Experiment

This week an assignment was due in figure drawing class. I had to draw four different faces of either different races or ages or both. As usual, I procrastinated until the week of. So, I didn't start until Tuesday with the due date being that Thursday. So, this is a kind of journal of two of those experiences.

Tuesday. Cooper.
This is Cooper. He's a senior communications major, and a very, very funny and smart guy with a heavy dose of the dramatic. I saw him earlier in the day and asked if I could sketch him, he agreed and I tried to draw him, but when I tried to capture his likeness, it never looked like him. I tried several times, but it was a no-go. The problem was in the structure. Instead of constructing a frame and hanging or attaching the features to it, I was heading straight for the details and glancing over their supports. As a result, the drawings had this fluid quality that more closely resembled over-easy eggs than what a face really is: a knot of protruding and flat bones with muscles stretched and tied at points, covered with deposits of fat and then, on top of all this, a thin layer of stretched skin. Really, the skin’s just an extra; a minor part in view of the whole body.

So, now that I saw this and thanks to curse of being an anal retentive, control-freak, I had to begin it again. Both of us were very busy that day, and so the only time that worked was a little before midnight. Well, as you can see, he fell asleep. Which is fine, the problem though was that I didn't realize how much he had moved his face! I just kept plopping in the placement of features, working out details, unaware that they were no longer where I thought they were! As a result, his right eye looks forward (as he was in the beginning of the pose), and his left eye is placed in a way to indicate a turn of a head (which he had done, drifting off in Na-Na land).

It would have been fantastic to just erase the line I placed in for that eye and start over, bu,t because of the medium, it would have looked pretty bad. Also, it was late, I was tired, he was tired, his roomates were tired, we were all tired and so I decided: I'll look at it in the morning. Wednesday. Grandma Norma.(Uh, some more things happened…and I didn't get to Cooper on this day.)

Thursday. 10am. The due date.
Thank God for roommates that don’t mind being stared at! I know I feel weird drawing them, so I can’t imagine what their thinking. Although it’s probably something like, “why, why, why, why…” or the more worried “oh-hope he doesn’t notice my forehead-I know its big but I hope he doesn’t he doesn’t see it-oh I want to see if he did- maybe if I glance over while he looking down he won’t notice-okay he down. Ah crap! its huge!-why did he do that?! No, no its okay. Its o-kay now breath breath, breath--”. At least that’s what I imagine.

So, I finish my roommate’s portrait look again at Cooper’s portrait from the night before. That left eye of his!! Something needs to be done. Mike, my other roommate said it looked like he had a black eye. At the time, I was a little offended, but now I thought, why should I be offended? He’s friggin right! If you’re going to do something, you might as well go all the way. Don’t just float around the idea of a black-eye, alluding to it like a loose hand trying to point. No! Take your hand, make a fist, pull back and give Cooper one big punch in face! So, that’s what I did. Well, not literally…I took a googled image of a black-eye and made Cooper’s look, as best I could, as a black-eye. So, there it is. SMACK!

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**Okay, I have spent way, way too much time on it. Some good ideas have come from it though. The possibility of pairing a portrait or any piece with written text, not as something that merely explains, but as a total experience. The text gives you the con-text for a reading of the visual. Ack! I love that idea and it pairs the verbal/written with the purely visual! It has just been amazing to me lately how much the art forms are related. Could someone please write a book on this or are there books on this and I have just been too dense to notice them?

By the way, I really like this way of organizing. Limiting myself to one topic or instance helps me better flesh out what I'm trying to say. If I have too much to focus on, I get lost, confused and in desperate need of my blankie.

Also, another brain fart, I've noticed that inserting little comedic jabs like “blankie” or "brain fart" helps guide my thinking. It’s like it reminds me not sound so high and mighty. I am after all a human being that farts, poops and pisses in pretty much the same way as everyone else. See! See that! The way I chose to express this idea was by using it. For me, it just makes sense for some reason (maybe a reminder of humility-our meaness in light of God. Human beings signing to each other.) or another, this just seems like the right thing to do for both me and for you. I wonder if it’s possible to be really effective without them?

Alright, I'm going to shut up now. Here's the pictures.

(CLICK ANY TO ENLARGE)

Grandma Norma - charcoal & conte

(face dimensions: 9"x12", roughly)

Norma (detail)

Cooper

Matt

Matthew (detail)

Eunice

QUESTION #1:

Why is it when taking notes during a lecture, we find ourselves drawing spirals or radial designs outside the punched hole; following our pen down that thin red line on our paper, slowly darkening then widening then connecting with a blue one; joining horizontal blue lines repeatedly making a checkered pattern, each one identical and carefully filled; or differently, letting our pen and wrist float as organic explosions happen in one corner, risking an encounter with our text?

