Jackson

[Lon Haverly]

This must be the same reasoning behind drawing anatomy - bones, muscles, etc. I never got off on that personally. I just reasoned that I should rely on what I see, not what I don't see. But your point is well taken, and I have no argument with people who go to all the trouble with anatomy. I would think this visualization process more applicable to illustrating rather than drawing from life. If you are illustrating an animated figure, you have to justify your figure. When the model is right there, it justifies itself. If your eye is accurate, you will capture it. If not, well, it doesn't matter if you visualize their backside or not!

Do you draw freehand, or with a graph?

[Pam Phillips]

Peggy, thank you for sharing your beautiful painting with us. Your explanation for tweaking some subtle changes into a pose to suggest the potential for motion is food for thought. I've had a habit of straightening out a tilted or angled head without consciously trying to, and I am getting more practiced at fighting it. That has been a little bit of a problem.

I've also slightly altered a pose into a better angle, also unconsciously. Between this and what you've just described, it makes a very good argument against projecting and tracing an image onto the canvas, which my husband, who has had a lot of experience in commercial art, tried (in vain) to convince me to do, to 'save time'.

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Interesting comments from Pam and Lon.

When I'm painting from life, I draw freehand when doing a head and shoulders, and use a grid for a larger figure. The grid, however, is in my head, I don't use a visual reference of crossed lines, but I do measure....a lot. I do have my 3/4 figure students make up a see-through grid of acetate marked into squares. These are hung from a stand in front of them, and they look through the grid to develop their "cartoon". The grid is (I think) necessary if you are doing a developed drawing, and you are not working sight size. It saves a lot of wasted effert.

Pam, I am very much against tracing a projected image and painting from that. I won't take the time here to describe the distortion that happens in a photograph, but I have seen too many stilted and unnatural poses put into oil because, well, that's what the photographs said. Painting and drawing from life, understanding anatomy, understanding the way the body works, makes it possible for you to "adjust" what you see, either in life or in a photograph, to make the painting more interesting, more pleasing, and more real.

Painting potential motion is a very esoteric concept. When I posted this, I had hoped that someone would say, "Yes, I do that as well." Certainly it could be considered a small thing to do when one is struggling with likeness, composition, or solidity. But I mentioned it because it is something I think about as I am painting the latter part of a portrait. (As I think of it, the only places I have heard of this concept is in the works of the 18th Century French, but I see it in a lot of my favorite pieces.)

I am glad if it has tweaked a few to another way of seeing things. I like to shake things up, for myself as well as for other artists.

Peggy

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Lon,

Working from life or from a photographs, you need to interpret what you are seeing. Your eye is not the most correct arbiter of what is in front of you.

Let's see if I can remember the progression:

In the beginning you paint what you think you see.
Then you paint what you see.
Then you look for what to see.
Then you paint what you know you see.
Then you manipulate what you see to make art.

When I was commissioned to paint my first horse, I know nothing about horses. The first thing I did was go to a horse breeder. She let me borrow a horse skull (....you can see the skull under the horse in the painting....), and taught me about dressage, (...like how to hold the reins, how to present...), about how a horse holds his ears when he is alert, how when the whites of the eyes are showing, the horse is alarmed. I felt the horse to see the soft spots, the bony parts, how he moved his head and the texture of his hair. There is a horsiness to my painting, a horse knowledge I would not have had I not researched the subject before I painted it. Believe me, had I not done my homework, it would have been very visible to a horse person.

(I remember a painting of a skier by an artist who obviously knew nothing about skiing. The arms were akimbo, the ski tips were crossed -- this skier was one-second from becoming a snow plow. It was an embarrassment to the artist as well as to the subject. I'm sure that, as well as the face was drawn, the portrait spent the bulk of it's life under the bed.)

When I am painting a seated figure, I paint the clothed figure, I paint the body under the clothes,I paint the skeleton under the body, and I paint the chair under the whole thing.(Cedric ...thank you, you taught me well.... ) Richard Whitney says the painting has to be self explanatory. You must know everything that is happening. What is the hand doing? Where is the knee? Where is the other leg under the dress? It is a small step to thinking, what will the figure be doing next?

The great artists have been studying anatomy and the figure since the Renaissance. I figure they knew what they were doing.

Peggy

[Lon Haverly]

Peggy,

You are one of the most studious artists, that's for sure! Your point is very well taken. I am perhaps the laziest artist, only doing whatI like. I am so challenged now by seeing the work here and the artists to move on to a new appreciation of oil painting. I have been drawing so long, that I have forgotten how delightful it is to paint!

