figure drawing, male study

Here’s a 12-day study of a male figure completed during our morning class at the studio. I’m experimenting with toned paper and the use of white chalk. For now, I’ve decided to stay with graphite rather than switch to charcoal and white chalk. I like (or am used to) graphite and enjoy the subtlety you can achieve in the values with this medium. In the end, however, I’d eventually like to incorporate both charcoal and graphite in the drawing so that I can reach the rich dark that you can get with charcoal in a much more efficient way. At the same time, I can still take advantage of the subtlety and control that I am used to with graphite. I’ve tried this before with a cast drawing of an arm and the charcoal helped me progress the drawing much further without any loss of subtlety in the refining stages of modeling. I find it much more difficult trying to do this with the figure in the interior.

3hr portrait sketch, oil on paper

3-hr portrait sketch, oil on paper

3-hour quick portrait sketch, Whittnie

Andrew Loomis and Matthew Innis’ latest blog post on his blog, Underpaintings, offers great reading material for these quick portraits.

open sketch class drawing

When I get stuck on longer poses and projects, it’s very easy to forget how helpful a sketch session can be. This was a nice pose, and it was great practice in trying to track anatomical landmarks as her pelvis mimicked the weight of a pendulum throwing her contrapposto to and fro…it was actually more funny than frustrating. This taught me that sometimes it’s futile; you just have to let go and give up on the pose corrections. Accept it as a challenge for one session. Like a wise friend once said, “After all, it’s life drawing. They’re going to move!”

"Helicopter" Sketches/Drawings, Leonardo da Vinci

The lecture and discussion at Janus Collaborative this past Friday was not only intellectually stimulating, but fun. It was great to spend an evening meeting new realist painters and reconnecting with old friends from other schools and ateliers. Spending a majority of my time at the studio and working reduces my social time and “catching up” to checking status updates on Facebook — and even this time is limited. But I think that discussing our process and thoughts every now and then is just as important to art training and to the picture making process.

We were lucky enough to have Tony Mastromatteo give two lectures last Friday. During the regular day program, we focused on the painting life as a creative, professional life. He answered many questions, pulling mainly from his own experience, about how to survive as a painter and be satisfied with what we are painting once we are out of school. We discussed the transition, and both the short-term and long-term fulfillment of an artist’s career. He talked about how to make a living as a painter instead of one who paints/waits tables/takes odd jobs/freelances/ tutors/babysits/dog walks…you get my drift.

Tony also mentioned how he now understands the important distinction between emerging, mid-level and established artists. If I had more time, I would write more about the specifics of the lecture but one of the main things I walked away with that afternoon is that it confirmed how this type of training is crucial. Painstaking studies 7-8 hours a day, 5 days a week is what it takes, and if we want to make a living as a painter we have to do the work and we have to be good at what we do whether or not we continue to paint the figure or paint apples. Otherwise we end up painting houses.

No doubt there is a lot of thinking and self-exploration that faces everyone once we are finished with art school and if you ask 10 different working artists, you’ll get at least 10 different answers of what has worked for them. Art school doesn’t train us for everything. We are here (in the atelier system) mainly to learn and perfect technique. From this starting point, in our own studios, we have a life’s work and much exploration ahead of us. Perhaps it sounds a bit daunting, but quiet exciting as well.

For the evening, Tony discussed what the atelier system is lacking: the development of ideas. Technical know-how is a given in realist paintings. Subject matter on the other hand is the next hurdle. In fact it is the hurdle (and will continue to be the following hurdles down the track on our run as realist painters). Ateliers, unlike the university system, is mainly (if not only) concerned with technical development and perfection. And for good reason, it takes years to perfect and execute “the how” so we have to turn down the volume on “the what”.

Whether we came into this type of training already knowing “the what” or not, “the how” is absolutely essential. It is our language and we have to be proficient in it in order to communicate and express what we want in any picture. So contrary to some discussions involving the topic of creativity and expression, we move forward on the premise that it is absolutely essential to learn and master technique. However, as Tony says, we can’t move forward very well with a bum leg.

