I love when art plays tricks with the mind, or uses the mind of the viewer as a co-conspirator. I suppose this is always the case, but when depictions straddle the line between representative and abstract, I find that fascinating: the way a certain configuration of dark blobs can take on the shape of a shadowy face, for instance:
It's amazing how easily our minds can find literal representations in abstractions. We are eager to find meaning. A smiley, a simple colon and parenthesis— :) —carries all sorts of emotive intentions. A series of straight lines can look like a face:
I've been looking at the works of Cézanne recently for a philosophy of aesthetics class. His style exemplifies the way our minds can mingle with shapes and colors, making interpretations and filling in details. At the next session I will try to be more interpretive, to put more of myself and my own perspective into the work.
A man walks into a room to find the protagonist, Jean Cocteau, painting at an easel. In front of the easel is a flower. The man walks up to the easel to look at the painting and is surprised to see not a flower on the canvas but a portrait of Jean Cocteau. The man looks quizzically at Jean, and Jean says, "An artist always paints his own portrait."
Here, then, are the latest "self-portraits."
I sometimes wonder to what extent my underlying or daily mindsets show through in these drawings. If someone changes, becomes a better person, you'd think it would find form in the things he expresses. If I change, does it show in the lines I put to paper? Conversely, if I change the way I put lines to the paper--take more risks, loosen or tighten control--does it change me outside the studio? Whether you're taking a plunge in art, in mundane life, or off a cliff, the mindset seems the same: you want to hazard a minor loss for a meaningful gain--the scenery is just different. So, maybe I really am helping myself outside the studio by risking that heavy, unerasable line. The incentives seem to move in both directions.
In addition to figure drawing, I've been doing some street sketching--people watching with a pen. It's difficult to capture people's character as they move quickly past, especially when they notice some creepy schlub staring at them and scribbling. But, it's fun. Recognize anyone?
Along those lines, the model this week: wow. Not only beautiful, but intelligent and articulate -- the deadliest kind. It figures I show up an hour late on the day Aphrodite decides to model.
I said last week that watercolors are hard, but painting a beautiful (naked) woman with watercolors is doubly so. It's not that I get, you know, distracted — it's more the fact that beauty is so delicately proportionate, and capturing those proportions is like trying to catch a fly with chopsticks. When the subject is fat and lumpy, you can fudge things here and there and no one will notice. But when you're trying to capture a perfect feminine form, there's no leeway: if you fudge things, the magic is lost and all you get is a weird-looking, gangly humanoid.
I said "distraction" wasn't a factor, but there is something psychological going on too. For certain poses, when the lighting and figure take on that ethereal quality, I think to myself (not explicitly, but the feeling is there), "My god, what an amazing sight. DON'T FUCK THIS UP." In a frenzy to distill the essence of the scene into two dimensions, my movements get worried and rigid. If I'd just relax, loosen up, concentrate on less on myself and more on the process, things would turn out better. But that samadhi-like state is as elusive as it is in meditation. I wonder if I meditated more regularly it would have beneficial effects on artistic activities. Probably.
Anyway, here are my gangly humanoids. (Sorry, Aphrodite.)
When I was in gradeschool, we used to do these wishy-washy watercolor paintings with big abstract blobs of color. I tend to associate the medium, at least in the way I use it, with that memory. I'm a little scared of using watercolors for realistic depictions. To disabuse myself of this fear, I decided to give the medium a go at figure drawing today. Painting figures with watercolors is fucking hard, but educational:
I was inspired by these paintings by Craig Mullins, aka spooge demon from Sijun Forums. Mine are more rigid than his. With watercolors, you have to be paradoxically precise (in choice of value and stroke) and flexible. I have so much to learn.
It was our familiar old model again today, but going against what I said last time about models repeating the same poses, she was more spontaneous than usual. The lighting was also better (more dramatic), which helped me focus less on outlining and more on values. I think I see hints of a new level of perceptivity in my quickie drawings below:
It's such an elusive and subtle thing to get the lighting right such that it takes on that eerie sense of realism, which I think I see in the first couple sketches above. During longer poses like the last one, that quality is even harder to capture for me: I tend to over-detail in the wrong way, losing the lively sense that comes out in the short poses. I think I need to focus less on irrelevant literal details and more on extracting important visual characteristics and representing them in a simple form. This is when I wish I had a teacher to provide guidance.
Like I said, I didn't feel very inspired. But it's still good practice; accumulating skill takes time in any area. Sticking with it even when you don't feel inspired forms habits, and habits carry you to proficiency.
A personal observation I've made is that I consider pretty much all of the artistic work I do as practice. I don't produce it for any purpose (although I've shown work, incidentally, in shows before); there is no goal other than improvement. It's like I'm preparing a meal but have no intention of eating it. I wonder if I should come up with something specific to work towards.
Anyway, here are today's end-less means:
Lately I've been trying to get away from my usual caricature-like line drawings to a more loose, impressionistic style. The drawings below are from a recent session where I felt a kind of breakthrough in being able to see differently and put the media to the paper in a non-literal way. I want to start being more selective about what I include in the drawing. For instance, leaving out the facial detail in the second drawing. The first drawing is in my traditional style.
I'd been drawing the model above for several sessions in a row. No matter how good a model is, there is only so many times you can draw her until the experience starts to feel stale. Today, we finally had a new model. This is the first time I've used pastel for more than idle experimentation:
Tina, the model, was very eccentric. At first, when I came in, she was in this classical-looking pose. When models are posing, completely bare, there is nothing to give you any indication of what their personality is like—no clothes, no voice, no mannerisms. There is just this raw, archetypal human form.
It's funny to see this dreamy image smashed when the model starts talking, or puts her clothes back on. In this case, Tina started going on and on about her anime obsessions. I won't say it marred the experience—I don't mind when models are chatty—it's just interesting to see the disjoint between how you imagine a person is and how they turn out to actually be. In addition to her anime exegeses, she did all these bizarre poses: sticking her pinky in her ear, strangling herself with a long claw-like tool, striking a Sailor Moon pose. In general, models are eccentric people (I guess you have to be to take your clothes off in front of strangers) but Tina was a cut above the rest.