DRAWING AT DUKE

2011-12-14T11:34:00.000-08:00

Drawing has always been a large undivulged hobby of mine my entire life. I have doodled and sketched secretly, without instruction, on notebooks, sketch paper, napkins. I have sketched more than I have watched Tv or done homework. I love drawing and always will, i hope. This class has only intensified my liking of it. The time it took to draw some of these drawing were expansive and encompassing, and thus a little exhausting, but in the end, I am grateful for the push. I would always draw when I wanted, quitting as soon as I lost interest, but now I have a greater appreciation for finishing works to a certain extent.

I have always been a visual person. In school, I would learn most form hand on activity and the conceptualization of the various diagrams that described neuronal synapses to historical trends of silver accumulation. Rather than a list of directions, I preferred a map. Naturally over writing, I always chose drawing. And even beyond this class, I plan to utilize what I know about art and my experience in it in my future plans of marketing and teaching.

The fiction drawing I enjoyed drawing the most. In addition to the challenge of capturing a particular focus and its entire environment into a large sheet of paper, I loved having that power to transform such reality into a playful fiction. It was some what exhilarating.

Chris

Onlookers and the Light of Day

2011-12-13T21:50:00.000-08:00

While working on the last three drawings, I found a new reason to enjoy drawing. Before doing the assignment, I had never really sat outdoors and drawn for any substantial period of time (i.e. more than an hour or so). My experiences with drawing before this class mostly consisted of drawing in the classroom or in my house. I had never really drawn out in public before.

Working on these drawing over many days and often for hours at a time, I got to experience my subject under a broad range of lightings. It is nice to see how a scene interacts with light and how it changes as the sun sets. Depending on the lighting the Nasher, Perkins and the Crowell clock tower could look completely different. I felt like Monet must have when he obsessed over his Thames series.

When drawing the Nasher, several people stopped on their way to or from the museum to look at my drawing. I especially enjoyed when a group of little kids gathered around me and asked me how I learned to draw. Drawing Perkins offered a similar experience, as a few people stopped to watch me draw. One man even took several photographs of me. Yet this last assignment, because of my choice of location (sitting in the grass right next to the sidewalk on the main west campus quad) was by far the most “public “ of my setups. Over the course of the roughly seven days I spent sitting out working on the picture (spaced over three weeks), I must have received around 50 comments from people walking by. At first I found it awkward drawing on such a main drag, but it proved to be rewarding.

The interactions I had with these people – some students and others adults – ranged from a simple thumbs-up to inquiries about purchasing my work. Some comments seemed to come from fellow artists. For example, one older man talked to me about a drawing he had once made in Europe. However, I really appreciated the positive feedback from people who didn’t identify themselves as artists. It was so nice to see athletes, members of the dining staff, professors etc., appreciating art. Some even told me that they had seen me working the week before and really liked how the drawing was coming along. Some of my friends told me they never new I was an artist before. I drew with headphones on, but whenever I noticed somebody stopping to watch me draw, I would take them off in case he wanted to talk.

It was very refreshing to be able to share my art with people in such an active way. Over the summer I spent a lot of time cooped up in my attic painting and getting ready for a show I had in August. Although the show gave me a chance to receive feedback and share my artwork, it was much different than having people actually watch me draw. Of course sometimes I prefer to draw in private. Yet now that I’ve had this positive experience I’ll definitely consider going outside to draw more often. Sometimes I find it unfortunate being a visual artist, as we don’t often have opportunities to “perform” and get immediate responses. I think I’ve found a good compromise.

Reflection and (Unrelated!) Thoughts About Drawing

2011-12-13T14:29:00.000-08:00

The following paragraphs are disconnected, separate thoughts and should be read as though they were separate entries/blog posts.

While I drew and colored extensively as a small child, ever since I taught myself how to paint in 4^th grade, I have primarily focused on this form of art. For me, the appeal of painting was that I could blend colors and create realistic gradients in a way that is far more difficult to draw. Also, when I really began painting, I was primarily producing art on useful objects as gifts for other people. As such, wooden boxes and picture frames lent themselves to being painted. In high school, while I did take a variety of courses including the 3-term pre-req studio course, drawing, printmaking, and a 3D seminar; I spent the most time (3 semesters) in various levels of painting courses. During my senior year, I was often incredibly impressed by the work of my peers who had chosen to focus on drawing and since then, I have felt the need to develop my own ability to draw. I believe that taking this class has sharpened and refined my not only my drawing skills but also my overarching capability as an artist.

As he reviewed my work at the beginning of the term, professor Fick asked if I was a painter as he felt I had a “painterly” style. As he has mentioned my style a few times during the term, I have wondered how my approach to drawing has made my style painterly. Is it the various techniques that I tend to use to apply and blend the medium? Are my drawings “looser” or less focused on clean, geometric lines? For such large-scale drawings, I prefer to use charcoal because it produces a much greater range of values. Subtle changes in shading that can be produced with graphite are better suited for small, detailed work, in my opinion. Also, given the relative size of a graphite stick or pencil, it is rather impractical to cover large areas that need dark values especially compared to using a stick of pressed charcoal. I prefer to spend time and effort working on focal points of my drawing rather than working in endless crosshatching to get a dark area (especially when it is a background or rather unimportant element). Charcoal is also much easier to blend to create subtle shading and gradients without harsh lines that graphite can leave behind. I believe that my preference of charcoal with regard to blending, shading, and the ability to cover large areas, has quite a bit to do with the fact that I also paint. When I searched “drawing” and scanned the Wikipedia page, I read through the list of mediums/instruments: “graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils,crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals”. Reading through just this list makes one start to wonder: where is the line between drawing and painting? Oil pastels can easily be smeared and blended on the page in the same way that paint could. Why are inked brushes considered a drawing instrument rather than a painting instrument? If there are encaustic wax paints and wax pencils, what makes one for drawing and the other for painting? It seems to me that drawing and painting are actually part of a continuum; however in academic settings, we focus on very different aspects of the “separate” principals.

* * * * * * *

As an artist, I am very focused on the meaning, narrative, or theme of a piece as I work. When Professor Fick mentioned that we should try to include some sort of quirky or nearly surprising elements into our early still life drawings, I was excited to include something subtle but perhaps amusing to a careful viewer.

I arranged this still life to reflect my enjoyment and involvement in sailing. I grew up boating with my family, but my father’s intense passion for sailing has inspired my own love for the sport. Recently I’ve sailed on a wooden schooner from Boston up to Nova Scotia and back as a student crew member (2007;Ocean Classroom program), I was the Vice President of the Duke Sailing team for a year and a half, and spent this past summer working as a sailing instructor at a girls’ overnight camp in Vermont.

The still life includes items that I would take to go out to sailing practice: my very broken-in, boating Sperry Top-Siders, a small canvas bag, Duke Sailing shades, and my car keys. The careful viewer will notice my mini Sperry key chain.

* * * * * * *

I am very curious as to when humans develop the ability to draw and produce art. Last spring, I took an Intro to Psychology course in which we talked briefly about language development in humans. We were told that human’s “language centers” were responsible for developing sense of time, sense of self, and (of course) ability to communicate. These three things are essential to the creation of art. The sense of self and one’s relation to and understanding of others and their environment is necessary to create and understand the representational nature of art. I imagine that the development of a sense of time also develops one’s sense of space – concepts that factor into creating artwork. Art is essentially a means of external expression, which is, in turn, a form of communication. Thus, I speculate that one’s ability to create and understand art is linked to the development of the brain’s “language centers”.

Chart describing "Drawing Development in Children"

Art?

2011-12-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

Drawing is one of those things that I've just always done. I did it before I could even say the word. My parents never told me to do it, and I never really took a class until now. For me, it satisfies an inner need, not necessarily for other people to enjoy. The thing is, I get an idea in my head and it stays there in the realm of fantasy. So instead of letting it rot up there, I have to put it down on paper to solidify it in the real world. It's a fundamental need to transform the blank emptiness of a piece of paper into a solid and clear expression of idea. This way, my idea can always remain, crisp and clear rather than as a collection of hopes and possibilities in my cranial cavity, where it is subject to change and outright forgetfulness. It was only until other people started positively commenting on my work that I started to understand that this skill could be useful for various aspects of life.

The problem is, drawing is a highly introverted and antisocial activity, so I stopped for a while because it seemed like other people were more important than my own needs. However, at Duke I realized that there is a generally higher appreciation of the arts in all of the varieties. Because of this, I resumed activity and actively treated drawing like a skill to be improved and less like a personal catharsis and mental emptying. Jumping in with both feet made it so I could pursue my hobby more devotedly, and even let me get good enough to start scribbling cool looking things all over the walls of my apartment for all to enjoy, in a way that's much less individualistic and introverted. This also led me to start exploring the canvas-like qualities of buildings (aka graffiti) to better understand the practice of social art. And so I must thank Professor Fick for helping me get back on my feet, so to speak, and hopefully learn to run.

Frustration

2011-12-11T16:27:00.001-08:00

Drawing is a very personal experience. It allows you to convey your own perspective of a thing that is seen by the public. It is a combination of your interpretation of a subject, your abilities, and how you want the rest to see it. At least for me, it gets very frustrating sometimes. I feel like I am lacking ability – or at least technique and experience – and so what I end up drawing turns out to be very different from what I had imagined in my mind.

I also feel like it tests my patience. Sometimes I wish I could include the texture of the brick wall in my drawing, or actually draw the leaves of the trees; like you would do it in a photo-realistic drawing. So since I don’t have the patience or the ability to do that I just end up using dramatic shades and try to pull the whole thing to the opposite side. I think my preference of charcoal over pencil is a result of my impatience. It just comes more naturally to me and requires less effort; I feel like I can concentrate on the drawing itself rather than technique.

For some reason, I just find soft pastels magical. Their colorfulness and smoothness remind me of a child’s imagination; a world in which he could create endless things, without worrying about their connection to the real world. I want to be that child, but I can’t do that either. I feel like I’m torn between ability and creativity; because I haven’t excelled in neither of them. I can’t be free as I would like to be and I can’t pull myself together and produce something that has an actual technical value.

I love drawing – it really is one of my passions; but not knowing where I stand limits me and I just feel like giving up. Art is supposed to be limitless; it is supposed to be an area where you can extend beyond the boundaries set by the real world. So why do I end up feeling like I’m in a cage when I know that there are endless things that can be done with a piece of paper and a pen? I want how I feel when I touch the soft pastels to be visible in the drawing; but I don’t know how to do it.