I never really mastered painting. I studied it as a child, and when I was adult, only did what paid the bills (drawing.) Now it is time to tackle oils seriously, and your generous sharing of your mastery is very inspiring to me.

I am thrilled to be learning form you and the other masters here.

My grandfather was my teacher, and he graciously allowed me to attend his art school for children. The only artists I meet here are amateurs who cannot draw to save themselves. I learned that the excessive amounts of drawing vastly improved my painting, but you are right, there are times when it is better to use other aids, and true, you must learn about your subject.

Sometimes I use my printer to enlarge a photo and transfer it on to a pad, especially when it is very complex, like this charcoal for a book which I had to finish in a very very short time, as it was part of a larger order and very short time limit. If you can draw or paint, your style will still come through even with the aids. If you can't, well, the aids won't help anyway.

Thank you for your imput here, and your time!

Lon

[Meredith Wagenknecht]

Dear Peggy...I totally agree with what you just "said" about painting what's under as well as what you see on the outside. Lon thought that process might be more applicable to the field of illustration...well, I started as a fashion illustrator, and usually began my drawings with a light, quick skeletal/motion sketch of the body to achieve the right angles and perspective, determining which way the figure was moving, and which leg was bearing the weight. Then I would wrap the folds of the fabric around the body, after fleshing it out a bit, following the movement. All that school training (quick motion sketches, contour drawings, and the endless warm-up exercises drawing spirals to represent the mass of the body and limbs...winding up with a "tubular" figure made of Slinkies!) really has stuck with me. Sometimes I even get into a "student" mode and can "hear" my prof's voice in my head as I'm drawing. No...I'm not crazy....honest! I've even thought about taking a class at the local college, just to freshen up my ability to see and interpret what I see. Sometimes I think it's possible to get a little "stale", the further removed I am from being in the learning mode and due to the fact that I work from photos. But, I really think it's an enormous advantage to really understand what's going on under there! So, basically Peggy, I can say what you hoped to hear..."yes, I do that as well". And yeah, much of "that" is in my mind's eye, and in the little voice of my prof, right up through the end. By the way....the portrait you posted......WOW!

[Mike McCarty]

"The grid, however, is in my head, I don't use a visual reference of crossed lines, but I do measure....a lot."

Peggy, you wrote the above. Can you embellish some on what you mean by "measure". How do you mean? Are you holding up your brush, your thumb? Do you have a ruler?

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Mike,

With a slender brush in my hand, I hold my arm straight out in front of me. I close one eye and "sight" down my arm. I place the tip of the brush at the uppermost portion of what I am measuring, (say... the top of the head... ) and I move my thumb (or index finger) to indicate the bottommost line of what I am measuring, (say... the bottom of the chin.) I now possess one head measurement. If I don't move, I can continue to use this "head" to create a mental grid. The distance from the top of the head to the chin is one head. From the chin to mid-breast, is a second head. A third head from midbreast to waist, a fourth head from the waist to the knee, etc., done the body. Then I establish how many heads there are across the figure. I draw an "amoeba", a shape which contains all of the figure, including chair, clothing, hats, dogs, etc., everything that is in the body of the piece. Once I have determined the amoeba, I can move it around the canvas...make it bigger or smaller, until I find the right compositional placement. Then I draw a grid on the canvas (in the example, 5 1/2 heads down, and 3 heads across. And then determine what parts of the body are in which square. It's a lot easier than it sounds, and gives a dead on accurate placement for everything in the painting.

It's all about ratios. Thought you were all done with math, didn't you....?

Peggy

[Mike McCarty]

It's all about ratios. Thought you were all done with math, didn't you....?

Peggy,

I can see how this works on the larger masses. Do you use this same method for placement of the smaller more subtle aspects of the face? Would you employ this method if using photos?

I too use ratios. If you establish certain benchmarks within the playing field you can pinpoint any other point of interest using ratios.

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Mike,

I also use the "brush sizing" on the head itself. I divide the head into the top of the head, hairline, brow, bottom of nose, and chin, and use these stationary points as the "ruler" to measure the rest of the head. I am mainly checking my drawing of the outside silhouette shape, and the shadow shape. I don't place (paint in) the features until the head is well set, a three dimensional, sculptural shape that is the correct color, value, and size. Then I sculpt out the eye sockets, muzzle, and nose, but that's another post.

There is point at which your eye is a better judge of measurements than the brush. I find that point to be for measurements of two or three inches or less (at a reasonable distance from model).

Yes, you can use this method with photographs.

Peggy