QUESTION #2:
(note: Q1 related to Q2)

Why is it when talking on our cell phones, we find ourselves pacing even measured steps though varying dependent upon the present temperament in discussion; walking from point A to point B countless times, only occasionally detouring from our path but content to snake our way back as if drawn; following the perimeter of a building or object while, sometimes not even to our knowledge, learning the subtleties on the pavement below our feet, comparing the feel of cool concretes tooth as compared to the chill of painted metal rails?

ANSWER #1 and a 1/2:

Don’t you find that interesting? It’s as if there is some language or maybe just practice common to all, but only spoken or engaged in privately. The subject of the doodling can be varied, but I believe that everyone has, at least once, traced the lines on their notes. Why is that? It’s as if we have to arrest or fatigue our creative brain in order to absorb a particular type of information. I think this is connected with music during art (or homework, etc) and our sense of taste. There is something in the nature of our composition that works best in these circumstances.

Perhaps our senses (and/or modes of thinking: right vs. left (creative vs. logical), to put it way too simply) can distract us. So in order to focus on one or two senses (in art: sight and touch) or engage in a particular mode (creative predominantly, aided by logic), we deluge one or more senses with stimulants, who soon fatigue so that the other senses can then be fully engaged (note: with this thinking it sounds like I could endorse the use of hallucigins (spelled way wrong), but I am not. Just commenting on experiences I have had, drug-free, mind you, and the possibilities as to why). To continue: Maybe this is why, when listening to music while working, the music can appear at first dominant, but soon fade and we realize the final notes we have just heard was the end of a favorite song, the one we never miss, but somehow, this time, we did.

Last week, I saw a woman talking on her cell phone (uh, there’s more to that) who chose to walk back and forth on a 1’ borders of stone squares instead of the six feet of padded carpet inside. Now…why did she do that? Well, you can’t very well step on every other piece of carpet, avoiding the lines in between, can you! (It’s a feature rolled carpet does not afford, but tiles relish in). And don’t think I’m just making this up or exaggerating, she really was intentionally doing this! Her steps were very deliberate. Even when I walked by, she never moved or noticed, she kept on lurching.

But, this process of hers was not really the thing that captured her attention; the conversation was the real focus. The lurching about on tiles was only a side effect of her involvement in her discussion or a needed action in order to facilitate careful listening. I don’t really know how to describe why this is necessary for some people (I have no real system by which to place her actions, so I can only grapple with words and images).

So, I’ve seen people do it (a few weeks before a different woman was doing the same exact thing), I have done similar things, so I know it’s something general not personal, but I don’t really have a good reason why.

Or, we’ve all watched too much TV and need a regular regiment of Ritalin.

p.s. about "deluging the senses", I think there is another factor involved. Between the process of art making and listening to music, there is the possibility of a relationship, a give and take. While making art (worded that way makes it sound like some kind of voodoo! Boogha-boogha-booboo!! chanted thrice) it is easy to hit the equilvelant of writer's block, and so the inspiration (?, uneasy word to use lightly) through the quality of the music can perhaps bring one back into a creative mode or encouragement (self-esteem is huge in art and in general) can stem from it.

I'll leave a legit. message here soon, right now I need to get my laundry and go to class.


So...I leave you with this picture to ponder!

The Granny look

Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy (1822) by Theodore Gericault

a) Orvieto, Italy. For one full semester your goal is to relax, enjoy the world around you, be inspired and make art. Things to do: meet Bruce Herman, discuss art, breathe in deeply the ancient air, visit places filled with stories and layer upon layer of humanity plastered on the walls.

b) University X. For a semester, a year, or many years, experience a new fleet of faculty. Find a professor who you identify with and rack his brain. Be in a climate you feel better suited to and with the type of people you better identify with. Learn a new way of viewing and making art.

c) Take time off. Spend a semester or a year or more...a semester or a year or more...doing...doing what? Trying to find yourself? Maybe that's what you're doing right now and your resistance towards that is what's prompting this whole blog and besides that, what does "finding yourself" mean anyway? Who really does, ultimately? Seems like a great way to just give up, slackard!

d) Stay. You think that by replacing the environment, somehow your problems will go away. But the problems stem from you not your enviroment, you'll just be lugging them with you. Like Christian and his Burdon, I need to roll down that hill and let my Burdon fall like Saul's scales at the feet of the cross.

I don't think I need to say anything more.

Figure Notes

"The claim...for Michelangelo is that he has painted man above all, and I say that all he has painted is muscles and poses, in which even science, contrary to general opinion, is by no means the dominant factor. The least of the ancients has infinitely more knowledge than there is in the whole work of Michelangelo. He did not know a single one of the feelings of man, not one of his passions. When he was making an arm or leg, it seems as if he were thinking only of that arm or leg and was not giving the slightest consideration to the way it relates with the action of the figure to which it belongs, much less to the actions of the picture as a whole.