I look forward to more discussions and lectures such as this one during the rest of my studies at Janus. It’s nice to have instructors who are supportive of developing a curriculum that sets a very high and challenging bar for us to meet, yet who also realize the importance of developing the “muscle” of creativity in conjunction with technical know-how. On a side note, it may be a good thing that painting is a “lonely profession” since there’s a study out there saying how we are far more creative in individual settings, than in groups. I agree that groupthink is often not the best way to solve a problem:

As far as more details of the specifics of Tony’s lecture, I will hand the baton to a blog post from one of the attendees from that evening. (Check out the rest of Hyeseung’s blog and website while you’re there. Awesome work!)

Reverse Engineering Painting
Lecture and Discussion with Anthony Mastromatteo
Practitioners of contemporary realism have limited the possibilities of their language by placing their greatest emphasis on technical issues. We will explore further possibilities of visual language as utilized in the past through the breakdown and examination of various successful paintings and plot a path beyond pure technical execution. Along this path, each individual artist may thrive in his or her specific manner of expression.

Time: 6:30-9pm
Where: Janus Collaborative studio, 3rd Floor
Please join us for the evening.
RSVP info@januscollaborative.org

It should be an interesting lecture, followed by a great discussion among attendees. I’m looking forward to breaking up my academic study with such a topic. If you’re in the area or know someone in the area who might be interested, please spread the word.

Under certain lighting conditions, for example with front light or under a strong spotlight, with the subject against a dark background, the dark tones at the edge of an object may be absorbed into the background and what we really see in this instance is an area just inside the edge of the form instead of the dark light. The outermost edge of this zone blends into the background. This creates the illusion of softer edges instead of a crisp separation between the object and background. The basic lesson is what we’ve heard over and over again, we must pay attention to the edges and work very carefully at the meeting of forms. A great example is an image I’ve posted here before.

Notice how the edge of the shoulder as it turns into the form of the back is very soft, while the edge of the upper forearm of the left arm against a light drapery is much more crisp. We can also contrast the field effects happening in the skull and the right arm. The skull has a softer edge as the top of the head as it turns away from us toward the background and enters the dark light, while the right arm (also turning away from us into the background) is more lit and its dark light zone is not near the edge of the arm placed against the background. Thus the difference in their edge treatment. (At least this is how I rationalize my reading of how Caravaggio treated the two edges differently.) He may have just been copying what he saw, which proves that how he painted what he saw is accurate with visual phenomena. Yet, I suspect that he was aware of these patterns in nature and didn’t just copy nature by rote in his practice. (There are also other reasons why the skull has a softer edge than the right arm.)

For the painting I worked on in Sarah Lamb’s workshop, she had me pay attention to the edge of the gourd which was in the dark light region, against the darker background of the wooden box. This edge was much softer than the opposing edge more directly facing the light source against a cast shadow on the same dark wooden box.

With a backlit subject, the same field effects would occur with the opposite observation. Edges would be softer on the light edge against a light background as some of this lighter zone would be absorbed into the background and harder on the darker side of the form against the lighter background. This is also consistent with the rule that high contrast areas are often the sharpest areas in a painting/nature.

There are many different field effects in nature which I have yet to learn and fully understand. In essence, everything in our visual experience is a field effect since we never see objects in nature in isolation, especially color. The cognitive experience of visual phenomena is a product of many different optical illusions and our eyes are lying to our brains (or is it our brains lying to our eyes, therefore lying to itself? …If anyone knows of any books on this topic, please let me know and shoot me an email! I love this stuff!!).

We discussed another field effect at the edges of a form, in relation to color, which I’ll write as a separate post later this week. I’ve indulged in my musings enough for the evening (making good use of that extra hour we gained from Daylight Savings this weekend). It’s time to finish preparing my panels for this week’s intensive workshop-style class with Michael at the studio.

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Though I haven’t had any issues, I thought it wise to add the statement below:

Art Student’s/Blogger’s Caveat:
Everyone should always take this in consideration when reading any blog, but I’ll state it here just to be clear. Everything written on my personal blog is my interpretation of my studies and in no way should be taken as the exact teaching itself. Though I strive to understand and represent all the concepts fully and back up my writing/notes with examples, other more established posts/articles/books, science, visual phenomena, etc. there is always room for error and misunderstanding so it is the reader’s responsibility to cross-reference anything they read here. In case of any error brought to my attention, I will always point them out ASAP. (And of course, if you’ve heard otherwise or spot any incongruities, please shoot me an email since I created this blog to develop a greater, ongoing conversation amongst like-minded people and artists.)