Drawing is a very personal experience for me but it just becomes too frustrating sometimes.

Who do we draw for?

2011-12-10T21:31:00.000-08:00

In my years of making art, I have experimented with oil pastels, chalk pastels, acrylic paint, oil paint, water colours, pencil crayons, candle wax, thread, linseed oil, food colouring, incense sticks, blood, tears, saliva and even urine. I have printed, sewn, painted, woven, sawed, dripped, scratched, moulded and drenched. I have photographed naked people and even been photographed naked. I hung a bed from a four story building.
Despite all the mediums I’ve been able to explore, nothing compares to the feeling of charcoal on paper. Drawing has always been a very profound form of catharsis for me, and since the day I discovered expressionism I have put pencil to paper to confront emotions, events and ideas. Drawing is one of my primary modes of communication.

While this course has indeed allowed me to draw, and while I have been made to practice the fundamental skills required to build up a strong vocabulary to depict the many stories that I come across on a daily basis, I find the technical restrictions of the course somewhat frustrating. This term has led me to question why it is that we create art. For me, art is first and foremost a medium of expression, and the moment that technical accuracy becomes the primary concern, art becomes an elitist pursuit. For me, the beauty of drawing lies in its accessibility. Anyone can draw. One does not have to know how to calculate algebraic expressions, or name the capitals of the states, or write profound literature in order to draw. This is not to say that those who pursue drawing are without talent, but as a medium of expression, drawing is universal. My roommate, who is a neuroscience major and would not lay claim to a single artistic bone in her body, drew this portrait of me the other night:

You may say its terrible - technically inaccurate and lacking in all the fundamental skills required to constitute a legitimate portrait.
Now consider that she did it without looking at the page.
I think it's brilliant.

I’ve begun to think about how far we can put our own regulations on art, and drawing in particular. If we consider a duck and a gun to be “random”, does that make them meaningless? Does the artist fail if their audience disagrees with the relevance of their subject matter? And consequently, who do we draw for? This may be considered frivolous to some, but I create art according to how I feel. I cannot read a set of criteria, sit down and construct a piece of artwork according to someone else’s rules. It’s perhaps for this reason that I would plan out a piece just as we’d been told and then two days before the due date everything would change, because I’d had a revelation, or something had hit me hard that needed to be put to paper.

All the drawing I’ve done previously has been abstract, and for the past two years I’ve been able to draw with complete freedom. These 90cm x 90cm canvases are charcoal drawings from my last exhibition in Hong Kong talking about the degradation of the senses, and what effect that would have on our perception and judgments of others according to race.

While technically they cannot be said to have cast shadows, perfect tonal range or even structure, they carry a message in a form beyond the barriers of words, and that, for me, is the true power of drawing.

Reflection on Drawing

2011-12-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

When I was little, one of my favorite classes would always be art. It was a class where I could relax and draw, taking a break from my academic studies. However, in high school, as I began to take classes in art, it became something more than just a break of stress-relief/recreation; it became something I clearly took pleasure in. I first thoroughly enjoyed/appreciated drawing during my sophomore year, when my art teacher forced us to draw our sketches using pen. At first I hated it because I was so accustomed to sketching in pencil, but quickly soon after, I began to prefer sketching in pen. There was just something about it - a cleaner look - that made me favor using pen.

Since this class uses predominantly pencil and charcoal, it's been a nice refresher of techniques I've forgotten over the years and a great learning experience of things I've never received any formal training on. Within this semester, I've learned a great deal of new knowledge and my perspective on drawing has expanded.

Reflection on Drawing - Brianna Welch

2011-12-09T17:52:00.001-08:00

Going into this semester I was extremely excited to take a drawing class that I believed would help me relax and take a break from more stressful work in other classes. Ironically, drawing probably ended up being almost as stressful as these other classes and my response to the work that we did was a lot different than I had expected. I always believed that drawing was my thing because I was always a crafty and creative little kid and I guess I believed that this creativity would continue throughout my life even if I had not been continuously sketching throughout the years. I was very wrong. Creativity is very different as a child than it is as you grow older. I now believe that if I were to be a good artist and enjoy what I was doing and produce pieces that I like, I would have to put my whole self into art and not just take it as a college class. If drawing is something I have to do, I will not enjoy it.

It is not to say that I did not enjoy taking this class. I was happy that I was re-introduced to techniques such as subtractive drawing, shading and negative space drawings. However, because I was “assigned” to do drawings that focused on certain techniques I began to dislike what I was doing and it became something I had to do, rather than something I wanted to do. Art is a way to freely express yourself but taking an art class impedes on this notion, I didn’t feel like I was “free.” With rubrics and deadlines I was rushed and was forced to check my work to see if it had all the elements that it was supposed to. I know that you cant take these elements out of the class because the point is to practice techniques, I just don’t know if it was the best choice for me.

Even with our sketchbooks I was not inspired or excited to create my own pieces, it was more of a, I have to get 48 sketches in by the end of the semester thing. It’s sad to say but I think drawing and I have grown apart and as the years go by I think this will continue to happen. However, I still am excited to use my creativity in other areas of my life. Whether it be in other forms of visual art, or applying it to other subjects that I am interested in, I am realizing that I still am a creative person, just in a very different way that I used to be.

Drawing

2011-12-09T17:33:00.001-08:00

Drawing....where to begin?

I think taking this drawing course has been a bit a of challenge for me. I don't spend much time drawing, other than doodles. In my high school, our art course weren't very focused on any one medium. Instead we explored as many as we could and if we felt more comfortable with certain ones then we usually stuck to that one medium when doing bigger projects. For me that was painting and creating stencils. Naturally drawing didn't become a strong point of mine. Even outside of class, I was not able to really do much art especially around senior year when my schedule became more intense. Thus, when I began my college career I decided I would try and take some art courses. One of which was this drawing course.

At first, I was not all too confident about taking the course. As I said, drawing was not really a strong point. I had initially taken the course as a prerequisite to take the painting course in the Spring. I thought that drawing will perhaps improve my skills in painting and how to work with the tones of hues better.
With my first projects, study drawings, and sketches, I used my pencils and charcoals as if they were brushes. I never really defined edges nor had a range of lines or colors. I was not used to having to, nor needing to smear and smudge in order to create shades. It was rather difficult to control the pieces I made.
This was obviously a critique I received again. Eventually, I was able to get increasingly better at it and tried slowing down when drawing not just recklessly passing my pencil back and forth as I did with a brush. I too more time to focus on single areas at a time, paying attention to work on values and texture, making it more emphasized.

Although, I feel that my skills in drawing still need more work and will most likely aways need improving on, I do feel that it has helped me in accomplishing my goal at being able to implement the skills I learned in this course to my own personal art as will as paintings that I would like to create. This Christmas break seems like an ideal time to try my hand at it.

A Reflection on Drawing, or, Why Brevity Has Never Been One of My Most Redeeming Qualities

2011-12-09T16:52:00.000-08:00

I don’t think I can talk about drawing without talking about painting, and eating, and running (there’s a relationship between all these things, I promise), and that’s pretty much an autobiography, so I’ll just try to make this as painless as possible. Please sit tight. To make things easier I will highlight in bold the important sentences.

Growing up, art was never a large part of my life. I remember telling a very surprised friend in Grade 5 that I didn’t know who van Gogh was. My parents, having never had the chance to develop their own extracurricular abilities, tried very hard to give me this opportunity; however, to them this meant going to great lengths to pay for my piano lessons and enroll me in piano competitions, because learning to play a classical musical instrument was the fashionable (and useful) extracurricular in our community. Unfortunately, much to their disappointment, I was, and still very much am, an awful pianist.

Then I went to secondary school, where Art was a required course for the first three years. (A quick note on the British education system: we have seven years of secondary schooling—three years of general “middle school”-equivalent education and then two two-year courses in “high school”, each of which ends in a bout of externally-assessed final exams. We start off with 14 subjects in Year 7, which gets narrowed down to 8 or 9 examined GCSE subjects in Years 10-11 and 6 in Years 12-13, under the IB.) That was when I started seriously drawing—and I couldn’t stop. Drawing spoke to me in a way that playing the piano never did, and I found myself eager to spend time and effort on drawing that I actively sought to avoid spending on the piano, even though for this I had significantly more external support and instruction. Probably I was just too relieved there was, for someone so incredibly uncoordinated, something even vaguely kinesthetic that I could do. Trust me, if you’d spent the first eleven years of your life feeling like a failure every time you had to do something remotely physical, you’d be ecstatic too if someone told you that your drawing of a dog looked like a dog.

Despite mild opposition from my parents and the knowledge that doing so would take up almost all of my time, I stuck with Art as one of my GCSE examination options and again for IB, although both times I had been convinced up until decision day that I was going to give it up. We’ve all heard the arguments before: it isn’t practical; it doesn’t offer any job prospects; it wastes time. I almost made the grim mistake of being persuaded by them. As it is, looking back, keeping Art in my life was probably one of the best decisions I could have made at that time. I couldn’t have known it then, and it seems melodramatic to frame it this way now, but drawing ended up saving my life.

A few months after I made the choice to continue Art for IB, just before I turned sixteen, I came down with some pretty severe physical and mental health problems. First it was clinical depression, which then manifested into anorexia nervosa, and then that brought on a whole host of other ailments and complications which I’d rather not get into right now. You can judge me for having been anorexic, and I’ll judge you for judging me. It wasn’t exactly the most glorious episode in my life and there are still a lot of things about that period which are very foggy in my memory now, but what’s done is done and hey, it didn’t kill me, so it must’ve made me stronger.

Anyhow, I like to think that some good things came out of that ugly experience. Amongst these were my strengthened relationship with drawing and my newfound relationship with running. I’ve been asked often how I find the resolve to run so much. The truth is, being able to run now—no matter how painful it gets—can never be as painful as not being able to run whilst I was still struggling with anorexia. I started running as a way to prove that I could, to prove that I was still alive and getting stronger and would become even better than I was before, and also to rebuild my relationship with food and eating. The irony here is that instead of exercising to lose weight, I’ve used running to gain forty-something pounds.

And drawing? Well, it so happened that my illness coincided with my GCSE final examinations, which were, to us back then, quite a big deal. Because I was on medication and rather out of it, I was put on a separate schedule from the rest of my year and that meant I had my own studio to work in for my Art final—a drawing. It was in colour pencil and, fittingly, the theme I’d chosen happened to be construction sites. My subconscious seems quite keen to make itself known through my artwork. It was very much a time of reconstruction for me: just as I was rebuilding myself intellectually through revamped studying and physically through running, I was rebuilding myself emotionally through art. It was through drawing and painting that I remembered how it was to feel joy and peace and contentment, and rediscovered the beauty in living.

