jayme del rosario | sketchblog

Bargue Plate, Bent Arm of a Man, Graphite

A recent Bargue plate drawing I did over the summer is on the cover of the latest special supplement issue of Drawing Magazine. I completed this Bargue copy via the sister school of Janus Collaborative, NYK Academy on the 2nd Fl of the Harlem Studios (JCSA is on the 3rd Fl). Both programs, in my opinion, serve to complement each other by training your eye in completely two different ways. AT JCSA we focus on the figure and direct observation where measuring is used as a check. It is based on a more structural analysis of drawing where ideas of perspective and constructive anatomy lie strong in the pedagogy.

NYK Academy’s curriculum is based on the sight-size drawing technique of the Florence Academy. This program originated with Andrea Smith who attended and taught at the Florence Academy. She now advises Judy Kudlow, who is the current instructor of the program. The course consists of a rational progression from graphite to charcoal to paint; the subject matter increases in difficulty with every drawing from 2D or “flats”, which are copies of the Bargues on to casts, then still life. There is also a figure drawing class in the evenings which you can take once you learn to measure (sight-size) in space.

With the sight-size method, measuring is a way to train your eye and you learn many things in a logical and simplified way so that you can achieve control of the materials and sharpen your analytical skills in a different way than the structural/constructive curriculum does. It is based on a more perceptual approach. One of the greatest things I’ve learned from the program so far is how to really analyze a curve. In the morning program at JCSA, we discuss the inflection point(s) of a curve and learn to really spot the change of direction through very close observational skills. However, by doing the Bargues I have noticed that it has only enhanced my analytical skills so that I can draw “by eye” much better.

One misunderstanding may be that everything is measured in the sight-size approach. Soon after my first Bargue plate copy, I quickly learned that this wasn’t true. From how I see it, the measurements serve as a foundation from which to build your drawing upon. Later measurements serve as a check and you have to rely on your eye much more along with a perceptual analysis/observation (AND since I can’t unlearn this…a structural, anatomical and constructive analysis). In short, all my teachers are really saying the same thing anyway. The approaches and techniques only seem different on the surface but the concepts are all the same; it’s just another tool.

This special issue of Drawing Magazine discusses the importance of copying master drawings and the lessons behind them, amongst many, many other interesting articles concerning drawing and draftsmanship.

Below are images of my Bargue copy of the male arm in various steps:

"Block-In" or Contours

Shadows

Intermediary Tones

Final Drawing (Stop Modeled in Graphite)

Though I finished this painting at the beginning of this month, I haven’t had any time to actually post it on my blog. I started with a poster study (which also served as my compositional study). Since it’s a very simple/elementary set-up, I didn’t feel there was any need to play around with the cropping though I did spend some time with positioning the light source. The first and second passes can be viewed here and here, respectively.

For the final pass, I wanted to concentrate on the textures and discoloration of the object. I also wanted to be able to show the simple form of the ladle despite the variation in its local color. Overall it was a fun painting to work on and though simple it brought forth many lessons for me to learn from in terms of painting local color, light effect, color/temperature variation, chroma control, form painting and paint handling.

Rusty Ladle, oil on board

Next time, I will need to improve the edge quality and edge variation a bit more.

Rusty Ladle, 2nd Pass

Edges, color adjustments (decrease chroma) and working on the lighter end of my value range were my primary concerns this round. I struggled with the tungsten light source during the first pass. The warmth of the bulb is quite distracting so I took some time to assess the local color and the affect of the light source on it for this pass.

My poster study was a good reference and tool in helping me correct the key of the painting from the first pass, though it could have served me better. I found that my poster study was too chromatic overall and it was also missing the higher parts of the value range. To a lesser degree I repeated those mistakes, so I spent a good chunk of my time this round fixing the parts that I had made too green or yellow or too chromatic.

Once it looked like the color and value adjustments were working out both on the ladle and on the background, I concentrated on minutia and some details of texture. I hope to build up some of the rusty textures on top of this pass during my next and final round. Critiques or suggestions welcome.

Rusty Ladle

This is the first pass to the still life set-up of a simple rusty ladle. It’s under artificial lighting, and you can check out the poster study here. I’m attracted to the simplicity of the object, its colors and the old, rusty texture of the metal. And I just love the high contrast of the dark cast shadow to the light blasting the background and top section of the ladle.

I decided against a grisaille and started directly with an ébauche (first pass or underpainting, always in color – at least in the tradition/approach practiced by Bouguereau and other 19th Century painters), simply because the value range of the composition is so small and compressed. I wanted a base with color and value decisions in the underpainting to work off of for the following pass. It seemed that building on top of this and layering the textures on top of something with form, color and value made the most sense.

In working with all these still life subjects I’ve ambitiously set-up for myself, I’m having trouble juggling and following through with the documentation process. So please bare with me, I’m sure I will improve.  I forgot to take pictures of the block-in process for this still life subject so I’ll discuss it briefly.

I began by drawing directly with a brush in an attempt to approach this painting “loosely” as I learned through Sarah Lamb’s workshop. Being more comfortable with getting the drawing “right” first – usually with pencil then transferring, I wanted to mix things up a bit this time. This confidence also springs from the fact that still life subjects are often more forgiving than the figure. Regardless of the drawing tool, it was the usual block-in stuff where I began with a loose envelope, then slowly broke this down to straight block-in lines with a lot of triangulation plus usage of vertical and horizontal plumbs “by eye” – and a knitting needle.

I resolved the drawing as well as I could. Once I had something accurate enough to build the underpainting on, I went in with brown and scumbled a very thin wash. This took place early on as I tried to treat the drawing and underpainting with a more mass drawing approach rather than a linear approach. With this technique there is more juggling with the drawing and so I continue to work on the drawing careful not to let the medium get too sloppy. The important things I keep in mind is to always improve the drawing, not lose the drawing by painting and covering lines I want to keep and I make sure things remain thin. I plan to build paint up in the lights especially since there is a lot of texture on the metal bowl and ladle.

Still Life with Garlic, underpainting

My underpainting is really a monochromatic wash-in though I used two colors, a warm and a cool, to map out the temperature changes. I first simplified things by starting with the darkest dark and moved from there. The neutral gray ground played a very strong role in how I simplified my values, slowly building up the underpainting from three values, on to four, five, etc until I was satisfied in suggesting the volume of the objects. The underpainting was “done” once I worked out the overall value and temperature relationships of the entire composition as well as I could.

Here is my poster study for the still life I’m working on during the day. The point is to make a color and value study of the composition so that you can key your final picture and use the poster to assure that the composition – including individual elements – are “keyed correctly” in relation to each other. It’s not about drawing, but an abstract study about color relationships.

Poster Study - Still Life with Garlic

I tried to keep the shapes as simple and as abstract as possible without compromising the composition too much. Parts of the background are slightly more chromatic than it should be in the final painting. I found it challenging to lay down flat color and value patches when many elements require indirect color/painting to achieve its effect. Regardless, I would attempt to find the most accurate average, mix and lay it down thickly, trying not to fuss with it unless it needed correction.