Weekly sketch
Here again I post some evidence of earnestness in keeping up a modest regimen of once-a-week drawing sessions with accomplished artist & friend Jeff Fisher. We managed to get together Friday morning, pre-workday, for a not entirely disappointing short exercise. (Also managed to get together the week before, but I didn't get around to posting. Wasn't much to show for that session anyway.)This week we sat outside for the first time since beginning these sessions. Can't say that we seemed to derive much inspiration from the outdoor setting: Jeff took an interest, vaguely, in an overturned wheelbarrow, and I took interest in nothing around us and so, shortly, ended up just drawing Jeff – which I might as well have done inside. And as Jeff decided to move closer to his subject and I, positioned next to him, didn't bother to move as well, I ended up looking at his head from an odd angle slightly to the rear. That's apparent in the view of his ear at right here – the first thing I set to drawing, it happens.
To help myself stay loose a bit, I've started bringing along a graphite stick to supplement the ballpoint pen & the good old .5mm mechanical pencil – all alike no-fuss media. The graphite stick represents a nod, of course, to lower-level drawing studio ways of doing things, where one's frequently being encouraged to bold, expressive, gestural moves on the paper. In class, using a short, soft, squared-off chunk of mark-making matter like a conté crayon or a graphite stick facilitates, somewhat, one's resorting to 'freedom' & expressiveness, since you just can't be terribly controlled with the things, even when your instincts to refine & to fixate on detail are screaming. Besides that, though, these sticks are convenient to slip into a pocket & bring along, and they don't break readily. Convenience, as much as their putting an alternative mode of drawing at hand, makes them (additional) instruments of choice for these sketch sessions. What I want, for the time being anyway, is not to think too much about technique or the limitations of my materials. I'm not trying to master anything, I'm just trying to get going quick and to find some kind of drawing groove, if only for a few minutes at a time. If what I'm doing stops feeling like it's working, or my subject moves his head or his paw, I don't get hung up, I start something else. I'm not doing a drawing, I'm just drawing.
There's something of Jeff's left hand on the page, his drawing hand with its funky knuckle-torquing grip; something of his ear; and a couple of shots at his profile around the eye & nose. He made no pretense of holding position, naturally – besides alternately looking up & back down, he kept turning to talk! But that's okay for this kind of thing, as I think I've made clear. Already on the page from earlier in the week was a quickie skull study in blue ballpoint. (More on skull studies another time, maybe.)
posted by paul bowman @ 9:54 PM
6 Comments:
Looking forward to the possible skull study (when I began reading your post, I wondered where you'd found this "item" outdoors!).
Yeah, perhaps a little confusing, that!
I picked up this plastic kit skull years ago at an art supply place (the store at local big-league art school MICA, actually -- not a school I attended). The skull's a wonderful thing to have around, a wonderful thing to draw & to come back to drawing. Rich visual soil for a variety of directions of thought to take root in, so to speak.
Kudos on preventing the rustiness of drawing from settling in. I was commissioned by one son to draw a dinosaur the other night and realized how very rusty I am at this discipline. My creative endeavors of late haven't involed much of conte crayon or graphite stick (I loved those things), but I still enjoyed the practice. I especially liked working on grey paper with black vine charcoal and white chalk...mmmm the smudgy fingers which left little blotches of grey on my forehead and cheek whenever I pushed my hair out of my face.
Paul, You are right that those of us who naturally are inclined to fussy drawing are discouraged from doing so. I was never much for conte or charcoal, though I love the look of it. Have you ever drawn with a turquois lead holder? (http://www.dickblick.com/zz206/01/) Greatest tool ever for us fastideous draughtsment. It has a much nicer point than a mechanical pencil, which tends to be blunt, but you can sharpen it with sandpaper to get a flat edge for laying in shadow. It has been my favorite for as long as I can recall.
J, I'm afraid the rust's already quite set in in various ways. (There's possibly something to be said for not drawing for a while, though, as long you don't stop thinking often about & wanting to do it — topic for future discussion, maybe. In some ways I'm not as rusty as I have reason to expect to be — and this is not because drawing is 'like riding a bike'. Figuring out in what sense a practice like drawing is indeed a discipline, or an aspect of a discipline, for oneself, and pursuing it as it may be pursued in the convergence of pursuits one's life's allowed at a given time — this seems to me to be more important than simply holding on to the practice. And on the other hand, one can't always self-consciously establish the meaningfulness of something one carries on practicing, regularly or irregularly. A discipline can be elusive, and it can be simply illusory too, and some things one does without figuring out where it fits in. In any case, it's nice not to have to give up doing often something you do enjoy. Maybe you'll find in the long run that having kids will be your means of not giving up drawing, in spite of usual expectations!) If you haven't seen them, you might look at 'Habit (re)forming' posts here & here.
Sarah, I agree with you, the lead-holder's the superior way to wield graphite! But superior in the sense that it rewards control, rewards skill somewhat in flower — not so much skill merely in bud. You've got to be drawing more than I am not to become frustrated with the way (in visual arts, unlike perhaps in music) a more versatile instrument always magnifies your false moves — you know what I mean better than I do, I expect. Anyhow, I've got several of them — one a lovely, light, slim green Faber-Castell that my dad held on to from drafting as an engineering student 40 yrs ago, my favorite. (I also use them for straight-edge drafting, where control is a slightly different thing.) But with sketch sessions like these, for now, I'm more at ease with something limited — ballpoint, for instance — since I can't draw every day & so feel much benefit from being challenged by the instrument itself.
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