Reconstruction

I was glad to return after that summer, although it meant that I was now in the IB. Now the IB Diploma is not an easy program, and in the second year it becomes particularly gruesome. The anxiety I was feeling over college applications meant that I could not focus on my art; I couldn’t come up with any ideas, I didn’t want to draw, and the quality of the work I eked out in those few months was appalling. It’s actually kind of funny to look at the pieces I made from October to December and contrast them to the work I started turning out in January, after applications were submitted. Compare, for example:

Can't remember the name of this one

to:

Equality (diptych)

It was a tough couple of months but, in retrospect, thoroughly fulfilling. I spent every possible second drawing in order to meet the deadline and still keep up with the rest of life. I would stay for hours after school painting—it was an incredible way for me to unwind from the sheer exhaustion of the day—until the custodians kicked me out, then take the bus down to the municipal cycling track and run ten kilometres home. Then I would eat dinner, do whatever other work I needed to do, and draw until the early hours of the next morning. The combination of drawing and running gives me inexplicable, irreplaceable joy.

This 4' tall piece was entirely finger-painted. I gave up on using paintbrushes halfway through senior year.

I think that because I put so much of myself into my drawings and paintings, they reflect my emotional state too well—if I am nervous or distraught about something else, I can’t draw. That being said, drawing calms me in a way nothing else can. Usually when I draw, it is a very private experience, and I become unaware of anything except the form I’m drawing, my pencil, and my thoughts. Sometimes, after being ‘in the zone’ for too long, I have trouble readjusting back to the real world, and have trouble regaining my speech and motor functions (please tell me I’m not the only one). But drawing is also very social—one of my favourite things about studio time in secondary school was the sense of unity we shared, that feeling of being connected to each other by the engaging nature of our similar work, yet each being immersed in our own personal worlds. And I learned to draw by speaking and listening to (or, because this was often not possible, reading about) other artists and looking at their work, and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t draw for an audience. It’s a language that is often easier for me to think in than any based on words.

It’s kind of ironic that every single time I’ve had to make choices, I make the decision to drop Art—and yet something always draws me back. It’s actually the one thing that has stayed constant in my life throughout these years, and I am so very, very thankful for that. I’m sure that other people can come up with a hundred arguments why I shouldn’t continue, but—at least for me—there only needs to be one reason, and I’ll keep on drawing.

Through the Looking Glass

Cordelia's reflection

2011-12-09T01:15:00.001-08:00

Art and drawing have always been a big part of my life. Like all little kids, I loved to draw. But what set me apart from all the other kids was that they grew up and stopped. I did not. And since then, drawing has just become more and more prevalent in my life. I remember during my senior year of high school, I spent so much time drawing, my mother asked if I couldn’t just stop for the year to focus on studying. I could not. Drawing is a part of me.

On that note, I have always enjoyed producing art. I do it for fun and I love looking at art, admiring it, and critiquing it. However, drawing classes have never been my forte. I have often compared it to coconut juice. I enjoy coconut (like I enjoy drawing) so I keep on trying the drinks (as I do classes). It always ends in me making a face, hating it, and wondering why I never learn. I do understand that before I have the right to do just anything with my art, I will need a strong fine arts base. But this goes against what I enjoy, and art, for me, is only a part of me because it comes naturally. Once it does not come naturally, it is no longer a part of me.
After taking this class, I do feel like I have technically improved. I have never before tackled buildings or flora, both of which have been the subject of at least two of my pieces this semester. Unfortunately, I feel like due to this class, or all art classes in general, I am drained of all energy that I might have used to produce my own original art--art that means something to me. In an ironic way, taking art classes actually inhibits my art-making. Even if the doodles and cartoons that I produce aren’t as quality or frame-worthy as anything I could produce in a studio setting, they better reflect who I am as a person, and I would rather that than ruin my love for drawing by doing something I don’t enjoy. That isn’t to say I had an entirely terrible experience this semester--I am rather proud of some of the pieces I made during this period--it’s just an experience I will not likely repeat in the future. Maybe this time I will learn and continue to do what I have always done: keep art as a part of me.

On Drawing

2011-12-09T00:37:00.001-08:00

When I was little, like most other Chinese kids my age, I was forced to attend Chinese school on Saturdays, where I would endure 3 hours of grueling classes of repetitive memorization and boredom. However, after these 3 hours, we were allowed to take an elective. At the age of 6, I was a self-proclaimed professional finger painting artist, so naturally, I decided upon art as my elective of choice. For two years, I drew Spiderman and cowboys, until the allure of a Chinese yo-yo class pulled me away. As the years toiled on, throughout middle school and high school, my free time became more and more limited, and thus went towards other things that interested me more. It wasn’t until last year that my interested in art, especially drawing, rebounded in force. I had to draw for a project in one of my classes, and I realized how fun drawing was compared to my other homework and, at the same time, how my skills were a far cry from adequate. Needless to say, I wanted to get better, so that is, in part (or one big part) why I chose this class as an elective.

My biggest difficulty at first was simply drawing what I saw. Since the beginning of a term is usually light on work, I was able to devote myself to at least attempting to portray reality as realistic. Throughout the term, I was able to get a solid grip on linework, and the ability to draw forms somewhat accurately. On the other hand, my shading skills has only improved slightly, bogged down by the fact that outside sketches require the assimilation of a much broader and deeper range of information, which simply befuddle me. However, I found the subtractive technique especially useful in creating wonderful textures. In one of my sketches, I attempted to represent the odd shadings of fur on a stuffed animal with this technique and it worked much better than I expected.

This class has allowed me to learn a lot of things about art. By assigning sketches every week, I was really able to explore new things. In some weeks, I worked on linework, while on others, I worked on shading, and other still, I worked on my creativity. Despite the fact that my term slowly grew busier and more hectic, I enjoyed working on these sketches because they were not really work, but rather a fun diversion to enjoy myself. All in all, I really enjoyed this class, and would definitely recommend it to anyone who would want to learn how to draw. Although it took huge chucks of time to complete the assignments, it is one of the few classes that I come out with a finished product to display and a skill that I can definitely say has improved since the beginning of the term. I doubt that the me of three months ago could believe I will be able to draw such pieces, but I am proud to say, that I have, and hopefully, I will continue to do so during my stay at Duke and into the future beyond.

Drawing

2011-12-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

Drawing...

I've been doing art for a while, but drawing was never really my emphasis. I feel more at home working in 3d or in materials that I can work up and create a surface like oil pastels, collages, and linocuts. I usually see drawing as a preliminary step that I take before I start painting or carving a linoleum cut. Keeping a sketchbook was also sort of odd, because drawing has always been a vehicle by which I plan other projects, but I quickly noticed that my sketchbook drawings were much simpler, less clean, and less detailed than others. I like collecting images when working with a project and doing study drawings, but actually drawing in a sketchbook, instead of writing notes and pasting in images, was completely new. In this class, for the first time, there was a strict emphasis on drawing by itself, and confining work to graphite pencils and charcoal pencils. I've never had that kind of focus on drawing before. I skipped straight out of order into 2d and 3d mediums in high school, and went straight for sculpture and printmaking at Duke. The fact that most of my art required drawing at some stage of the process,ensured I didn't get too out of practice at representation, but it was incredibly strange for me at first, to put together finished drawings that were graphite representations of a still life and no more. It was weird the first few classes, because I still felt like my work was unfinished, because I hadn't made my work into a painting or a print. I didn't have to piece images together, like my other art teacher made me do because of image copyright infringement, I didn't have to worry about mixing the right colors or gluing millions of tiny pieces of paper down. I didn't have to worry about putting enough nails to hold my art together so it could withstand the wind. This sort of drawing was much more relaxing than my usual stuff, because all I had to do was sit and look..

Funnily enough, even though I had much less to worry about, this did not mean that my drawings became neater or cleaner than my previous work since I had less to focus on. If anything, my drawings are more messy, more cartoony, with incredibly dark darks and expressive line work everywhere. Maybe it was because I wanted to make sure that the paper underneath my drawing, no longer had a presence. I wanted to fill it so that it not longer felt like a flat thin surface but was more like a sort of vantage point into a scene.

Thanks to this class, I have found that drawing isn't as boring as I would have previously thought.I love the impact of charcoal and of strong value and how it can make a flat piece of paper have depth and 3d quality that I love in other mediums. I've found that the images I draw with charcoal, my new favorite drawing medium are incredibly intense, often turning a regular scene into a more dramatic setting because the values are so strong. I realized that throughout the process, I am constantly stepping back from my drawing and squinting my eyes, to make sure that the values and the spaces remain distinct, even from far away, which maybe is the reason I push my darks so far. I'm often shocked when I compare the way my drawings look far away to how they look close up, because trees from a distance become sharp scribbles of value. I guess that I'm a bit of a lazy artist, so I often try to push how far I can simplify the shape of an object and its values, but still make sure that its recognizable. I have very little patience for detail, so I love drawing high lit scenes, landscapes, and portraits that have lots of shadow, because I can play around with value, and I can also be spared some of the monotonous details. I like taking normal scenes and pushing the values, so that even if a narrative is not present, there is an intensity added to even the most mundane images by simply pumping up the values. Kind of like seeing through a dream, where things aren't entirely realistic, but have such a strong impression on you that they're incredibly powerful.

Drawing is... interesting. I'm not sure if I will ever love it as much as collage or printmaking, but I really appreciate the way that focusing on drawing through this class, helped me learn more about my process and my style. My work is messy, sometimes overwhelmingly so, but it has an intensity about it, that I like and find interesting. Maybe I'm just biased :). At first, it was hard because my art looked so different from the rest of the class, but now I'm ok with it.

Just to illustrate what kind of messiness, I'm talking about. Here are some images :) This is from a few years ago, but I still like the colors and the mood of it.

Both of these below are from this semester both in charcoal.

My thoughts on drawing...

