kleenex Drama

All the Drama One Kleenex Can Hold
copyright Rose Welty
Colored Pencil on Ingres Paper

Here's a happy birthday to my sister-in-law, Sue! She and I share the same birthday.

Wish I could send you all some cake!

Recently Jeanette Jobson has been doing some nice work on tinted grounds (see here for a sample). In my Holbein reading, I also found some stunning pieces down on tinted grounds with just black and white chalk. So, I had to have a go myself. I have a very old pad of colored Ingres paper from a class I took while living in Oxford (sketching in fields on summery Oxford evenings, lovely times.)

Thinking of my desire to get back into the Mendelowitz book, I decided to do the exercise that I had stopped at, drawing a cloth pinned to a wall. But, not wanting to bother finding a cloth or pinning it, I just grabbed a kleenex, dropped it on the desk and went for it. It's rather a dramatic setting for the humble nose-wiper, but I enjoyed the exercise.

To Study or Not to Study

Here's another copy of a Holbein portrait drawing. This time, Jakob Meyer.

Drawings like this evidence that Holbein did fairly extensive studies (with some coloring) before beginning a painting. I know there are some artists who still do this today, and there are also just as many who only do a quick 1 or 2 minutes before they dive onto the final support.

Last year I tried doing a carefully rendered rough draft for a commission. The problem was that I then had difficulty transferring it to the final support. Since then I've worked on sketching without an eraser (or in a medium that you can't erase), hoping to gain skill in "seeing" it right the first time. I do think that I am getting some better, at least I'm not so nervous about getting it right the first time anymore.

However, with color choice and technique, I do think I would benefit from more carefully rendered rough drafts. Colored pencil, as a semi-transparent medium, stands between the unforgivable nature of watercolors and the "scrape it and begin again" nature of oils.

The forgiving nature of CPs tends to depend on the support. Drafting film/vellum is very forgiving, you can erase anything on it (although I know at least one artist who feels it changes the film for the worse and won't do it.) Pastelbord (and I imagine other sanded surfaces) is also forgiving, because it takes many layers, so you can put a highlight back in over the top of something darker (although, I have found exceptions to this already with pastelbord - and I don't think you can really erase the surface either.) Traditional papers however, are usually not considered as forgiving as the above mentioned supports.

In the end, as with most things in art, your technique, process, and preferences feed off of one another and what works for some, won't for others and visa versa.

March Goals Review: Rethinking the Plan

Pear Blossoms
brush and ink, 5 in x 7 in
copyright Rose Welty 2008

At the end of last year, I spent lots of time mulling over goals for 2008. I tried very hard to set myself an achievable challenge. Enough to feel like a stretch, but not too much to necessarily fail.

I did well in January, began to fall a bit behind in February, and now in March, I've achieved very little of what I planned for this month. So I'm having a bit of a rethink. Part of this results from the changing needs of my family and my recognition that I want to enjoy them and not always feel like they are taking away valuable art time! :D

What I Really Enjoy

• digital painting and sketching on the Nintendo DS
• experimenting with CPs
• historical reading of artists, their lives and their techniques
• brush and ink drawing
  

Areas I Want to Concentrate On (for now)

• basics of drawing - seems to me that sometimes I commit obvious errors and that a study of drawing would really help my confidence (and help me to see better)
• figure drawing - people fascinate me and I really want to incorporate them more into my work, but I need practice and greater knowledge

The above two lists have not significantly changed from the end of last year, but I think my implementation of them will have to change. I would still like to get through the Mendelowitz drawing book, explore color, and participate in some research projects. I had some other goals of starting paintings, entering a competition, and doing some polished works. Those are the goals that may have to take a back seat.

So, here is a revised look at April.

Business

• Finish still life commission. (I've done one and a half of three in the series.)
• Update website. (This will remain something I do at least once a month.)
  

Research

• Finish Taschen book on Japanese prints.
• Try and find another book on ukiyo-e
• Keep up Degas reading. (He was so influenced by the prints that I allowed myself to start reading about him this month, but now I've found a few great books and I just can't stop and wait until later in the year. This is partly what has slowed the ukiyo-e progress.)

Artwork

• Work through some of the Mendelowitz book.
• Sketch people, both from life and from references.
• Sketch with colored pencils, working on my use of color.
• Sketch digitally.

Above you see a brush and ink drawing I did this weekend. A couple of weeks ago the bradford pear tree in my front yard bloomed - truly a beautiful sight. The blossoms don't last long, but they are stunning when the neighborhood is filled with them. I took a bunch of pictures, knowing I would have to pick up the brush again.

Holbein Teaches Colored Pencils

Hans Holbein the Younger, brilliant German-born painter of the English court (and other things), taught me something about colored pencils last week! Not that he used CPs, as they didn't exist in his lifetime, but nonetheless, I really feel like I learned something.

Recently, I picked up Hans Holbein by Norbert Wolf on clearance. I decided to read it while exercising. I had picked it up just to learn a bit about him, but I've found that there are some drawings in the book, chalk drawings, that really look like colored pencil works. I keep turning back to them and studying them.

