Part 4 Project 1 Exercise 2 Emphasizing form with cloth

Last night I attempted to complete some gestural sketches of my husband. The whole exercise made it very clear to me that I need to spend a considerable amount of time just sketching, as I am horribly rusty. My poor model looks more like a troll in the first sketch. My foreshortening in the second sketch seems to work, as the feet seem in proportion to the rest of the figure. As my model is not a paid model, I do not feel that I can enforce his sitting absolutely still for long periods of time. So, my third picture indicates various positions in which the arms and legs were positioned during the drawing process.

Gesture Drawing 1

Gesture Drawing 2

Gesture Drawing 2

Hodgson, Ian. Shadowplay, 2013. [Graphite]

After my struggle to sketch my model’s proportions last night, I went onto Axis Web to seek out contemporary artists who sketch figures. While browsing through various artists, I came across Shadowplay, 2013, by Ian Hodgson. What appeals to me about this piece is the mixture of a well-observed graphite drawing from an unusual, foreshortened perspective, with simplified silhouette shadows and light casts, which is then overlaid with a large finger print and tiny holed grid. It is an intriguing mix, which adds layers of psychological depth to the drawing. I found his explanation of his style enlightening:

“My work engages with identity and place exploring the transformative process of journey filtered through memory…The depiction of light in space and on surface plays with the divisions between the physical and psychological, the solid and the ethereal. Heads and bodies feature as representations of internal conflict and resolution regarding my place in the world whilst the recurring fingerprint motif is used to signify the self.”

(Brighton, 2016)

This explains the strangely unsettling psychological dimension to his work. It is not just a well-executed drawing, but also one which hints at the transience of life. With the smudge of a finger, your image can be smeared or eradicated. Your identity, represented by the fingerprints, inalterably changed. Hodgson's ability to blend expressive lines and mark making with meticulously observed drawing is remarkable.

For my final sketch, I chose a photograph of the back view of a women with a drape over her buttocks. Somehow when reading the brief I missed that this should have been a seated figure. But as I feel that I was able to create the sense that there is a living form under the drapery, and the fact that the drapery is very much an integral part of this drawing, I will include this sketch as my study for this exercise.

Graphite and charcoal sketch of woman draped in fabric. 

I do like the lighting on this woman, as it provides the drawing with stark contrasts and enlivens the folds of the fabric.

Works Cited

Brighton, A. I., 2016. Refrain by Ian Hodgson: An exhibition at Naked Eye Gallery. [Online]
Available at: http://www.artinbrighton.co.uk/exhibitions-and-events/2016/2/12/refrain-an-exhibition-by-ian-hodgson
[Accessed April 17 2016].

Hodgson, I., n.d. Ian Hodgson Gallery. [Online]
Available at: http://ian-hodgson.co.uk/gallery.html
[Accessed 17 2016 2016].

Part 4 Project 1 exercise 1 Drawing fabric using line and tone

Before commencing this exercise, I consulted the exercise called A Single Line in Drawing Projects. (Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014) When executing my line drawings, I tried to follow this approach to try to created felt lines. My initial drawing was created with a 6B pencil and the subsequent one with a compressed charcoal pencil.

6 B Pencil sketch. A3 size.

Charcoal Line Sketch. A3 Size.

For the tonal study, I chose to use black ink with the odd wash of thinned down white acrylic.

Tonal Ink study of fabric folds. A2 size.

For my 5-minute studies, I gridded off a sheet of A2 size paper into 12 boxes. I know the exercise called for only 8, but I felt like taking my explorations further. I started rather tentatively in the top right-hand corner and worked towards the left. Slowly as I progressed I found myself loosening up so that by the time I was working on the bottom squares I felt energized and far more capable of expressive lines and tones.

Five minute studies of fabric. Mixed media. Size A2.

An unexpected experimentation, that I actually like, happened in the row second from the bottom, in the center. I decided that the black ink applied in a streaky fashion mimics folds. So I laid a few strokes down to fill the box, and then worked white water-color crayon on top of its. It is an approach which is different from my usual style. I then tried to use the same concept, but to drag the ink in the form of the fabric. This can be seen in the bottom right-hand corner. I then worked a dark colored pencil over the shadows. I also like the effect of having graphite mixed with the odd stroke of watercolor marker, which is then washed with directional strokes of water to soften the marker strokes.

Work Cited
Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014. Drawing Projects an exploration of the language of drawing. London: Black Dog Pulbishing.