2011-12-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess I'll start with a little history. I've been drawing pretty much as long as I can remember. I probably began with little doodles and sketches of my favorite cartoons when I was a kid - Dexter's Lab, Hey Arnold, Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, etc. I think it was when I got to middle school that I first took art seriously. My county's board of education held an art contest, in which the top student art from each school would end up on that year's school calendar. I drew the space shuttle Columbia (it was the year after the shuttle disaster), and it ended up on the cover of the calendar and got me really thinking about pursuing drawing more passionately. Once I got to high school I kept at it - I took an art class my sophomore, junior, and senior years, and even participated in several art shows locally and state wide (and won some nice prize money :P). I haven't really had a chance to do a lot of drawing/painting since I've been in college, so I'm definitely happy to be taking this class.

I think that for me drawing is both a cool way to pass time and a nice outlet for me to hide from the stresses and trivial annoyances of life. I really don't give a damn about my physics homework or my internship application when I'm scribbling away on some new project. As cheesy as it sounds, I kind of get lost in the work - for a few brief hours everything else just doesn't matter. It's just me, the pencil, and the paper. However, I won't say that drawing is always fun and full of warm fuzzy feelings. It definitely gets frustrating, even to the point of me giving up entirely. I've had more than a few works that I've completely abandoned simply because I didn't feel it was going well, or I was in a bad mood. But these instances never steer me away from art - in fact, I feel that all of this is part of the creative process. I dig every minute of it - the good and the bad.

Even though I plan on going into the medical field, I don't really want to rule out art as a career path just yet - Ideally, I'd like to retire relatively early from medicine and go to art school, in the hopes of becoming a concept artist for video game or film production - So I'll just have to wait and see where life takes me. But until then, I'll keep on drawing - I couldn't imagine how much more boring my life would be without it.

2011-12-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

Ever since I was a little girl, I was taught about the importance of art, the importance of expression. This was all taught to me by my father. He taught many students the importance of art and its long history and I was always dragged along to the museums. I have to admit that at first I hated it. But who can blame a little girl for wanting to play outside? My father however had the remarkable ability to make stories come to life, about the lives of the painters – and the hidden stories that were told in the paint. As I grew older, I looked closer. With a hand on my shoulder my eyes became trained to see the techniques of these great artists. Looking and understanding however, was not enough; I had to try it for myself - I wanted to be a part of this magical world.

It was when I started that I could not stop. I drew everything that I saw at any moment that I could. My bookshelves are filled with so many journals and notebooks that I can’t even count it anymore. I still remember sitting on the couch as a little girl trying to draw a box that wouldn’t look right, and my dad sat next to me and taught me all about shading. It was in high school when my love for drawing and painting really exploded. I was in a pretty academically rigorous high school and I was going through a difficult time when art became my escape. There is this thing that runners experience after running for an incredibly long period of time called a “runners high”, and this is what happens with art. You get in this zone where all of a sudden there is this vacuum; a stillness that sweeps over you. You draw and the real world is far behind you and it’s just you and the paper. This is what I love about drawing; it’s ability to take you away – to transport to a place within yourself that you never knew existed.

My favorite drawings are portraits, faces show so much about a person’s life, but also have to power to clean. I love being drawn into these works because you can start making your own stories for these people – it really becomes an adventure. I also love working with mixed media – using drawing, painting and collage in my art.

To Seek Beauty

2011-12-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

Throughout my life art has shaped my perspective and has encouraged the perception I possess of the world around me, emboldening me to look deeper into human nature and to explore life beyond appearances. Such observation reveals a unique beauty in every object of my consideration. Watching a form come to life before me by my own hand is the most transcendental experience I have ever witnessed. For this reason I especially enjoy certain forms of art in which I am able to completely immerse myself. I gravitate toward more tactile media. Sometimes while painting I find myself using my hands, arms, or any available skin as a pallet. Similarly, when working with charcoal, I relish blending tones and shaping my creation with my own fingers. Such application allows me to become more fully a part of my work.

Drawing is my way of speaking without words. I am a very emotionally centered person. I feel things deeply and at points in my life my emotions seem so overwhelming to deal with and understand. Through art I’ve discovered an avenue to release my enigmatic thoughts and feelings into a concrete form before me.

Art is the central means of expression in my life, serving as a sharp contrast and relief from the intense cerebral demands of academia. I attended a high school that did not offer the opportunity to take an art class until senior year. Therefore it was more difficult for me to find artistic outlets. Because of this I value any chance to express myself artistically all the more. This also explains why over the span of my freshman and sophomore years I was engaged in a project with the religious chaplain at my highschool. In my freshman year, he approached me and asked whether I would illustrate a children’s book that he had written about the Christmas story. I eagerly accepted and spent my free time bringing words to life in depictions of Santa Clause, little elves, and the baby Jesus. After the first book came to completion and the religious chaplain revealed his idea for a second children’s book, I once again jumped at the opportunity. These projects throughout my high school career have offered an avenue for artistic expression and have opened my eyes to the art and publishing world outside of school. In addition to these two children’s books, which are currently undergoing the publishing process, I have always sought out other art opportunity in every activity I am involved in.

Artistic expression for me is the channel through which I reach out to and connect with the world around me and conversely reach inward and discover myself. Art has played an integral role in my life, shaping the person I have become, and will follow me wherever I choose to go in life.

What Drawing Means to Me

2011-12-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

Since I was a child, I have always enjoyed drawing. Drawing was something I would do when I either wanted to impress my parents or just felt like relaxing. In middle school, I started to invest more time into it and decided to take a full year of art in eighth grade. I had a good friend, who's mom was an artist and she hired a professional to give us lessons every month. I guess you could say that my experience with drawing peeked upon graduation from middle school when I won the eighth grade art award, since I decided to pursue a more academic track in high school. However, I will never forget the joy and feeling of satisfaction I got out of the completion of my drawing projects in eighth grade, as I was fully invested in the art at the time. I recall drawing as a way for me to express my creativity and also used it to illustrate one of my deepest passions. This interest was motivated by the fact that I had always wanted to become a famous resort developer and engineer incredible hotels that would put the current five star resorts to shame. The summer after seventh grade, I spent many weeks drawing out the blueprints to my dream resort, which I called, the "Grand R. T. Spratley Beach and Spa Resort." I was very meticulous in my drawing and spent a lot of time on the small details involved. I even spent time drawing parts of the resort in a three dimensional perspective to that the viewer could understand what exactly was drawn in the blueprints. Below, is a scanned image of the blueprints, which ended up consisting of eighth pages total.

Today, I still look back on this drawing as a childhood achievement, as it motivated me to work hard throughout high school and get into a good college, where I can study engineering and business together. As a current Mechanical Engineer minoring in Economics, I know that this motivation has payed off and am still working towards my dreams.

When I realized that I could take a drawing class here at Duke that would serve as a credit towards my major, I knew that this class was the perfect fit. Working on the projects in Drawing 100 has brought me back to the relaxation and enjoyment that I had experienced in middle school and it's been nice to be able to spend time on something that I would not normally spend time on in my daily life here. Throughout this class, I have also learned much about the different styles of drawing and how every artist has their own approach towards what they want accomplished in their projects. Just looking at the variety of drawings in our class has been interesting and enlightening as there has seemed to be a correlation between our personalities and the emotions expressed in our drawings. It has been a true pleasure to be a part of this class this semester and I am quite satisfied with the drawing skills I have developed and the strategies I have learned throughout the semester that have helped me create good drawings.

Drawing in My Life

2011-12-07T19:51:00.001-08:00

I was exposed to art at a very young age and latched onto it immediately. My grandmother was an artist so art was very present in my youth. I was given every color crayon imaginable along with finger paints and watercolor sets. I was a quiet child with an unusually long attention span so, even at five years old, I could sit for hours drawing and coloring. I was enrolled in my first art class around age 4 or 5. They told my mom I was too young, but then I sat quietly drawing the whole two hours and they relented.

From then on I was always enrolled in some sort of art class and then was heavily involved in my high school’s art program. My high school was very new and had an extensive arts program for a public school. I auditioned for and was accepted into its free after school program called “conservatory.” Local artists were brought into conservatory to teach their craft to me and the other students. We did everything from figure drawing to screen printing, ceramics to portraiture.

During this time I realized drawing was my favorite medium. I love the precision and control of it. Even when I paint I have a hard time giving up that control. I use small brushes and work on a small scale. That is something that this drawing class has pushed me in. I usually work fairly small and take a really long time. In this class I worked a lot bigger and a lot faster. Also I usually work from photos if I have the choice which I then grid along with my paper to match. I like to do this because of the accuracy it gives me.

I’ve also never worked on such a large space from observation as I have in this class. I tend to do pieces that are very image based. When I was young I drew horses always, then it was ballet dancers (was my AP drawing concentration) and other random objects. I don’t usually depict large spaces with lots of depth or stories. It was a different way to think about drawings though.

One of my favorite things about drawing is how different one person can interpret something from the way another person interprets the same things. When I took figure drawing in high school I always found it fascinating to go around and see other peoples gesture drawings or quick ten minute sketches. When everyone was forced to do something that fast without having the time to think it through, their styles were so clear.

And this is where I find drawing to get complicated. There is the pursuit of an individual style, something specific and indicative of the artist, but also the pursuit of learning how to draw things correctly, or maybe the better way of saying that is realistically. Ultimately, we think that a good artist can put something down on paper that looks real. And I enjoy that part of art, the making things look real part, just as much as the creative part of it. I love the challenge it poses and the attention to detail it requires. But it takes a certain eye to see the details around us. I know that I see the world differently than my friends who aren’t involved in art. I look at a white shirt and see the blues and purples lingering in the folds and shadows. I see the high contrast that makes metal look shiny and the complementary color schemes on advertisements. I notice shadows and shapes and lighting that other people don’t. And I like that I see these things. I think art has made the world a more beautiful place for me and I kind of wish everyone could see the world through the eyes of an artist.

Here are a couple of pieces i've done in the past. The first is a pen drawing and the second a drawing mainly done with charcoal pencils that was for my AP Drawing concentration.

Komori Style

2011-12-07T16:17:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Japan, I grew up reading comic books. They were far more entertaining than novels and were a quick read. As I read more and more comic books, I eventually began to aspire to be a comic book artist. However, in Japan, the stereotypes those comic book artists are attributed to are that they are extremely poor, never sleeps, and never steps out into the sunlight. In such society, naturally my parents were opposed to my idea of becoming one of these hermits. Like any other parents, they wanted to me to pursue a lucrative job and financial security. I, too, wanted to be successful in the monetary sense, but to this day, if someone asks me what I want to do if I didn’t have to worry about financial concerns, I tell them that I want to be a Japanese comic book artist. I like that these artists have complete control over what they want to draw and what they want to convey through these drawings. Success solely depends on whether or not readers like their story or not. With my over active imagination, I feel that I would be well suited to such a life. However, the reality is that only one in thousands are able to make a decent living just with their comics. Therefore, I will most likely pursue this dream as a hobby.

