Karin,

As a veteran officer of the Book Arts Police, I'm going to have to arrest you. Bail will be set at the Book Antiquarian's Shop price for the books damaged, with a surcharge to be negotiated under extraordinary duress.

I do in fact very much enjoy the book arts, but I'm usually on the other end of the process, where we put things together. There are methods for restoring the removed pages from the books (one is called "tipping in"), which is easy or hard depending on how the page was removed. Of course, as you noted by reference to the bibliophiles' sentiments, even the repaired copy is compromised in value as a piece of art in itself.

Please do this in extreme moderation, preferably limiting it as I do -- to the oft expressed displeasure of friends and family -- to travel guides and yellow pages.

Steven

Heinous crime involving minor art books...
 

Got any ideas on the best way to remove a page so it can eventually be reinserted into the book?

Please indulge me here...I've always dreamed of being involved in a Perry Mason Moment: I confess that I shouldn't have done it! But after the first time I desecrated a book, it got easier. (I wipe a tear from my cheek). As I continued to morally degenerate I began to remove the tags from matresses (sobbing uncontrolably now). Alas, now that the Book Arts Police have read me my rights concerning those deeply closeted crimes against minor art books, I am in a quandry (voice wavering). Do you recommend a course of intensive book crime group therapy and rehabilitation...(I gain control and begin to smile through my tears) or should I just plead guilty and pray that the judge lets me off with a light sentence?

Oops, forgot that part. You're off on a technicality this time. But don't expect Perry to be able to do this every time.

Sight-Size, The Sequel

Some comments by folks (thanks Linda and others) who have had a go at this sight-size work suggest that a couple more observations might be useful.

The matter was raised about "losing" what you wanted to do, between the time you left the artist's viewpoint and arrived at the easel. A related matter would be to remember quite well what you intended, but now that you're in front of a big sheet of paper or a canvas, instead of back behind your calibrating plumb lines, you can't remember quite where to put that mark. This is normal broadcast static. Do not adjust your set.

As you're standing at the taped artist's viewpoint, you take your plumb line measurement and walk forward to the easel, where you often feel that you're left guessing where that mark or line is supposed to be. Don't worry about it. To use a writing metaphor , you want to write the rough draft first, then edit. So just make a mark or line where you think it should have gone. (As you train your

I've actually done a couple of sight-size drawings now, using your instructions, Steven, with good results (simple subjects.....display of fruit, crumpled paper bag and such). I think the constant flipping between the subject and drawing really trains your eye. It seems like I got better at it even after the first drawing.

So now I'm doing sight-size drawings, old master copies (finishing a copy of an Ingres drawing now), and drawings from life in my sketchbook when time permits (also reading/working through those books I mentioned earlier to learn anatomy, etc.).
My drawing wasn't too horrible before, so after a few months of this, I hope to see some good progress.

Thanks again for allowing me to shamelessly mooch advice and instruction!

Nathan

Steven,

This is wonderful!!! Thank you. Geri

Even I can't bear to wade through my previous posts, but I do fear that I've left out a very critical requirement for sight-size work, and that is that your drawing or painting surface MUST be vertical. Use a level. If you're using a tripod-type easel, you need to shore up the top edge of your drawing board or canvas to ensure that the surface is vertical. Otherwise, the toes will be the size of tomatoes and the head an orange, or vice versa. (If your subject does look like that, then you're an animator for "Shrek", but most families won't enjoy a similar depiction of little Hadley.)

No offense meant to vegetarians or ogres.

I got that figured out when the paper bag was wider on the paper than in life, but the measurements were accurate......I had the easel tilted to the right a little (the right side was a tiny bit further back). So I realized the same would be true in all directions.

I'm assuming it's normal to erase nearly twice the amount of charcoal you end up leaving on the paper (at first at least)? And for a drawing of a crumpled paper bag to take upwards of 12 hours of work?

I hope so.

Nathan

Yes, Nathaniel, sorry I forgot to include that detail earlier -- I had thought of it, but my short-term memory is . . .

yes, that's it . . . fading. (Also, I fear that I'm scooping into the site too many shovelsful of stuff, so sometimes I just omit a scoop.) But the fact that you discovered the event yourself is FAR FAR more important than if I'd remembered to say it first and you'd just followed my lead. So congratulations, you've made a huge leap. Fifty Chess Master points.

As for time of work on a drawing, I've done lots of pencil drawings in four hours -- some of which were execreble and others were, dare I say, a lot more than okay. And our so-called "long poses" at the studio gave us -- whether working in charcoal, pastel or oil -- about 80 or more actual hours' worth of work on a piece. Admittedly you probably can't make a living on that rate of production early on, but it sure trains you for the long run. A writer friend of mine used to call this work "right-brain sit-ups."

Do 'em.

Steven

Karin,

Nice advice. When people tell me that they'd love to be able to paint, but they can't, I remind them of a great line by Betty Edwards. "Nobody ever says I can't speak French so I won't bother to study the language. People are often in imagination as to how hard one must work in this field. I truely believe the only gift I have is the gift of determination.

Anthony

Alexei Antonov said this - and I wholeheartedly agree with him!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: "My experience has shown that the classical school of painting can be studied without having a special "talent." The only condition is a passionate desire to learn and a little patience..."

One More Note for Sight-Size Practitioners

I'm duplicating a post from elsewhere, because it implicates sight-size procedures discussed earlier in this thread:

One last note on one-eyed viewing, and that relates to sight-size drawing. In order to view your subject "through" the plumb lines, you're going to have to close one eye. Because one eye is dominant (it may or may not be the one you decide to close), it's important to always close the same eye when you take your measurements. Don't switch back and forth. One of my instructor's first questons when beginning a drawing critique was always, "Which eye are you looking with?, because he'd do the same in order to assess my accuracy.

Incidentally, if you want to know which is your dominant eye, pick out an object across the room and hold out your arm with index finger raised and sight "through" the finger to the object, with BOTH EYES open. If, when you close your left eye, the relative positions of the finger and object stay about the same, your right eye is dominant. Keep the left eye open and close the right, and the finger "moves" some distance to the right of the object. The opposite effects with left-eye dominance. In a non-art context in which this really "matters", if you're trap shooting and you hold the shotgun on the right but you're left-eye dominant, you'll swear your aim is perfect but the clay pigeon will just fly away unharmed. Switch to the left side and you'll probably have much higher percentages.

Finally, this is important to know because the "'Artist's Perspective' Eyepatch" is to be worn over the nondominant eye.

Steven