Thursday Post 3-12-09
Drawing
“Matisse makes a drawing, then he makes a copy of it. He recopies it five times, ten times, always clarifying the line. He's convinced that the last, the most stripped down, is the best, the purest, the definitive one; and in fact, most of the time, it was the first. In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.”
- Pablo Picasso
Davies, Jo; Duff, Leo. Drawing: The Process. Portland: Intellect Books, 2005.
There is no finite way to think about drawing. Drawing functions more as a process than a means to a result, and though anyone can do it, the frustration lies in always knowing it could go further. In China, art students must perfect figure drawing before they may move on to more creative aspects of drawing such as basic design. In the Western World, creativity and imagination are stressed before academic connections or attempts at realism. I found this difference fascinating as one side of the world is stressing the technical side of things with imagination on the backburner while the other side has a drive toward unhindered creativity free of the burden of realistic depiction. With my new direction I am forced to define my drawing style. I have not often drawn on such a small scale with colored pencils and this may account for some of the "quality" issues my drawings may be having. I do not want them to look rough, so I don't think that drawing them directly onto the images will suit my purpose, but it is definitely an odd and awkward task to affix a drawing made on white paper to a colored photograph. I'm not sure how I can improve my transitions.
“Matisse makes a drawing, then he makes a copy of it. He recopies it five times, ten times, always clarifying the line. He's convinced that the last, the most stripped down, is the best, the purest, the definitive one; and in fact, most of the time, it was the first. In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.”
- Pablo Picasso
Davies, Jo; Duff, Leo. Drawing: The Process. Portland: Intellect Books, 2005.
There is no finite way to think about drawing. Drawing functions more as a process than a means to a result, and though anyone can do it, the frustration lies in always knowing it could go further. In China, art students must perfect figure drawing before they may move on to more creative aspects of drawing such as basic design. In the Western World, creativity and imagination are stressed before academic connections or attempts at realism. I found this difference fascinating as one side of the world is stressing the technical side of things with imagination on the backburner while the other side has a drive toward unhindered creativity free of the burden of realistic depiction. With my new direction I am forced to define my drawing style. I have not often drawn on such a small scale with colored pencils and this may account for some of the "quality" issues my drawings may be having. I do not want them to look rough, so I don't think that drawing them directly onto the images will suit my purpose, but it is definitely an odd and awkward task to affix a drawing made on white paper to a colored photograph. I'm not sure how I can improve my transitions.
posted by Megan Wagner at
8:30 PM
1 Comments:
Megan, I am posting this on the blog so that you can read it again. In my note I am not asking so much for an improvement, but a fever. Your drawings have the possibility to go beyond drawing as drawing. In your attempts to connect drawing to the photographic image I see the potential for split. A split between good-enough and better than words. You have the opportunity to take these images to a place that not many can understand, without pushing back or denying the viewer. Think about H.R. Geiger (s/p Aliens) or Phillip Pearlstein, or Kath Kolwitz, all of these artists have distinct stylistic differences, however each has the ability to take the viewer into the world of the artist, something that goes beyond understanding or reading the subject.
It’s not about transitions, so much.
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I have spent some time looking at them.
My first reaction is that the (we will separate drawings/photo as figure/ground)
is that the transitions between the figure and ground need to be flawless or directly drawn on (as a separate layer) the ground, as a outsider artist would overlay images, very rough. Kind of the way Basquiett would draw and paint.
Also, if you are going to let the audience know that you are giving them a altered reality, why not go crazy? The drawn doesn't have to have such an accessible connection to the photo. I know that the source image is not what it seems to be..... so shouldn't that be part of the drawings as well? I feel like you can take the drawing way future...
Let the image be challenging, but readable. Make the audience want to spend time with the object, letting it dissolve slowly.... Or make it a real big BANG that would strike anyone who looks at it.
I know I am supporting both sides of this. There are expansive possibilities in each direction!
Do you like to draw? Then why aren't drawing more? I know how refined your hand work can be. So present that! Keep drawing! Make them delicious, dripping with wonder of "how could she have produced these by hand?"
Can you hear me? I want you to become a production artist. Work should be a pleasure. No one can do what you do better than you. You have to wake up and think about your skills and gifts and talents and interests and loves and then figure out a way to get all that in during that one day.
Make me more.
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