A study in form
 

A study in form

Jeff, everyone here who is called an

Nice drawing, Jeff, and ditto to what Steven is saying. Your mission in learning to draw - okay, my mission, and probably yours, too - is to make an object look 3-dimensional. This is what makes it "real"; what makes it distinguished from a photo; what gives it drama; what makes it come alive and grab the unsuspecting viewer. It's all about pulling some parts forward and pushing some parts back. (I'd put this in all caps here if I could, but then it would sound as if I'm shouting.) This is best thought of in terms of value changes, though color, temperature and edge control also help.

By the way, Tony Ryder sets forth slightly different terms for the gradiations of light and shade, and I find them a little easier for my mind to grasp. I'll try to find his book and post them here when I get the chance.

Hi Jeff,

I know you've heard a lot from me lately, but I can't resist adding a little bit more of my gastro-acidity. I'm in a bit of a "back to basics" mode right now myself.

I think your program makes sense, especially with the added input of forum members like Steven and Linda. One thing that I notice is that you put a lot of burden on yourself. Art is a two-way street. There's you, and there's your audience. Your own estimate of your progress will change even as you reach the goals you set for yourself: it's always there, but it's never completely trustworthy. It's necessary to close the loop by exposing your work to the audience and seeing how it plays.

The audience is made up of two somewhat artificially divided parts. There's the technical audience, like the forum members, other artists, teachers, critics, etc. You're starting to make use of this resource by doing these posts. Then there's the broader audience, that responds to your work in undefined ways. I think Linda (Linda from the office, not Linda Brandon!) falls into the latter category. I want to make a point about that broader audience.

I'm guessing that Linda (from the office) has seen some of your drawings and now she wants one of them. She likes and appreciates your work as it is. I'm guessing this because the same thing has happened to me. I don't know what arrangement you've made with her, but I would suggest that, as soon as possible, you get in the habit of putting a monetary value on your work, even if it's only $5 a drawing to start. Others will see the drawing of Linda and they will want one of themselves. That's how it works. Deliver your drawings in an inexpensive but adequate mat and frame, ready to hang. Cover your costs. Everybody understands and respects this arrangement. In fact, they feel more comfortable with it: value for value.

None of this has to interfere with your personal progress toward internal artistic goals. It's just a matter of accepting that the audience has a certain sovereignty in judgement that may not coincide with your own. If things go well you'll look around one day and realize that you're a pro.

.

Jeff,

I know what you mean about setting a course of study for yourself. Bravo! It's all worth it (though I wouldn't have believed that at 20).

I mostly wanted to write to say I liked the cat! So, I like the cat. Nice expression; easy, confident, casual line, and just enough shading to be arty. You should submit it in the show for sure!

Hmmmm..... Animals In Art. Sponsored by the LSU Veterinary College, you say. Jeff, check out the prospectus carefully. Nowadays that may mean the animals are the artists rather than the subjects!

Seriously, I did three "Fin, Fur, and Feathers" shows back when I used to enter competitions. I sold pieces in two of the three shows, which is an order of magnitude better than I've ever done in any other kind of show. My "hook" was to do invertebrates (think bugs, lobsters, that kind of thing). It kind of takes the jurors by surprise when they see a cockroach among all the dogs, cats, bunnies and marine mammals. But for sales, the all-time champ is snakes. It might not work for painting and drawing, but in sculpture snakes are hot! I'll post a picture of my cat with my first snake below. This was taken back in 1991. Note that the cat is missing his left hind leg. He's still around though (the cat, not the snake), 14 years old and still going. One of my last two snakes sold for $ 650 in an auction at the San Jose Museum of Art, and the other won $1000 prize money from LG Industries of Korea in a national competition. So if you're considering doing multiple entries, consider a snake.

Nice kitty drawing. I don

:)

John,

We should really start a thread on drawing portraits for friends. The real hazard is that they might not like it "as is" and then you have to spend a lot of (unpaid) time fixing it up to please them. It may not be worth the five dollars. My solution is to get a drawing where I like it to be and then give a photo of it to the person. Very few people seem to care that it's not an original drawing.

Congratulations on your snake sales, by the way!

Jeff,

That's a wonderful cat drawing!

I found the Tony Ryder diagram. I like his discussion of what he terms "light - light" and "dark - light", which to me is more descriptive than "halftone".