I like drawing when I am inspired. But I am easily frustrated when I can’t perfectly draw out what I had envisioned in my mind. Usually my room is littered with paper scraps with unfinished line drawings because I give up trying to copy down exactly what I see in my mind. Even when my line drawing is satisfactory, coloring is a process that requires a lot of courage. I feel the need to trace out the line drawing at least once, so that if I ruin one of them while coloring, I still have another copy. I am a very cautious drawer. Meaning I take far too long to draw anything and am too much of a perfectionist to call a drawing finished. During this semester of Drawing 100, however, I was forced to work at a much faster pace than usual in order to meet deadlines. More often than not, I was still unable to complete the assignments by the deadline. Usually my values are far too light. I usually like to layer on graphite gradually. I begin light and work towards darkening certain areas. I feel like it is easier to darken areas rather than lightening it, which required even erasing. Nevertheless, clearly I still need to work on the time management aspect. Therefore, I enjoy drawing the most when I can take however long I want to finish it.

Graphite pencil is usually the medium of my choice, but when color is involved I like to work with watercolor and colored pencils – mediums which allow for corrections. Basically I am a coward when it comes to drawing, which is good for technical drawings, but not suitable at all for abstract art. I can count with one hand how many times I’ve done abstract drawings. I will always prefer realistic drawings. As an artist, although I feel that I should take risks, my preference has always been the same.

Marie Komori

2011-12-06T23:37:00.000-08:00

Art and Me

For me, art is a way to relax and express myself. I enjoy making artwork on subjects that are particularly interesting to me, such as fashion, animals, and people. I have worked with everything from Prisma colors and chalk, to pencils, paint, and clay. My journey with drawing began before I can remember, and I have taken art class every year that I have been in school. I started off in regular structured art classes. Then in eight grade I had a private one on one talented art class that taught me a lot about perfecting my drawing from an image. In high school I moved into a non structured talented arts class that allowed us to do self guided projects on whatever we chose. This is when I really discovered my interest and style.

I posted my second painting, and it is my mother when she was younger. I enjoy making art that other people can enjoy and appreciate. I discovered in the last couple of years that I love painting, but drawing was the backbone of all of my work. While I enjoy doing some abstract, I mostly stick to representational. The collection of paintings to the (Kamrin) were made for a family friend’s son. Outside of class I do commissioned work for fun. I also made the green tree

from for someone.

As far as art goes, my main inspiration is fashion. I love designing and drawing clothes, shoes, and models. Here are a few of my favorite pieces that I have made.

"I don't believe in God but I believe in Picasso"

2011-12-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

All of my childhood memories have to do with art in some way shape or form. My mother, an avid artist herself would always make up projects for me to do. In our small Chicago apartment, we would make paper-mache masks of our faces or collage chairs with color newspaper cartoons.

Then we moved to Paris- center of all things beautiful, magical and opulent. My mom took me to the Louvre, the Centre Pompidou. I fell in love with Picasso. I thought that life was only about art and all things pretty.

Passerelle des Arts- the most beautiful bridge in Paris

Demoiselles by Picasso

When I moved to Warsaw I became a painter, I invested all my free time to finding inspiration for new shapes, forms, and colors. I drifted towards abstract art; it appealed the most to me. I found solace in dripping paint and bizarre figures- they reminded me of dreams.

I only really started sketching for my art class junior year of high school. I was forced to keep a journal to record my progress. In reality I hated it, because it was so different from painting. My hands felt alien to the pencil as opposed to the brush. As I got used to the task, I found myself loving portraits more and more- particularly, portraits of old men and women. I don’t know why, but I enjoy it.

Coming to this class I had very little background in drawing, no teacher had ever told me about all the techniques that drawing required from an artist. After learning these techniques though, I can see how it is so crucial to any type of art. I also find it so immensely satisfying that you can turn a blank page into a complex image just by using a pencil and an eraser. I can see myself sketching in the future when no canvas or paint is near.

Ella Banka

Drawing

2011-12-06T21:23:00.001-08:00

I have always needed to draw.

As a kid, my pencil would devour reams of paper. Fantastic worlds and fictional characters were but a few pencil marks away. Even today, my binders and notebooks are decorated with absent minded doodles and geometric designs. Yes, somewhat cliché, but drawing has always been an escape for me, a way to step away from this world and, on a 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper, enter a new one.

For me, drawing has always had a strange dichotomy. A conflict, a balance between representation and imagination. Technique versus concept. On one hand, drawing is an empirical process, for to be a good drawer, one must master observation. A family friend, a sculptor and painter, would always tell me that drawing was “learning how to see.” Drawing, especially from life, trains your eye to notice changes in value, negative space, angles and perspective; by transferring what you see onto paper, you force yourself to dispel any preconceptions of what something should look like and focus on the form you actually want to represent. The flower in a still life is no longer a stereotypical “flower” but rather a complex collection of forms, of nuanced curves and of unique values. As an exercise in my high school art classes, my teacher would have us practice blind contour-line drawings of objects, or even of other classmates. The rules were simple—your pen could not leave the paper and you could not look at your drawing—and our initial results would more resemble organic blobs or horrendously distorted faces than the actual subject of our drawing. But upon second glance, these drawings were often more accurate than those one would produce if asked to draw something from imagination. Lines veering off to seemingly nowhere were actually explorations of form (perhaps of the folds of the ear, or of a wrinkle in the still-life drapery). To master these drawings, one needed to force their eyes to explore every aspect of the subject, and coordinate their pen (yes, pen made these drawings all the more permanent and humiliating) to “move at the same speed as their eyes”. Drawing allows you to deconstruct what you see into lines and values, and then synthesize these parts into a whole.

Observation is only a starting point though. It is easy enough to copy a picture or draw a still life, but I have always had trouble extrapolating from reality, creating imaginative images that maintain the realistic detail of an observational drawing. As well-rendered or photorealistic an observational drawing may be, it may still lack the depth of content or style which give any piece of art its “ummph.” Manipulation of marks is one method to achieve this depth; though more easily done with paint, expressive mark making in drawing can direct energy or guide the viewer’s eye. But more, the concept of a piece, or even just its bizarreness, provokes a greater response from the viewer. The artist James Jean is my artistic idol in this area; his pieces, still completed with masterful technique, abound with exuberant creativity. He juxtaposes images and manipulates forms, his pieces generally whimsical and at times almost appearing cartoon-esque, yet he accentuates his subjects with intricate line and engaging compositions. (I have included some of my favorite drawings/paintings of his).

Drawing isn’t my favorite media, but I compare it to working out. It is something you need to practice to get better at, and is an activity and skill without which one will not achieve comparable depth and richness in other work.

Drawing and Me

2011-12-06T19:03:00.000-08:00

I have always been a doodler, a sketcher. I've covered school notebooks in stars and spirals, strange and funny caricatures of my teachers, odd cartoons, and girlish hearts. Still, I have never been one to formally sit down and realistically draw a still life or portrait. However, I have always been fascinated by drawing as a medium to communicate fundamental human emotion without the use of language. The potency of visual art is something without rival. Drawing is the most fundamental building block of visual art.

Drawing has also always been a way for me to calm my mind. It is almost a mediative process to have graphite scratching against the page or have ink slide across paper.

Why I Took this Class: Production Design

I am a generally creative person. I am passionate about all of the arts from architecture to dance to acting to painting to photography to music to, finally, drawing. As I have gotten older, I have started looking for potential jobs that combine all of my creative passions. Then I stumbled across Production Design for Film.

Production Designers design the visual landscape of a film. They are in charge of thinking of the visual themes the run through a movie and coordinate the set designer, costume designer, prop department, etc. They create new worlds for us to explore.

How does drawing relate to Production Design?

I facebook messaged Suzuki Ingerslev, the Production Designer for the television show True Blood. I was drawn to the shows unique aesthetic that runs a whole gambit of different genres but focuses on Southern Antebellum and Gothic. I additionally loved the work she did on the show Six Feet Under. I explained to Suzuki that I loved her work and then asked what I could do to prepare myself for such a career. She amazingly responded to my message. One of her many pieces of advice was that she stressed the importance of being able to communicate your ideas visually.

(a set designed by Suzuki)

Later, I approached Torry Bend, a faculty member in the Theater Department. She, too, stressed this idea and was a deep believer in learning how to draw (over the use of rendering technology).

Under Torry's direction I drew a number of theater sets and learned how to draw ground plans, however they still weren't quite what I wanted. My vision was still not being realized on the paper.

I think that drawing is an important skill for anyone to have, but I also took this class because I wanted to improve the skills that I initially started working on with Torry.

I have been doodling sets, costumes, and ideas in my notebook. This class has helped me translate the thoughts in my head into something tangible.

Some of examples of the translation of drawings into film:

Dante Ferreti - Gangs of New York

Dante Ferreti - The Aviator

Dante Ferreti - Gangs of New York

Dante Ferreti - Sweeney Todd

Drawing

2011-12-06T13:12:00.000-08:00

I have always loved sketching, and when I was little I used to have a sketchbook with all sorts of drawings of flowers. My family has always had a garden and growing up, I loved sitting outside and drawing everything I saw. I also used to experiment with pastels and other colored pencils. When I was growing up, I used to travel to Bulgaria for a big part of the year to live with my grandparents because both of my parents were working late hours and I couldn't stay home alone. During these trips my grandparents took me to many historic and scenic places around the western part of Bulgaria, and my grandpa always encouraged me to write and draw about the things that I saw. I love sitting down and sketching a statue, or part of a monument, or sections of the old churches that we would see.