As I'm a hands-on learner, I tried copying the self-portrait that is reproduced on the back of the book, it's a chalk drawing, but again, you'd think CPs if you saw it now. It was fascinating to copy. Many of his lines are gentle, soft, almost tenuous, or unsure, until you look again and they blend into soft folds of skin. He clearly had great control of his chalk, the lines are masterfully weighted.

Then came the coloring part, I tried to just pick the closest thing to what I saw (I was using my new 36 set of Polychromos). They weren't the choices that I probably would normally have made, but they worked (or least I think so). I did the underlying sketch with walnut brown, laid on a base coat of the rose carmine, then shaded with middle cadmium red, walnut brown, and warm grey. I also tried a little indigo blue in the darkest shading, although I wasn't that happy with it.

All that to say, I saw the benefits of soft shading and the gentle touch. I've always admired that kind of work, but I've never been able to discipline myself to do it. Also, I think I saw a bit of how a painter thinks. This is a little more difficult to put into words, but I guess what I mean is, I look at paintings and wonder how they got a certain effect or how they built it up. Therein lies the mystery of painting for me. Somehow, looking at Holbein's preparatory pieces, I think I got a bit of an idea of how his brain built up to the finished piece.

A Great Many Lines

Last week I told you about Ingres' telling Degas to practice drawing a great many lines and about Degas' technique of drawing from memory.

So, being me, I just had to try and combine those things. First I tried to draw from memory the piece I had just finished a few days earlier, focusing on the lines. For a simple piece like this, I was able to recreate it, fairly accurately. After I drew each one, I tried emphasizing different lines or parts of lines. In this case, it didn't seem to make much of a difference, but I wonder if there is something akin to a value sketch here. Just like I would do a few quick value sketches, would it also be worth doing a few line sketches? The value sketches translate into abstract patterns, what about the lines sketches? Would a line sketch translate into abstract shapes, interesting abstract points of emphasis? OK, I'll stop thinking out loud on the keyboard...but I'll keep thinking. :D

Next I wanted to try it for a new piece. So, I took a glance at a new reference photo and then went in the other room and tried to draw it. Again, with such a simple still life, I could reproduce it. So, continuing with the line idea, I started asking myself questions like, "are the lines in this piece, exciting, appealing, the best they could be? Could I tweak them to be better? Do I need to take another reference shot, or can I just create it on the fly?" I began playing with the composition based on the flow of lines alone, without a reference photo. For a still life, this, I think, could be very important, it helps you see where things can be changed slightly to make a more dynamic composition - or where you've got shapes or lines too similar, or at the same height.

In some sense, I'm just trying to convince myself to take a little more time creating a piece before I begin.

Drawing from Memory

This year I am hoping to study human anatomy in order to be able to draw more of what I see in my mind. Recently I found an article on drawing from memory that was an encouragement to continue my efforts. Note that this post is based on that article, in the American Artist Drawing Magazine's Fall 2004 issue - "Drawing from Memory".

Artists use this skill generally and some specific artists in particular excel at it. As has been said, every artist moves their eyes from their subject to their drawing, in that interval, they must memorize what they saw. That is a general use of this skill. In particular, this skill was commended by Leonardo da Vinci and Sir Joshua Reynolds. James Whistler used it famously for his nocturnes series. And Edgar Degas is reputed to have drawn from memory when his eyesight failed and he could no longer view models.

Above you see a sketch I did from memory, based on the from life sketch I had made earlier that day. Initially it was the lines between the peppers that captured my attention, I didn't manage to capture it in the first sketch, and had completely forgotten it by the evening. Ah well, we must begin somewhere...

From Life or From Photos: Rockwell and Degas

After Degas' In the Orchestra Pit
done on the Nintendo DS

Yesterday I brought up the debate over drawing from photographs or from life. Today I thought I'd look at the practices of two famous artists, Norman Rockwell and Edgar Degas.

Norman Rockwell began his career drawing from life only, but as models grew more expensive and photos less so, he started using multiple photographs to work from. (To be clear, he hired a photographer and directed all the shots.) He defended his practice by saying that he had drawn from life for decades in his professional life, so he knew what he was doing. I agree, he knew what he was doing. And of course, he drew from black and white photographs and painted in color.

Edgar Degas was fascinated by the cropping and distortion that photographs brought to a scene - in some ways the same attraction for him as with Japanese prints. Many of Degas' paintings have a "snapshot" quality to them - of course, that was revolutionary at the time.

I would venture that in both of these cases, these artists used photographs to enhance their work. They were not slavishly addicted them, were able to extrapolate from them, and understand the differences that the photographing process brought.

From Life or From Photos: A Personal View

Two Peppers, drawn from life

done on the Nintendo DS

There has always been a debate about drawing from life versus drawing from photographs. It is very common for someone who is learning to draw to begin with copying from photos. This can be a very useful method of learning to translate to two dimensions. (When you copy from a photo, it is already in two dimensions. If you do enough of them, in connection with looking at a similar subject in life, you see patterns and then can make the translation instinctively.)