Jeff,

Great determination! I admire your committment to drawing. I hardly ever draw from life anymore (people that is) and I have recently decided I need to re-commit to learning that. I used to be so fast at getting a likeness. I am not sure if I still am, I doubt it.

I used to think I could draw well. Now I know that I still need tons more practice. A humbling realization.

Jeff, I admire your determination. Since I signed up for a Tony Ryder painting workshop in December I decided to buy his book and work through the drawing exercises in it between now and then (not much time, I know!)

He asserts that practicing his drawing methodology (especially using the concept he calls "the envelope") for one year will save you ten years time in learning to draw well using any other method. Quite a statement! But after admiring his breath-taking figure drawings I think he's probably on to something.

Good luck with whatever path you choose!

Post duplicated from elsewhere on similar topic:

A person unknown to me but apparently the recipient of emails from this site via a link has asked me to please inform members that the Asaro Planes of the Head model is not being produced and is not available for purchase. The correspondent's email address is <[email protected]>, so please don't contact this person for information (at her request). Thank you.

Drawing Advice
 

Reading this thread, I thought it might be a good place to ask a drawing question. The life drawing class I have been attending is starting up again tonight after a summer hiatus. The two hours usually include several sixty-second gestures, several two-minute poses, some 5 - 10 minutes and usually only one twenty-minute pose at the end of the class. While I really enjoy drawing the whole figure I am frustrated in not having a portrait drawing class available until the end of October.

My question is, would I be better off concentrating on the head alone, or continuing studies of the whole figure, as far as developing my drawing skills? I usually only get a contour drawing with little form development/shading and then only in the twenty-minute pose.

Jeff, I really love your cat portrait of Smudge! I hope you put it in the show. I also really admire the time you put into drawing. About how many hours would you say you spend on drawing and, if you work full time, how do you squeeze it in?

Much of the time I feel frustrated in trying to study drawing alone. I really need direction and can't find any in Cleveland. I know, hard to believe, it's not like I live in a small town.

Pat Joyce (Meyers)

:)

Evenings drawing
 

Jeff,
Now that the days are growing shorter my time drawing after hours is getting shorter. All summer I have been on my balconey basking in the great light. I have been experimenting with setting up good artifical lighting to work from and get so frustrated. Any suggestions. What is your set-up like?

1/2 glass of wine puts me to sleep and my head falls into the graphite - not a good thing!! So I wait until I've left the drawing board!!

I used to attend a life drawing group that had poses shorter than I liked, too. You could ask the group if they'd like to have longer poses or, as my group did, have one class out of every four with a very long pose. They met weekly and the last session of every month would be one long pose for the full three hours (with breaks for the model every twenty minutes, of course). These would be simple seated poses that were easy for him or her to hold.

During the short poses you could concentrate on a detail, just a hand or just an ear, for example, instead of doing lots of five to ten minute sketches of the whole figure.

As for artificial lighting, it's very easy to set up for drawing practice. You're not worried about color temperature so it takes that issue out of the equation. I sometimes put a bunch of objects on the coffee table in the family room while my husband watches TV in the evenings. The only light source is a table lamp off to the side of my "still life," about seven feet away from it and slightly behind me.

That's a great idea Michele, I will talk to the instructor in the life drawing class tonight and see if she would be willing to do one class a month with longer poses or the same pose the whole class. The class size is about 15 and usually the same people come, perhaps if we are democratic I might find others would enjoy this arrangement as well.

Focusing on just a part of the figure makes sense to me too. I think I will try that tonight after completed a few quick gestures of the whole figure.

I have terrible eyesight, and am always complaining about light source casting a shadow of my hand over my drawing. I purchased an Ott table lamp, gooseneck, but I think I need something that shines directly in front of me, onto the drawing board...

Patricia,

Your drawing sessions sound a lot like the one I attend. I usually concentrate on just the head and shoulders when the pose allows for it. Unfortunately, a lot of the longer poses are reclining poses: kind of hard to do a portrait study when the model is supine at an odd angle! But the others at the session are usually agreeable if I ask for a ten minute pose with the model seated facing the artists.

Like others, I've been investigating Tony Ryder's drawing methods. His "envelope, contour, inside" method is designed for producing beautiful finished drawings. In his book he mentions that he spends an average of 36 hours on a drawing of high quality. I find that I can't get an "envelope" completed accurately in 5-10 min.

