jayme del rosario | sketchblog

Old Master Drawings have been a great source of education in my classical training thus far. During my last visit to the MET I (attempted) to make a copy of a page of Abraham Bloemaert’s drawing of Woman Sitting and 4 Hands. I focused mostly on studying the woman’s arm because I loved the subtlety and simplicity of his linework. In my analysis below I highlight common mistakes in drawing that occur whether we are doing master copies or drawing from life.

But first, I want to discuss a few points on what to focus on and what not to focus on when copying master drawings. The points are a mix from notes I’ve compiled through my studies to date and from my own experience in copying old master drawings.

What NOT to do:

• copy every single line or hatch mark (at least for educational purposes. If your goal is to make an exact copy of a work then this point would, of course, be moot.)

Some things to focus on:

• tilts and distances
• value relationships
• long lines and relationships
• proportion
• areas of overlap
• perspective

These may seem a bit too general, and I guess my main point in this post is that when trying to learn from an old master drawing we miss the lesson if we simply copy every single line without filtering the reasons behind those lines. Missing one hatch mark is a small “mistake” compared to missing the mark when it comes to understanding relationships of long lines, rhythm, proportion and value.

In my analysis above, I focus on two main mistakes I make in my study of Bloemaert’s drawing. They are both rooted in the common error of exaggeration. The black circle addresses an obvious area where I inadvertently created a bump at the point where the radius attaches to the bones of the wrist and hand, by overestimating the curve. The green lines in my drawing (leading to the black circle, you may need to click the image for a closer view to see the lines), when placed next to Bloemaert’s drawing shows how the lower tilt is slightly off. This seemingly small error is great when combined with the long line and curve leading to the bump of the wrist. I end up pinching the lower section of the arm too much and causing that non-existent swelling of the wrist.

In the second analysis, I take a closer look at long lines/relationships and the difficulty of curves. There is a subtle and beautiful curve relating the upper arm to the lower arm. If you take away the “bump of the elbow” and take a closer look at Bloemaert’s drawing, you’ll see how he clearly saw and understood this relationship as he exhibits the beauty of this woman’s arm in the subtlety of his drawn curve. In my study of the drawing I have exaggerated the inflection of the curve toward the end of my line. This tendency to under or overexagerrate the line towards the end of your stroke is common and can be improved with much practice. It is difficult to control the line the longer it is — especially for me and it is something I continue to practice.

Overall it was a great learning experience and I copied other drawings that day, but I have to say Abraham Bloemaert is a master is the subtlety of those curves – as well as overlap. I didn’t cover issue of overlap in this post but if you’re interested in learning more about it, Bloemart drawings are a great source. I will cover overlap and how to evaluate a curve’s point of inflection in future posts.

Happy copying!

PS – Copying master drawings also reveals your weaknesses while it highlights your strengths and/or improvements throughout classical art training. For example, it helps me know how to redirect my training and what I should continue to focus on during my training. How to pick an old master drawing to copy? More on my next post…

Blocking in is a great approach to drawing anything from the figure to a landscape or a still life. You break down the large shapes and work broadly paying attention to gesture, angles and distances. If you get the tilts and distances right, proportional problems shouldn’t haunt you and if you pay attention to perspective, you’re golden. It is a more linear approach to starting a painting or drawing — as opposed to mass drawing where the large masses are layed in very quickly.  There is a cursory block-in set-up with mass drawing but it is very brief.  Shapes are established very quickly and the block-in is used to set-up the gesture and general proportions of the subject.  An analysis of shapes and their individual axis play a larger role rather than the linear tilts of each form. But don’t be mistaken, they are one and the same and knowing how to think in linear mass can only be an advantage. It’s the difference between lifting with your back or learning how to lift with your legs, both will do the job but the former is likely to do more harm. Here’s a block-in of last week’s figure pose.

Figure Block-In

The side drawing was a critique from Michael Grimaldi where he analyzed the rhythm and movement of the structural forms making an excellent parallel to a previous drapery workshop which the full-time/core program students took part in last month at JCSA, aka Janus.  More on the block-in in a future post.

The tradition of drawing from memory has disappeared from art training despite its crucial role in developing the artist’s drawing skills, creativity and imagination.  One of my teachers, Jon deMartin, says you really find out how much knowledge you’re lacking when you try to draw the figure from memory. It’s a very humbling exercise. At the same time, you show yourself which areas you need to study more and which areas you have learned to integrate very well through the process of drawing from nature.  

No matter how many times you have drawn the figure from life, drawing the figure from memory remains a challenge.  The only way to reach the goal with greater ease is to continually practice drawing the figure from memory.  In Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Discourses on Art he tells (I believe in Discourse IX) his students to redraw from memory figures that they had previously drawn in the life class. Continual practice in this exercise, he said, would soon enable the student to draw “tolerably correct” human figures “with as little effort of the mind as is required to trace with a pen the letters of the alphabet.” Leonardo da Vinci recommended artists should go over the forms and outlines they had studied that day before going to sleep at night.

In our portrait sketch class with Kate Lehman at JCSA, we were asked to paint the same portrait from memory and it was amazing how much the brain simplified things down to the most essential elements — at least this was my strategy that day.  I was more amazed at what I was able to remember, than what I didn’t remember.  Simplification and a broad approach proved to be a great strategy in recreating the portrait.  Now I am lucky enough to get my hands on an out-of-print book, The Training of the Memory in Art written by Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1847.  I am looking to improve my skills in memory drawing not only to aid drawing from the imagination, but to be able to develop compositions in the process of picture making.

—

Links:
Jon deMartin
Kate Lehman

Books: 
Discourses on Art, Sir Joshua Reynolds (online version of 7 discourses, here)

Check out:
Another post on memory drawing via one of my favorite blogs, Gurney Journey.