However, at some point, they say you ought to move to copying from your own photos to drawing from life. I have heard many artists say that they use photographs, but just bring multiple photographs together in their minds. It is important to learn to compose your own piece, beginning with putting "the scene" together.

Personally, I have learned to draw from copying photos, both how to translate to 2D and principles in composing a piece. These days I only use photos in two situations. First, if I am doing something for my own practice (technique or composition), I find using a photograph to eliminate complication and focus on the element that I am interested in very helpful. Secondly, if I am doing something that isn't possible to observe from life while I am creating the piece. In that second instance, I usually use a reference (or two) to get the lines right, and then ignore the reference and just work from my mind.

All that to say, I definitely see a use for photos, but as my goal is not photo-realism, they aren't my constant companion.

Tomorrow, a look at how two famous artists used photographs, unashamedly.

Digital Sketching

Hey Everyone! I'm sorry it's been a quiet week on the blog. It's been a busy week around here. My art has had to take a backseat. Lately I've struggled a bit with finding the right balance. It's easy to get frustrated that I don't have enough time to do everything that I need and want to get done. I'm having a think about what I want to achieve in each area of my life. Then I can spend time on meeting the goals, and not overextend myself.

All that to say, I'm thinking about direction, focus, revising my goals, etc. Bear with me in that process. Any pearls of wisdom? Want to share them?

Here are a few sketches of my sons watching a video, done today on the Nintendo DS. Also a sketch of a Degas self-portrait from last week. Really enjoyed this today. Have a good weekend everyone!

Ingres' Advice to Degas

Fruitful, copyright Rose Welty

5in x 7in, colored pencil on pastelbord

This weekend I picked up History and Techniques of the Great Masters: Degas by Linda Bolton. It has an overview of Degas' life and then goes into detail on several of his paintings. In the overview the author mentions that Degas was fascinated with Ingres, "by the end of his life he owned some twenty paintings and ninety drawings by Ingres." They met once and Degas said that Ingres told him, "draw lines, young man, a great many lines."

It's not surprising then that Degas would also be so influenced by ukiyo-e. There is an early portrait of Degas' included in the book, it looks very much like an Ingres portrait.

The book also mentions Degas' working practice. Apparently he would draw and paint his subject numerous times until he had it memorized and then would work out his composition and do the final painting.

Drawing from memory has always intrigued me (I think because I am not all that good at seeing it in my head before I get it on paper). So, I think I'm going to try some experiments based on the line emphasis and careful study mentioned above.

Off I go to draw a great many lines!

First Go on Pastelbord

Just a quick update on where things are at on the new surface.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Lest You Wonder...

Sorry I haven't posted. I've gotten a bit stuck with a piece I'm working on. Above you see where it currently stands.

I like...

• the texture on the background, it looks great from across the room
• the juiciness of the nectarine
• the boldness of the nectarine color

I don't like...

• the background with the fruit centered in it
• the table (I was just going to remove all the table bit and try floating fruit)

I think I'll start again, perhaps on a different surface this time. I think I'll try the techniques of the background in a different color. Although the complementary nature of it was appealing, I think it's over doing it a tad.

The Importance of Line

As I mentioned yesterday, the flowing lines of kimonos in ukiyo-e are a point of fascination for me. In ukiyo-e there is no shadow, toning to create form, or traditional western 3D perspective. And yet, these prints are full of movement and do seem to create a world to look into.

The importance of line to artwork is echoed by Dow in his book on notan and composition: "A line-scheme underlies every notan composition, and a notan-scheme underlies every color composition." - page 67 Composition: Understanding Line, Notan and Color

Above you see another quick copy of a figure. In the Taschen book the editor makes the comment that the ukiyo-e figures are strange in that they are a bundle of flowing lines with a hand or foot stuck on the end, and yet they work. In some of them, there does appear to be a thought as to anatomy in the placement of the appendages. But most often, there is not a clear logic to the waves and folds of the clothing. The clothing seems to pay a passing attention to anatomy and then it just takes on a life of its own as the artists creates folds and waves pleasing to the eye.

In my mind, this is akin to Western art that suggests form but then moves on to stylistic concerns quickly. In my figurative work I have long sought to find the "magic formula" that tells me what is enough to make a convincing presence or posture. I'll let you know if I find it. These prints are an important step in that journey for me, I think. I'm planning on another exercise later in the week to help me continue with this idea.

New Project: Ukiyo-e

My research efforts in March and April will center on ukiyo-e (Note that not everything in this genre is family-friendly content, I will not be looking at anything I wouldn't show my young sons. But it is referenced in the first paragraph of that wiki article.)

This Japanese print industry heavily influenced many of the masters we studied last year (e.g. Monet, Whistler, Van Gogh), so several of us are planning to have a closer look over the two months.

"The first ukiyo-e appeared in 17th century Japan in Edo, present day Tokyo...These pictures depict in vivid fashion the pleasurable side of life at that period, and for this reason they are known as ukiyo-e, 'pictures of the floating world'."
--excerpt p.7 Japanese Prints edited by Gabrielle Fahr-Becker

Above you see a quick copy I did over the weekend. The curving lines that dominate the figures in ukiyo-e are fascinating!