I’ve been tremendously busy for the last few weeks; that’s why I’ve not posted. Yes! I’ve been painting. I’m working on a portrait right now of a friend, and I’m working much more slowly (even more slowly than usual!) as I try to nail down the design and the colors. But it’s been absorbing me to the point that I don’t do much else (except the day job, of course).
Here’s a painting of a friend of mine. I made this last month. Took me four tries to get what I wanted. She’s a dancer, but was taking a break and listening intently to the music.
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All that playing with charcoal paid off when I drew this portrait. It came together nicely.
We draw the same model in the same pose for about 4 20-minutes blocks of time. During the last block of time, Felicia talked about looking at your drawing and taking away what was non-essential. So I stepped back and really looked at my drawing, and used the kneaded eraser to give more form to areas and shape the strong light and highlights.
I’ve been struggling to control my charcoal pencils. I keep making scratchy liney-lines, when what I want is a soft, rich, even tone. So I got out a piece of smooth newsprint and just doodled, trying to gain some control.
I’m not used to this technique. The pencil is whittled (I use a box cutter), stripping away the outer layer of wood, and leaving a slender charcoal twig about an inch and a half long. Then one side of that fragile stick of charcoal is flattened on a sanding block. This gives it a wide surface to make soft tone or expressive line.
But you have to have the right touch, and be in tune with your pencil. I keep losing the flattened edge on my charcoal. Then I have to scruff around in the margins of the paper until I can find that sweet spot again.
I need to do many of these kinds of sheets. Just play with the pencil and exercise my arm and eye.
The image I see in my head when I start to draw a portrait is ever so much better than what I actually draw; why won’t that image in my mind come out through my fingertips onto the paper? While I was happy that I caught the likeness of the model in this portrait (week 4 of Felicia’s portrait drawing class), the rest of it leaves me, well, disappointed.
Felicia often tapes tracing paper over students’ drawings to demonstrate how they might better change their drawings. As she demonstrates, she often mutters to herself. In those half-verbalized thoughts, there is a whole lecture for the student who pays close attention.
That night, she traced over my drawing of the model, concentrating on the nose. She talked about where she saw edges. Were they crisp edges? Soft edges? Form or cast shadows? How did they wrap around the form; where did they create a sharp angle? She applied her charcoal pencil as if it were the finest sable brush, and modeled a perfectly dimensional nose in a few strokes.
I realized—once again—that I still wield my pencil like a bludgeon. I need practice in order to handle it like a fine brush.
I need to go home and simply play with the materials we used for the class. Play with them with no expectation of results, except for learning what a simple charcoal pencil can do.
Now there’s some great homework. Play. Play. And more play.
I’m smiling.
More posts about my adventures in portrait drawing class
The hardingfele, or hardanger fiddle, is a traditional instrument of Norway. It’s got 4 strings stretched across the top of the instrument, like a regular fiddle, but beneath those strings are 4 more strings that buzz and moan in sympathy when the top strings are played. The music is other-worldly. When I hear it, I think of ice goddesses, snow fields, midnight suns, birch trees in brilliant green meadows.
If the northern lights played music, it would be on the hardingfele.
In the Bay Area we gab ceaselessly about diversity, and yet, most people only really listen to music presented to them by mainstream radio; they don’t know that there is a whole world of music out there that isn’t just Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber. It’s the musical equivalent of eating at only McDonalds when you live 2 blocks from a wonderful street where every restaurant serves food from a different country . If you never go down that street, you never even know that there are other foods.
If you want to taste some Norwegian hardingele music, you might start at the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. There are some sound files to give you an idea of what this wonderful and mysterious music sounds like. And there’s a radio show about the fiddle (Sarah’s in it!) here.
And you might want to explore some of the fabulous musical menus that the world has to offer. Who knows? There might be a hardingele fiddler living right next door to you!
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Graphite sketch after Reubens on Strathmore Smooth Bristol Visual Journal
The model was clearly upset. She couldn’t sit still, let alone maintain a pose. It was wiggle, sift, sigh, and sink for the entire time.
Graphite sketch after Reubens on Strathmore Strathmore Smooth Bristol Visual Journal
It wasn’t my place to ask her to leave, and besides, I think we were all trying to be kind—she seemed to be roosting in a nest of problems—so I had to just deal with it.
It’s hard to keep my imagination down (I can imagine 20 ridiculous things before breakfast!), so I ran with it, and pretended I was commissioned to draw a portrait of a rich, troubled, doomed girl (Paris Hilton came to mind). My imaginary patron was her doting Fortune 500 daddy. And I tried to find the things that a daddy would love in his wonky daughter, and express them in the portrait.
By the end of the evening, I was ready to return the hypothetical advance to the hypothetical daddy, and my heart was aching for this poor, clueless model.
James Gurney has a good post on activating your imagination while creating academic models. I loved his suggestion: add wings!
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Week 3 of portrait drawing class and I am still struggling with the materials of charcoal on newsprint. I’m also tusseling with drawing the features, particularly the eyes. Eyes are the hardest feature for me to put down correctly.
I think it’s because we see each eye as an individual element, when really, they are part of the same feature. Yes, there are two eyes, but they are connected by the brow line (you know, as in “the artist’s furrowed brow”). But grrr, making that connection in a drawing always stumps me.
Felicia recommended looking for the rhythms of the face: how the features are connected by arcs and circles. And that was my “aha!” moment for the night.
I know that progress on this point will come slowly, but now I know it will come.
These pictures, the first two I drew for Felicia Forte’s portrait drawing class, should have gone with the post Drawing the portrait: week one. But they didn’t make it, so I’m showing them now.
Week 1: Charcoal portrait on rough newsprint
After 4 years learning to draw at the atelier, I can hit a likeness pretty well. But although this first drawing (above) might resemble the model, it’s not hanging together drawing-wise. Too many scratchy lines and no clear shadow pattern. I know that. I knew that when I drew it. But I’m afraid of making those kind of marks. I don’t know why. Sometimes as artists we fear unreasonable things.
Week 2: Charcoal portrait on rough newsprint
This second drawing is better. Felicia stopped me midway through and said, just draw the shadow pattern around the eyes. Don’t worry about the eyes themselves. She was right.
Getting caught up in details right away doesn’t improve a drawing. Lesson learned on this drawing: Simplify. Look for the big pictures, the big shapes; the rest will follow.
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I just realized I accidentally posted my previous post. It wasn’t quite ready; I meant to include pictures of my drawings, but in my early morning fog I must have clicked “Publish” instead of “Save Draft.”
And because WordPress has a new feature that offers outward-bound links based on words in your posting; and because I usually check those links to see if they might be Links Of Interest; and because when you check links out, WordPress automatically attaches them to your post, I did not notice that I had included a link to a story about a guy who tried multiple drugs, then painted his portrait while high on each substance. (I do NOT find his work compelling, although some museum will probably pick them up and make much of them as modern art. I’m not going to relink to this story. If you must read it, you’ll have to scroll down to find it.)
People! Do NOT try to emulate him! Your brain, as thundery or as sunny as it is, whatever the weather going on in your skull, is a marvelous system. Sometimes, if your mind is too stormy, doctors can help calm the cranial waters in your skull. But on your own? Nevernevernever mess with your inner climate. Not for fun, not for sorrow, and certainly not when picking up a pencil or a paintbrush!
Dear readers, proceed clearly, do not cloud the mind. Art is learning to see, clearly and truthfully. Sometimes that hurts. Sometimes it’s just boring. But let your work be yours, and yours alone.
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Mockingbirds at midnight 