Reflections on report for Assignment 3

I was encouraged by my third report, since it showed that I was making progress in being able to be more expressive in my drawing style. I agree with many of the observations that my tutor, Clare Wilson, made regarding my latest work. Her observations show that I am starting to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. I am starting to experiment beyond my previous learned style.

It is interesting that despite the fact that I felt my tendency to be literal and illustrative was still too prominent in some pieces, such as my study of the ladies in the boat, Wilson saw a “confident use of colour and observational drawing skills. The shadows and reflections across the water in the foreground are particularly effective.” I have always loved reflections, so it was encouraging to see that I was able to capture the reflections in both this artwork and my line study of a townscape in a satisfactory manner.

I was however, disappointed by the fact that my cloud studies did not seem to work. From what I understand, my use of chalk and oil pastels, in combination with watered down acrylic was too cloddish and did not portray the translucence and lightness of clouds. I’ve seemed to be able to portray clouds when they were not the focus of the artwork, such as when I did my drawing of the church and the scene of the women in the boat on the water, but when they are the focus of the artwork, my interpretation is too clumsy. I will need to work on this.

My disappointment caused me to do some more searching into ways in which to portray surfaces. I watched the video interview of Ian McKeever, Mystery to the Viewer, as recommended by Emma in the 5 April 2016 edition of WeAreOCA. (WeAreOCa, 2016) Ian McKeever raised the point that a painting “raises a level of curiosity…because you don’t understand it…You should be seduced into them…but, actually, they shouldn’t give you any answers.” (Ian:McKeever: Mystery to the Viewer, 2014) I have been noticing more and more that drawings which are purely figurative and literal no longer appeal to me. I want to view a drawing which makes me wonder why the artist drew in such a way. Why their choice of subject matter, composition, color scheme etc.? He goes on to say “…bring that mystery to the viewer and that sense of openness, that they might come to the painting and think, Oh I see this for the first time.” (Ian:McKeever: Mystery to the Viewer, 2014) I remember how after studying Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, I was challenged to look at flowers anew, to observe their intricate and superlative beauty. This is what I need to strive towards, to make the viewer contemplate something figurative in a new manner, or to create a sense of mystery that intrigues the viewer.

While watching this video I asked myself the following question: How do I make a drawing have a presence? Ian McKeever spoke of investing a painting with a life force, an energy, and to make a painting autonomous. How do I ensure that my artworks appear to have these qualities which will help them to cause the viewer to pause, contemplate, and spend the time to try to fathom out its mystery?

Fig. 1. McKeever, Ian. Advertisement for Alan Cristea Gallery.

Summer Exhibition. 2012.

I found my answer to my contemplation about clouds in the fact that Ian McKeever's work, such as his one used to advertise the Summer Exhibition at the Alan Cristea Gallery, at times seem billowy and cloud-like. However, unlike my pastel interpretations of clouds, they are not thick and cloddish. Rather, they are ethereal, built out of “lots of very thin layers.” (Ian:McKeever: Mystery to the Viewer, 2014)

I want to keep pushing my methods and materials to be able to portray the life-force, or energy of the subject I am drawing. Practicing to apply layers in a way which is subtle, leaving the heavy cloddish interpretation, in order to increase the mystery and intrigue of my own artworks. I wish to also continue my quest to find different means of self-expression, seeking ways to free up my style further.

Illustrations

Fig. 1. McKeever, I., 2012. Summer Exhibition. [Art] (Alan Cristea Gallery- 34 Cork St). Available at: http://www.artslant.com/lon/events/show/228866-summer-exhibition

Works Cited

Ian:McKeever: Mystery to the Viewer. 2014. [Film] Directed by Kasper Bech Dyg. Denmark: Louisiana Chanel.

WeAreOCA, 2016. Ian McKeever talks about painting. [Online]
Available at: http://weareoca.com/education/ian-mckeever-talks-about-painting/ [Accessed 9 April 2016].

Part Four The figure and the face

Fig. 1. Silverwood, Sarah Taylor.

 Snappy Clothes (2014)

Ink on drafting paper and magazine pages.

What I do love about this course is that it is drawing me back into the art world. While teaching Art History to high school students full-time, I had the time and motivation to research artists on a daily basis. Having been back in a regular elementary classroom situation these past three years has hampered the time I have available for research. However, I am finding that progressively my free time involves a pursuit of the study of artists. Just yesterday I was reading about the making of Loving Vincent, Zaha Hadid's Most Iconic Buildings (a photograph tribute to the passing of architect Zaha Hadid), and about a photographer whose photographs of abandoned European buildings appeal to my intrigue with decaying surfaces. Really interesting reading!