You are forced to admit that certain passages treated in this way, things that resulted from the artist's exclusive absorption in them, are of a character in which the only passion is their own. Therin lies his great merit; he brings a sense of the grand and the terrible into even an isolated limb."

- Eugene Delacroix from his Journal (1854)

Symmetrical composition

"They [lives] are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurence (Beethoven's music, death under a train) into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life...Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in the times of great distress."

- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, "Soul and Body"

Before I forget where these lines are, I'll post them.

Droppings

Here are two pieces I found enjoyable and thought I'd share.

This one is called Un nouveau theatre modele / Rien n'y a ete neglige pour la commodite des spectateurs (1864) by Honore Daumier

I don't know what that means, look it up.

Both of these are from a series called something like 'Sketches at a Theatre'.

A Literary Discussion in the Second Balcony

What a pairing of title to piece! Fantastic!!

FREE MONEY!!!

I just found out that I received $50 in supplies from Painted Moon (a local art store) for the chalk drawing below.

Woohoo, newsprint, drawing pad, charcoal pad, charcoal sticks, ink, and silverpoint if they have it, here I come!

More giant things

(CLICK ANY TO ENLARGE)

This is the chalk drawing piece I did this Saturday at Slausen Park.

It's taken after Bellow's Stag at Sharkey's and is done in black/white/yellow chalk, 4'x6'.

A closer view of the figures, nevermind the missing shoulder blade on the right boxer. Woops! The guy on the left turned out great though, I love that figure.

Little figures in the crowd, I love seeing how simple one can be yet still indicate an object/subject. Great fun!

Another closer view

The giant proboscis

Charcoal, white/black conte on toned charcoal paper, same size as giant eyeball

Inspired by a scene in a movie called Unstrung Heroes, in which a young son is 'saying goodbye' to his dying mother.

The piece turned out to be two guys, I guess me and Michaelangelo do only know the male figure.

Frustrating, but...

...the hand configurations I do like quite a lot. I will probably to this one over again, but with reference pictures not out of my head, or trying to contort my own hand as a model. And one will be female, and the other younger. Till next time.

Oh, and check out Kathe Kollwitz's Woman with Dead Child , this is the etched version opposed to the conte, but it'll give you the general idea.

That time, again

So, to keep you all up-to-date...

1) Later today, I am going to try doing another charcoal piece 'for fun', in the same spirit of expression (whatever that means) as the plethora of heads one, but more personal of a viewpoint. One on one with two individuals, a mother and child probably. A little flavor of Kathe Kollwitz.

2) I was in a car wreck with my bike the middle of this week. They were coming to a halt, ready to pull into the street, I was on the sidewalk, perpendicular to them, looking to the right. They stopped and I and my bike crawled over their passenger side bumber and sat/laid on their hood. After a few seconds, I rolled my back off the hood, looked back and mouthed, I'm okay. The two college girls were both wide-eyed and wide-mouthed. The driver bounded out and lavished me with concern and I felt like the British biker in one of the National Lampoon movies who was hit by Chevy Chase who kept apologizing while he was saying he was alright.

(Oh, and it's true, you do see stars! When I stood up, the edges of my vision were oh, so slightly darkened and there they were. Yes, the little points of yellow light floating around. A million Tinkerbells all hovering, puckering up for me. It was fascinating! Fantastic! It holds the same fascination that looking at a bright light does, if your eyes are a little moist and you're looking through your eyelashes. If you haven't tried this, you simply must! I swear you're seeing a reflection of the back of your eye. Just like at the optometrist when she shines the light into your eye and you see the red and yellow image floating just between you and the doctor, who's breathing in your face while you try not to grin.)

So, we traded information, much to their reluctance at first. I replaced the chain on my bike, checked my slightly scraped elbow and was on my merry way. It was quite exhilerating though. A brush with death to remind one of life. Thus Aesop ends his fable (but it was true).

3) After looking up "Es muss sein" from Doug's blog, I got the book and am now thoroughly enjoying reading it. It runs very similar to Lost/Cosmos in that it's not merely fiction, philosophy (study of life, 'love of wisdom') bolsters it. The flow is like a bubbling brook, little ripples of narrative and cold truth splashing my ankles. Ah....how soooooothing.

Oh, and why the bowler hat, Rene Magritte used the same symbol. What does it symbolize? I need to look this up.

4) Finally, yesterday I was outside for six hours painting a 4'x6' square with chalk. I used Bellow's Stag at Sharkey's as my model, reducing it to a black/white/yellow color composition. It turned out alright, not breathtaking, but different from the Elvis's, rainbows, Jimi Hendrix's, and colorful gradiants of most other pieces. I had two guys duking it out in full figure, knocking the "bajeebers" out of each other. The ref barely missing a blow to the face and the thirsty crowd below and behind, egging them on. Hm, violent sidewalk art, a little oxymoronic perhaps.


voir tu bientôt!