I think it is important to pay attention to geometry and math in art and drawing. (ex, vanishing points, scale drawing, perspective, symmetry). During the summers, I had a lot of time to read when it was hot outside; one summer in Bulgaria, I opened a book about the Golden Ratio ( the irrational number phi, 1.61803….) and was really interested in how mathematics ties in so closely to art. this so-called "divine proportion" appears in all things, in the proportions of the human body, animals, plants, DNA, art and music. Many great works of architecture, as well as paintings during the Renaissance, used this ratio to make the works because it was thought to be more 'aesthetically pleasing'. In Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, the ratio of the hand/forearm= forearm/(forearm+hand). Using this proportion, phi, Leonardo da Vinci divided up the entire body of the Vitruvian man. (Another fun fact) The CN Tower in Toronto, the tallest tower and freestanding structure in the world, makes use of the golden ratio. The ratio of its total height ( 553.33 meters) to the height of the observation deck( 342 meters) is the number phi, 1.618

I am always constantly learning something new every time I draw. Looking back, I think that I was really able to figure out my drawing style by taking this class. It also gave me a chance to develop and work on improving what I already knew about sketching. I really see now that I love to work with contrast and deep shades and smearing the pencil shading in to create smokey effects ( such as with skies). I never paid attention before taking this class to how useful it is to have a variety of pencils to establish a range of shades and darkness. Neither had I considered the big difference(and effects) that various types of paper can help create when finishing a work. I am really grateful to have been able to take the time and learn techniques such as subtractive drawing and negative space ( something I had never done before). Because I usually paint, rather than draw, this class was an excellent learning opportunity for me and I also love that I got to see other student's styles develop as well, and examine how each and every single person has their own unique way of viewing the same object placed in front of all of us. My personal favorite technique was subtractive drawing; for some reason, it is the most interesting and realistic way to depict curvature, borders, light reflections and outlines in between objects. I love drawing pottery, architecture (the duke chapel has many cool spots that are great for using this technique), and shiny objects because we can create so many effects with the light reflections.

In addition, this class has also forced me to look at the "big picture"; for example, not focusing on small details but getting the basic outlines down ( and this is a lot of lines, geometry, and proportions) and then starting to fill in the details. Even more, having a 'narrative' behind each drawing really adds a lot of meaning and individuality to each work. I hope one day that I can have the opportunity to travel far and create a sketchbook of interesting places that I have visited, each with its own story.

-Evelyna

Images: http://www.bestourism.com/img/items/big/1186/CN-Tower-in-Toronto-Canada_CN-Tower-view_4377.jpg, http://www.dedroidify.com/images/goldenleo.jpg

Drawing

2011-12-06T12:14:00.001-08:00

I have always loved art, and when I flip through my families photo albums it seems like a large part of my childhood was spent scribbling with markers and finger paint, and creating “masterpieces” out of doilies and tissue paper. However, as much as I enjoyed art when I was young, it slowly faded from my life as I approached middle school and then high school. I always used art in school projects, or making cards for people, or welcome home signs for my siblings, but it stopped being an activity that I just did for fun when I had spare time. My junior year of high school, I decided to take an intro 2-D art class, which included everything from drawing and painting with watercolors and oil paints, to print making and Cubist drawings. I enjoyed all the different mediums I learned to use in that class and I can’t say I liked drawing any more than painting, or printmaking, but it was definitely what I was best at.

I work very slowly, and my art projects always take a long time. Because of this, it is a constant struggle for me to finish my projects. When I am drawing with graphite, I like to make my pictures very realistic. The drawing below, which I completed in my high school 2-D class, was the second graphite drawing I did and it took me a year to finish. I drew this from a photograph of my sisters and I (I am the one on the left), in the parking lot at Crystal Mountain.

My senior year of high school, I decided to take AP studio art. In this class I had to choose a concentration and create about one piece per week to submit. I wanted to do drawing, but at the time, I realized that at the speed I drew it would be impossible to create one piece each week. I experimented with different drawing styles and eventually switched to drawing in sharpie, which I found I could work in much faster. My concentration was in “alternate modes of transportation,” and below are some photos of the drawings I did.

After I started working in sharpie, it was hard for me to go back to graphite. I loved experimenting with sharpie, figuring out ways to control the ink and how to create different shades, or the appearance of shading, using the same pen. Unfortunately, the reality is, unless I am in some form of art class, I forget to draw. This year taking Drawing 100 was the first time I have really drawn since high school, and it was great to get back into it. The biggest challenge for me has been finishing my drawings on time because I work so slowly, but throughout the semester I have definitely learned to draw faster.

- Hillary Tupper

Drawing

2011-12-05T19:14:00.000-08:00

I used to believe that drawings were extremely less expressive than paintings could be. I have learned through this course that you can actually express emotions in drawing—it just takes more time and thought than in painting. While I am able to put paint on a canvas without much thought and allow my emotions lead the brush to create a tangible version of whatever is going on in my mind, I have to put much more planning and strategic movement into a piece to convey a feeling or emotion to an audience through my drawings. Abstract painting has always appealed to me because I was able to express myself without pinpointing exactly what I was feeling. With a pencil you must be more precise, and scattered thoughts do not translate well if they are left uncontained. Doodles can be quick fixes for this; however, the varied textures created by a brush on canvas cannot be emulated by a pencil or charcoal on paper. I have always relied on my creativity over my technical skills, which has made drawing a challenge for me.

Drawing sometimes can frustrate me as much as it can entrance me. There are times where I can be completely consumed in a drawing—that is when I think the sketch is coming out well—in these instances I loose track of time and awareness around me. But then there are those times when I can’t get something the way I want it, and I resort to quitting and leaving my piece unfinished. If you look through all the scraps of paper hidden throughout my room, you would find many unfinished drawings. I don’t mind the incompleteness of these sketches because I feel like they hold so much potential—and inspire my mind to imagine the beautiful images that could be, rather than having a cap be put on the impending by finishing it. In this way my drawings parallel my paintings that appeal to one’s imagination and foster a subjective creativity.

Here are a few of my own drawings and paintings that I had saved on my computer.

Drawing and Me

2011-12-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

I have been involved in art for as long as I can remember. It’s just one of those things where you can’t pinpoint exactly when you started because it’s been a part of your life for so long. When I would be cleaning around the house and going through old things I would find notebooks and notebooks full of drawings from when I was so young that I don’t even remember doing them. Of course, looking back at the drawings now I see that I was absolutely terrible at that young age, but I absolutely loved it. I was really into Pokémon back then, so I had several notebooks dedicated to drawing Pokémon doing the most random things. Then I got into drawing cartoon characters like Dragonball Z or Disney characters or anything I cam across. I have no idea what kinds of things went through my mind as a child. When we come across those, my family and I would just sit down and laugh at my funny little drawings.

As I got older, I got more and more into actually drawing well. I started getting those “How to draw [insert anything here]” books. I looked at those for a bit and got some good tips, but decided that I didn’t like their methods and just did my own thing using things I learned here and there. I always liked drawing animals or fantasy-type things because to me they were the most fun. I had never done shading before this class, and I definitely had never drawn buildings before. All of the drawings I have done before were focused on line or sometimes looked cartoony, so this class was a great chance for me to actually learn and improve upon a technique that I had never used before. I hope to incorporate shading into my future drawings to make them look more realistic.

After a while, I wanted to try something new besides drawing. I believe it was in middle school or early high school when I decided to try my hand at oil painting. I absolutely loved it, so for a while I just painted and didn’t really draw that much. All throughout high school, I entered my artwork, both paintings and drawings, into the school-wide art show. I always won something. Then again, I had a really really small school (as in my graduating class had 30 people) and they divided the sections by grade and categories, so in reality at times I was the only person in a category. It was still nice to see that little blue ribbon on one of my artworks, though! Personally, I think I’m better at painting than I am at drawing. For some reason, I can just “see” better in paints. I can look outside my window at various colors and objects and see exactly what I have to do with the paints in order to replicate what I see or get the look that I want. With pencils, however, its harder for me translate an object I see into shading with a pencil. Because of this, I think taking this class was excellent practice, and I got a lot out of it. I had never used charcoals before so that was a good experience, but I usually like having a level of detail, which I couldn’t obtain with just charcoals.

Without a doubt, this class has helped me improve my drawing abilities. Now I will be able to think about things such as composition, values, and subtractive drawing, which have all been so helpful. Maybe now using these new techniques I will be able to draw the picture that I have wanted to draw for a very long time: This wonderful picture of Aragorn! :)

(source: aurelia-art.com)

~ Carmen

My History with Drawing

2011-12-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

I’ve been drawing and painting since I was very little. In middle- and high school, I took classes in water color painting. For a year in high school, I learned oil painting, but my instructor was so mean and eccentric that I did not enjoy the experience. I also took AP Art History because I didn’t actually know anything about famous art movements and works of art. I loved the class. This last summer I took a family trip to Europe and saw many amazing works of art that I learned about in that class. Some of these included Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise” on the Florence Baptistry, Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus, and Michelangelo’s “Pietà.” It was especially awe-inspiring to have been so close to the “Gates of Paradise.”

Gates of Paradise - Ghiberti

Birth of Venus - Botticelli

Pieta - Michelangelo

A huge flaw of mine is that if I’m not taking a class, I don’t have the motivation to draw or paint, even though I love doing it. I didn’t do any art at all last year and really missed it, which is why I decided to take this class. It’s been so fun, and I’m glad I made this decision. I also had little experience with the imaginative aspects of drawing, and this class has helped me embrace it more. It’s a shame that there are not many ArtsVis classes offered at Duke and that my schedule is so full. I don’t know whether I will be able to take another art class here, but I’ll definitely do what I can to make it work.

Before I took Visual Arts 100, I had previously drawn as a way to improve technical skill and sketch outlines for paintings. The only time I did any shading was back in 6^th grade when my art teacher asked me to draw still-lifes. I drew a wooden block, a ball, and a bottle of glue. Shading these objects took forever, since I couldn’t let any stray marks show and the values needed to be even. That experience made me think that drawing was just a skill to be learned if I wanted to draw well, not a fun pastime in and of itself.

I had never used charcoal before (I didn’t even know they came in pencil form) so I was really hesitant to do so. It smudged and could not be completely erased, so I was a bit scared that I would mess up a drawing if I used it. But I couldn’t make my pencil drawings dark enough; I noticed how washed-out they seemed when I saw them from a distance in class. So for my last drawing I used charcoal and loved how easy it was to increase the value, cover large areas evenly, and create texture. I wish I used charcoal in more of my drawings, and I’m definitely going to draw with charcoal more often now.

Now that I have all the necessary supplies, my goal is to actually draw in my free time. This class has been a reminder of how much I love art. I shouldn’t need a class or deadlines to motivate me to do it!