While trying to gear myself up for another few hours of drawing, I read the interview In conversation: Sarah Taylor Silverwood featured in WeAreOCA, 7 March, 2016. I then went on to study some more of her works on New Art WM. What I find appealing about her work is that by superimposing two images - a found image from a historical magazine photograph portraying a young woman of the popular culture, superimposed by an ink drawing on draft paper of an elderly woman - she creates a dynamic narrative. As explained by New Art WM, "...carefully constructed drawings, historical references and material from contemporary popular culture mutate into one another." (New Art WM, 2016) As a result, you want to know if the underlying beauty was the old lady in her youth. You are also encouraged to question how she got to look so haggard, disengaged and seemingly hopeless. Her technique puts a whole new level of meaning to what could otherwise be viewed as a simple contour line study of an elderly woman (fig. 1.).

This afternoon, I looked at the suggested reading list and tried to access the video of William Kentridge that is listed in the course. Unfortunately, it was no longere available, But I did find a video interview of his, How to make sense of the world. He said the following:

 "You can see the world as a process of unfolding...We don't have complete information...a walking collage of thoughts and ideas and thinking...somewhere in between is an openness to recognize something as it happens...You have to allow yourself the openness to see what's arriving by chance, through fortune, at the edges." - (How to make sense of the world, 2014) 

Too often I set out with set ideas of what I want to achieve, and how I am going to go about it, not allowing the freedom of happenstance to open the parameters of the final product. This interview was very intriguing and expanded my ideas, as I had only seen William Kentridge's work as static drawings, not as the combination of miming, performance and animation that many of them are. I like the fact that he compares our lives to a "walking collage". This is so true in that what I see as being the reality of a situation and you see are usually two totally different fragments of the same reality. Neither is wholly true, and neither is completely wrong. They are slivers of the reality, a collage of the experience. I guess what I get from this discussion is that I should not be so hard pressed to create a realistic rendition of a figure, or scene, but rather to allow it to be my interpretation and "collage". I need to free myself up to incorporate other fragments of my experience of the figure, or scene, to influence my choice of media, style of interpretation, etc.

Fig. 2. Wooll, Hannah. Uh-huh, 2013.

Another artist who intrigues me is Hannah Wooll. Her enigmatically haunting works are hard to interpret (fig.2.). Her self-analysis helps to explain some of her intent to me:

“My work has always been concerned with imagery that is slightly off kilter, exaggerated or fabricated, subverted from magazine pages, my own photographs, and old master paintings.” (Axisweb, 2016)

“I regard my works as being a still from a story or film, caught up in a moment, the image paused; sometimes melodramatic, sometimes fragments of quiet and uneasy tension.” (Wooll, 2015)
The suspicious expressions and closed form of the poses of many of her female figures, leaves you wondering what it is that disturbs, or frightens them. You end up trying to piece together meaning from the gestures, lighting and facial expressions. There is also a hint that the young women have a shared knowledge about the viewer, one that causes them to treat them with reserve, fragility and distance.

From these different artists, I get a sense that what makes a memorable and engaging figural artwork is one which requires you to make connections. One that requires you to puzzle the connections, stance, or expression, allowing your own impressions to add to the "collage" presented to you.


Illustrations

Figure 1. Silverwood, Sarah Taylor. Snappy Clothes (2014) Ink on drafting paper and magazine pages. New Art WM [Online] Available at: newartwm.org/artist [Accessed 19 March 2016]. The New Art Gallery in Walsall.

Figure 2. Wooll, Hannah. Uh-huh (2013). [Oil on board] 40 x 30 cm [Online] Available at: http://www.hannahwooll.co.uk/recent-works-2013-2016.html [Accessed 3 April 2016].

Works Cited

Axisweb, 2016. Hannah Wooll. [Online]
Available at: http://www.axisweb.org/p/hannahwooll/workset/212573-i-dont-care-pretty-baby/
[Accessed 3 April 2016].How to make sense of the world. 2014. [Film] USA: Louisiana Chanel.

Joanne, 2016. In conversation: Sarah Taylor Silverwood. [Online]
Available at: http://weareoca.com/fine-art/in-conversation-sarah-taylor-silverwood/
[Accessed 19 March 2016].

New Art WM, 2016. Sarah Taylor Silverwood. [Online]
Available at: newartwm.org/artist[Accessed 19 March 2016].

Wooll, H., 2015. Artist's Statement. [Online]
Available at: http://www.hannahwooll.co.uk/artists-statement.html [Accessed 3 April 2016].