I've been using forum member Lon Haverly's "Line First" technique, which was designed for rapid rendering of the subject. It gives you a disciplined way of proceeding, so, for starters, you don't waste any time wondering how to begin. Check out the posts on this topic on the forum, or get his book, which is a lot of fun in any case.

One of the participants in our sessions has started doing outline drawings and very lightly indicating shadow contours. Then during model breaks she washes in the shadowing with sepia. She does the outlines with a water soluble pencil that is a close match to the sepia. The sepia wash goes on very fast, and the results are impressive. I'm thinking of trying it myself. I hope some of this helps.

John

Nice to meet you John,
 

Your "Lon Haverly" drawings are great and look like allot of fun to do. Lon's ability to make every line count is superb! I think of him every time I am at the local mall and see an empty kiosk and think of the crowds of people that pass by...especially at Christmas...his hand must cramp!

I just ordered Anthony Ryder's Figure Drawing book, today, because I think I will be attending his workshop in January at the West Palm Beach Armory Art Center. It will be my first workshop so I am very excited and happy that it is a graphite/portrait workshop since this is where I am in my development. And, heck, being in W.Palm in January sounds pretty good to me, being from Cleveland, Ohio! I have read threads here about the "envelope" method and am eager to get the book, also seems some artists here have grown with the aid of his books.

Yes, the models' long poses in my class are often laying down, or if they are sitting up they start to relax and droop their head and shoulders. Perhaps if he/she knows it would be a pose specifically for portrait sketch they would hold better. I feel very fortunate that these are professional models who work for the Cleve Institute of Art - they are good at holding a pose. And the other artists in the class are pretty serious, so the class flies by.

Patricia, I'm taking Tony Ryder's two week painting workshop in Seattle in December. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm also studying his book in the mean time.

That workshop was tempting, except that it is two weeks which would be hard for me to do. But my son, who is in the Coast Guard, is stationed two hours north of Seattle. I will be eager to hear how you like his workshop.

Jeff,

I just wanted to say that I am jealous that you only have to drive a half hour to get art supplies! The closest for me is an hour and a half.

I wish I had the money to invest in supplies to stock/sell in my studio. I have people coming in every day asking for them. Could be a good extra money maker. Of course, then I would be ringing up orders instead of painting.

Jeff, I just finished commenting on your nice sketch of Janice. I suggested there, and I suggest here, that you focus on the accuracy of your lines, each line, more than the form. Make each line correct, and the form will come along. Take care of each line, its dynamic, its angle and length, its value. The form will take care of itself. Most people worry too much about the form and lose focus on the quality of the lines they make to get to the form. A drawing is made one line at a time. Make each line count. I call it "line first." Not that form is not important. It is. But you arrive at the form by drawing good lines. Don't fall into the trap of only thinking that good form is the answer. It most certainly is not. The line is.

If a line is wrong, it will make the next one wrong, and so forth, and the form falls apart the moment that bad line was drawn. If you have a chiseled point, you maximize the quality of your lines since you can change their dynamic so easily. A good chisel gives you control. If a drawing has beautiful lines, as Janice's drawing did, it will be pleasing, even if the form is not perfect. It will still be artful.

:)

Jeff,

Be aware (be afraid) I am about to express an opinion. Viewer discretion is advised.

I think you should begin to paint! Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against drawing, some of my best friends draw. But it is my opinion, and it has been my experience, that the art of painting is different enough from drawing that whatever time it will take you to become a proficient painter will not be reduced substantially by continuing to hone your drawing skills.

This opinion, and there may be many horizontally opposed, is specific to you. To others I would say - draw first, show me your drawings. But you presently have good drawing skills and I would guess that you can draw better than a lot of very good painters.

Painting is drawing with a different medium. If you enjoy the activity of drawing that

Erasing is necessary at times, I agree. It is just a a habit that can be used too often to allow ourselves bad lines. You have tell yourself that this line is going to be good, and that you will not let yourself erase. It is an attitude. If you erase alot, you promote bad lines. It is not so much about erasing or not erasing, as much as focusing on the line quality. Yours is good already. I am just talking.

:)

Mike,

I'm considering starting to paint soon. I appreciate your assessment of my readiness.

At WetCanvas, they're doing a project using Zorn's limited palette. I was intrigued by this, and am thinking about taking the plunge.

Not to get all Kung-Fulish about this, but in my experience there are a couple of ways to reduce the amount of erasures. Whether working by sight-size techniques I