Sources

http://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/kunst/lorenzo_ghiberti/the-gates-of-paradise.jpg

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/b/botticelli/venus.jpg

http://jackiewhiting.net/ArtHist/Images/pieta.jpg

Amazing Drawings

2011-12-03T06:37:00.001-08:00

I used to not consider drawing as a form of visual art – actually I could not distinguish sketches/ study drawings from drawing works. Drawing seemed to be less time and effort consuming to paintings, sculptures, etc. However, having worked on several projects through the ART 100 class I realized how drawing could be an amazing artwork. In fact there are a lot of artists who create stunning works with only pencils, pens, and ink. The following is list of interesting drawing link I found and wanted to share with others:

1. Sagaki Keita (http://sagakikeita.com/)
Sagaki Keita is a Japanese artist who draws objects with thousands of whimsical characters. I like how he incorporated classic (drawing marble statues) and modern elements (character illustrations) into his work by using cheerful characters rather than lines and shadings. I took next image from his website, and it is one of his most recent works. It is titled “I wanna go to BIDAI! [Mars Broghese].” He drew this pretty big (65 x 50 cm) image with pen.

(Detail shot of the image above. Image from www.sagakiteita.com)
　　　　　　　　　　　
2. James Jean (http://jamesjean.com/)
James Jean is a Taiwanese-American visual artist known for fine art gallery work. He is more known as a cover artist for DC comics or for his mural design for the Prada Epicenter stores in New York. Yet he also has a lot of drawing works. I took following two images from his website. The first one, “Carrier” is drawn with ink and the latter, “Petit Courbet” with graphite. I was amazed by his unceasing creativity; his drawings are fictional and imaginative.

3. Faber Castell advertisement by Eric Yeo and Chan Hwee Chong (http://vimeo.com/27405001)
The following images are incredible advertisements of Faber Castell. You have to watch the video clip! The artist uses concentric lines – how unique! – and imitates famous works like Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with Pearl Earrings”. I could not find blogs or websites of two artists. (I assume they drew these works only for the advertisement.)

These artists showed me how creative drawing can be. If Sagaki Keita and Eric Yeo/ Chan Hwee Chong used unusual technique to depict ordinary or classic materials, James Jean created mystic images with lines. Wish I could draw like one of them haha.

My Connection with Drawing

2011-12-02T11:58:00.000-08:00

I have always loved art. I've asked my mom before what my first drawing was and she replied that it was scribbles on the wall. When I was young, admittably I really wasn't aware of what I was creating, only that I wanted what I saw in my mind displayed on paper and to create new scenes. While that aspect of my drawings hasn't changed, the sophitication and quality of them sure have (and improved I hope). I mostly have worked in drawings and only recently painting.

While I really enjoy making more technical drawings in pencil on a gray scale, I am always fascinated when working with colors. I think the art pieces I'm usually drawn to are those that use their strokes of colors to define space especially when the artist uses non-traditional colors to do so. For example, when they use green or purple on a portrait to add shadows or when they create strokes of different color side by side to represent a line instead of just drawing in a line. However, I have never been able to use these techniques even though I have tried numerous times (and failed). I can get an impression of the style but not all the way. One day I really hope to successfully portray my love of that style in my own work. As I mentioned, I usually draw in a more technical style. However, I don't simply just copy a picture. I started drawing from pictures early in my high school career and I feel it is necessary to learn how to realistically draw a picture exactly. But that isn't art. I feel sometimes people who don't usually draw confuse it with art. Taking it to the next step is creating your own color palet, cropping the image the way you please, adding elements, and giving the drawing a mood.

In my last year of high school, it was incredibly stressful with senior responsibilities, club responsiblities, and applying to colleges. I found that my two art classes really helped counter the rigorous academics. I could relax and finish drawings when I felt they were complete. I spent my time working on details just the way I wanted. This was probably one of the bigger problems I had with this drawing class. I was used to turning assignments in after about a month of work usually and suddenly drawings (that I didn't particularly like at all) had to be turned in after a week or two. The class was a lot more stressful than I had anticipated. But I guess that has more to say about college than drawing. And my drawings, as you can tell, were usually self-portraits or other figures. Rarely did I draw objects. Or want to, for that matter.

I really wish there was an advanced Drawing or Drawing II here at Duke. I would take that in a heartbeat.

Drawings I Like

2011-11-29T17:20:00.000-08:00

I've always loved portraits more than any other type of drawing. For as long as I can remember I've been captivated by artists who seem to be able to express a subject's entire personality with nothing more than a few gestural lines scattered across a sheet of paper.

The ability to draw a convincing portrait requires an incredible understanding of another person on so many different levels. The artist must first possess an intimate understanding of each and every detail of the subject's physical body - his unique proportions, as well as those peculiar imperfections that define the subject's form.

However a truly brilliant portrait moves beyond these elementary necessities involving superficial features. The very best portraits are able to convey the inner workings of the subject's soul. While we can seldom identify exactly which specific aspects of a portrait accomplish this prodigious feat, we immediately recognize those portraits that possess this distinctive quality... and those that do not.

A person's essence is expressed through a combination of infinitely many subtle qualities.
A gesture perhaps. A veiled expression. A slight curve of a lip or the hint of a glimmer in an eye. It is the portrait artist's ability to identify these nearly imperceptible details and reproduce them for others to recognize that I find truly awe-inspiring.

Here are a few of my favorite "portrait" drawings:

Leonardo da Vinci

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

John Singer Sargent

Norman Rockwell

What is Drawing

2011-11-28T16:28:00.000-08:00

When I was in the second grade, I drew a flying unicorn for the school art show. My teacher titled it "The Flying Pig." Clearly my artistic skills were not up to par. As years went by, I drew, I painted, I glued, but never really became "good" at art.

English sculptor and artist Henry Moore once said, "discipline in art is a fundamental struggle to understand oneself, as much as to understand what one is drawing."

I don't think being good is what truly matters. Art is about expressing yourself, about using your creative imagination—however little you think you may have—and translating it into something you can understand. Something tangible. While many people draw on commission or for a class, it should inherently be for yourself.

Some people believe that when you have a photo taken, a part of your soul too is taken. I believe the same goes for drawings, except you are giving that part of your soul willingly to your creation. With every drawing you create, you put yourself on the line a little, exposing yourself and your emotions far more than words could ever convey.

I enjoy drawing because it is fun, and it helps me express myself. Maybe I am a horrible artist, but I don't care. I am expressing myself, and who are others to tell me that it's not good enough.

Regardless of how well my drawings turn out, I love looking at those of others. I've included some of my favorites below.

Da Vinci

Rembrant

Realizations

2011-11-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

Drawing...

I have learned to love the richness of it, the possibility of creating a world so much more drastic yet simple than the one in which we live. The opportunity to let the world see what I wish existed is beautiful, to say the least.As Glenn Vilppu once said, "There are no rules, only tools..." and that is one aspect of drawing I adore. Once you can create, know the fundamentals, know how to put the thunderstorm of ideas in your mind on paper, there ARE no more rules.

And for that very same reason, I absolutely hate still life drawing. To me, there is little capacity for creation or rule-breaking. This form of art is stifling and basic; I don't connect with it and don't care for it. Now, if you can string together objects and tell a story with them...MAKE a connection happen, I don't mind as much....but without life present, my inspiration fails. I think it is evident in my work as well. At this class' start, my work was admitted not my best. It wasn't that I wasn't giving effort, I actually gave more effort then than now. I just couldn't connect with the material, and therefore the art didn't come naturally. However, with narratives and the possibility to be creative, I think it is evident that I have flourished compared to the beginning of the class.

Now that I have told you my opinion on drawing in general, here are some examples of why I love it...time to show, not tell: (one of them is a little fake, but I still like it!!!)

Adrian Piper

2011-10-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

Adrian Piper is a contemporary first-generation conceptual artist and philosopher who confronts the issues of gender, xenophobia and most particularly race head on in her work.

Piper’s artistic journey began at a young age. She attended the Art’s Students’ League for high school, and she began to publicly exhibit her work at the age of twenty. She graduated with an A.A. in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in 1969. As a young artist she was heavily influenced by Sol le Witt, from whose conceptual installation comprised of three boxes she learned the art of “taking reality, or taking a physical object apart, in terms of its attributes, and combining those attributes one with another, systematically, until you have exhausted all possible combinations” (Art Beat 1992). For Piper, Sol’s representation of the complexity of physical reality provided the impetus for own work in which she intended to represent the unpredictability the complexity of human beings in all their singularity.

The first piece of Piper’s work that I saw was the Vanilla Nightmares series, which use newspaper articles on racism and apartheid as a background for her drawings depicting subjugation, confrontation, eroticism and vulnerability in a series of figures in poses. The first message that was brought home to me in Piper’s work was brutality of racial stereotyping and the objectification of women, particularly black women.

Vanilla Nightmares #2

Vanilla Nightmares #9

Vanilla Nightmares #8

While I greatly admired the bravery in her art and the message that she was sending through these contorted bodies and shaven heads, I could not understand the intimacy of her work, and the obvious connection she had with the pieces. Upon first glance, one would say that Adrian Piper is white. Her "Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features" is part of Piper’s pivotal exploration of her own identity as a white-skinned African-American in a racist society.

Portrait Exaggerating my Negroid Features

While, based on society’s superficial conventions of racial classification she is considered white, Adrian Piper considers herself to be one of those white Americans that fit the “One Drop Rule” which essentially states that one drop of African blood is enough to classify you as black. Historically, Piper comes from a black family, and she associates with the black race.

Her appearance as a light-skinned woman meant that she often found herself interacting in exclusively white circles, which meant that perhaps her most infamous piece of art travelled with her to many a social occasion. Piper began to carry calling cards on her person when in white company, and should someone make a particularly racist remark, they would be presented with the following message from the artist:

Piper’s work is abrasive and confrontational, and leaves no room to tip toe around the uncomfortable topic of racial discrimination. This is why her art is so successful – it is accessible to all those who view it, in one way or another. Piper does not intend to address an audience made up exclusively of philosophers, intellectuals and black movement sympathizers. She is reaching out to an audience which she sees as being “very much like a recalcitrant lover” (Art Beat 1992) , and as long her audience is made uncomfortable and forced to think then her artwork has served its purpose.

I particularly like Piper’s work for several reasons. On a philosophical level I appreciate her agenda regarding racial stereotyping, which is something I have come across as a white African living on foreign shores, however, in terms of technique, I love Piper’s expressive method of working, and the different temperatures and textures of anger that come through in her drawings, particularly in the Vanilla Nightmares series. I admire the way she echoes the malleability of the human psyche in her choice of medium, and I especially love the way she represents the human form in her drawings – rounded, full and powerful.

I believe Adrian Piper is a revolutionary figure in the world of art and philosophy. Her work has greatly influenced my own and I have no doubt will continue to do so.

Works cited:

Art beat. (1992, Oct 13). The Village Voice, pp. S12-S12.

Picasso and His Many Passions

2011-10-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

The legacies of Pablo Picasso are expansive and powerfully influential. The meanings and expressions of his artwork illuminate the immense influence Picasso’s environment and relationships had over his work. Over the course of ninety-one years, Picasso has lived through both World Wars, expatriation from his own country, and a series of wives and secret affairs. All of these experiences, especially Picasso’s explicit anti-war opinions and insatiable passion for women, are commonly expressed through his entire career, despite the wide range of art Picasso has participated in, from poetry to stage designing to paintings, which has led him though various themed eras like the Blue Period (19

01-1904) and Cubism (1909-1912).

Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain in 1881 and went to art schools in Barcelona and Madrid. Picasso’s art career started very early, for his father, also an artist and art teacher, noticed his talents early and helped develop Pablo Picasso’s skills and schooling opportunities. However, Picasso

never appreciated strict discipline and formal instructions, and thus quickly dropped out of schooling at the age of six

teen and left on his own to Paris. For a long time, Picasso lived in poverty often having to burn some of his artwork to keep warm (poverty is a common theme is his artworks). However, Picasso had the luck of attracting wealthy collectors that started him on a rather successful and internationally renowned path.

Among his m

any styles and techniques, which include sculpting and woodwork, Picasso is probably most known for his work in Surrealism. He uses extreme distortion and symbolism left for the viewer to draw upon and “interpret them” (Picasso).

An early sketch and final painting of

The Guernica (1937):

This famous painting and its sketched rough draft are a good example of both Picasso’s anti-war opinions and his means of surrealism to express them. Guernica was painted in response to the bombing of Guernica by German forces during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso refuses to interpret the two prominent images in the painting, the bull and the horse. Nevertheless, the

painting’s obscure orientation and symbolism does illustrate the painful tragedies of war with its dark tone and imagery of people screaming and dying.

A stencil drawing of one of Picasso’s mistresses, Francoise Gilot:

Many of Picasso’s works revolve around the women that encompass his life. He has spent very few years as a single man, even though he has never been able to remain faithful to a girlfriend for any more than ten years. His generally needy nature and the rare number

of single years illuminate the possibility of a lonely aspect of his character. However, his history of infidelity also marks an insatiable and loose sense of passion, for he often falls into obsession for a woman, and falls just as quickly for another at the cost of his previous relationship. This portrait of Gilot is one of many portraits of his wives and girlfriends, and is thus a good illustration of his simple, yet passionate style of drawing. Although most of his portraits are not intricately detailed, this sort of simplicity allows for the focus of distinct features of that particular woman. In this case, focus falls upon the flowing hair and Gilot’s large eyes.

A painting of a Reclining Nude:

This is one of my favorite paintings, and is one I had the honor of seeing in person. This painting is, once again, of one of his affairs—a woman with whom he had a child. This scene portrays Marie-Therese Walter after sex, reclining and “radiating” in the sun. Like most of his drawings and portraits of women, they are simple and abstract in a way that illuminates the defining features of that particular woman. In this painting and in many others that present Marie-Therese Walter, the style focuses on her voluptuous features and the sense of passion and satisfaction (maybe playing to his own narcissism) after love-making, as illustrated by the flowing image of her position, the blushing in her cheeks, and the visible radiation coming from her body.

Miyazaki Hayao

2011-10-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

During my 7 years of living in Tokyo, Japan, I grew up watching Ghibli Studio movies. They would eventually be known in America as the studio who created major motion animation movies such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. I would go to the movies every time the studio produced another movie. Director, producer, and art director Miyazaki Hayao almost singlehandedly wrote every story that Ghibli Studio produced whether it was a short motion picture or feature length film after he co-founded the studio in 1984. He produced numerous movies that climbed to the top of Japan’s film charts as the highest glossing films

again and again. The success of his movies, I believe, lies in the depth of plot and the quality of the artwork. Miyazaki’s attention to detail over every part of the film is evident, as there is not a single moment when the artwork is not the very best or the flow of the story is not smooth.

Miyazaki Hayao started out as a manga artist. After a few years of moderately successful manga career, he began to work for animation studios. After producing dozens of successful storylines for animation movies, he paired up with his longtime friend to find a studio of his own – Ghibli. There he welcomed enormous success. By producing films of top quality he established himself and the studio apart from other animation studios in Japan, which was quite a feat as animation studios are abundant in japan. The ghibli studio in japan could be called akin to pixar or Disney in America.

What captivated me about these movies were the artwork and plot. The simple yet expressive style of his artwork makes the characters relatable to audiences of all ranges. The artwork in these movies are that of Miyazaki’s. he personally review every single slide of the handdrawn animation cels in order to make sure his staff’s drawings are up to par with his. The fact he sticks to traditional hand drawn cel slides to make his films is admirable. He only relies on modern graphic technology to enhance hand drawn slides, not to replace them. He takes part in every step of the production, meticulously perfecting each and every slide. Contrast to other animators who compete to showcase the best use of technology. By remaining true to the traditional method all of the films have unity and continuity.

Works Cited

Cavallaro, Dani. The Animé Art of Hayao Miyazaki. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2006. Print.

White, Donna J. "The Art of Miyazaki." University of Buffalo: The State University of New York. University of Buffalo. Web. age.htm>.

Peter Paul Rubens Sources

2011-10-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

Sources

Baglione, Giovanni. Lives of Rubens. London : Pallas Athene, c2005.

Held, Julius. Rubens: Selected Drawings. Oxford : Phaidon, 1986.

Rubens, Peter Paul. Peter Paul Rubens. Ostfildern-Ruit : Hatje Cantz, c2004.

Scribner, Charles. Rubens. New York, Abrams, 1989

2011-10-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

Being from Belgium, and being the daughter of an art historian, I have been surrounded by and taught to appreciate and love Flemish painters. My favorite of these is Peter Paul Rubens. I have loved Rubens so much because I love the way that he draws the human body, personally it is my favorite thing to draw and Rubens is the master.

Biography

Rubens was born in 1577 in Siegen, Germany but his family soon left Germany and moved to his mother’s hometown of Antwerp, Belgium due to the Counter-Reformation.

This may be a reason for why Rubens is widely know for his altarpieces, landscapes, and portraits that all are focused on the subject of Counter-Reformation. Early in his career, Rubens worked under Antwerp’s leading painters of his time Adam van Noort and Otto van Veen. Later he took a trip to Italy and became inspired by the Italian masters such as Titian, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio. Rubens died in a castle outside of Antwerp in 1640 of gout.

Drawings and Style

Rubens did many of his drawings with black or red chalk on paper. He often tinted his sketches with a “bistre” wash. I had to look up what bistre wash was but it is a brown pigment made from boiling the soot of wood.

It is spread at a transparent liquid over a drawing to create a brownish tint, which is typical of the “old master drawings” of the 17^th and 18^th century.

Peter Paul Rubens – Laocoon c 1600-1608

Here we can see an example of the bistre wash used.

Rubens also made many sketches with oil paint and black chalk as a way of doing an “under-painting” being very similar to what is an under-drawing or a study sketch.

Here is one of Rubens’ anatomical studies. We see how in depth he goes into drawing all the muscles in the body – although they are probably not visible on the live model.

This is a study that Rubens made after Titian, Studies of a woman. Something that I found very fascinating about Rubens is that since there were not many female models willing to pose nude during the time, Rubens used many male models and just made them female. This is why many of Rubens/ women and very muscular and broad.

Rubens “Judith Killing Holofrenes” c. 1609-10

Here is a little bit different than the previous drawings, Rubens uses pen and ink and a brown wash. This drawing also seems like it was made with a little less precision than his previous drawings.

Here we see “Battle of the Standard” by Rubens and this shows more of the characteristics of his paintings, which are very energetic, but also focus a lot of detail on anatomical precision and detail.

Rembrandt

2011-10-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

Rembrandt is a Dutch artist who has lived in a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age. He was born on 15 July 1606 and died on 4 October 1669. He is mostly known for his self-portraits and paintings that carry Biblical themes.

His primary subjects are portraiture, landscape, and narrative painting. Besides from oil painting, his etchings are very famous.

His drawings were mainly made to record what he saw or felt, which sometimes evolved into his paintings; these are mostly unfinished. Today, there are over 1400 drawings that are said to be his; however, only 25 of these have his signature. Experts estimate the dates of Rembrandt's drawings by studying his style the way he used his favorite media: red and black chalk, ink and quill or reed pen, brush and washes.

His drawings give an idea of his unmatched range, depth, and human sympathy. It includes self-portraits, sketches of the activities on Amsterdam’s streets, studies of Jewish types, studies of landscape around Amsterdam, drawings from classical mythology, ancient history, and most importantly, narrations of the Bible. It is reported that the largest group depicts Biblical themes.

The Mill on the ‘Het Blauwhoofd’

145 x 115 mm.

The Mill

1645-1648

Oil on canvas.

87.6 × 105.6 cm (34.5 × 41.6 in)

“The Mill on the ‘Het Blauwhoofd’” (drawing) and “The Mill” (oil painting) show how some themes that occur in his sketches have recurred in his paintings. In comparison to “The Mill”, which has taken him 3 years to complete, “The Mill on the ‘Het Blauwhoofd’” resembles a fairly quick sketch. We don’t see the details of the sky and the focus is mainly on the mill.

A Woman Sleeping c. 1655 The British Museum, London

In many of his drawings, he has used descriptive lines, and the drawings are not in detail; we can only see the form of a woman. There is very little shading, only when necessary.

Self Portrait with a Cap, openmouthed. 1630 (etching, 41 41 mm)

Rembrandt had approximately 290 plates and 79 or Rembrandt’s original plates are still in existence. None of these plates are larger than 21 by 18 inches. During his lifetime, Rembrandt was famous for his etchings, rather than paintings. Self Portrait with a Cap, openmouthed is an example of his etchings. Here, we can see that he has used a great number of lines, in comparison to the minimal lines that he has used in most of his drawings.

Lion Resting, Turned to the Left

c. 1650-52

138 x 204 mm.

Louvre, Paris

Animals are also in many of his sketches and drawings. In this drawing, we can see that the lion’s face is very detailed when compared to his drawings of humans. Also, he has used darker lines to define the lion’s form; whereas in his drawings of humans the colors of his lines do not differ as much from each other.

I had previously known Rembrandt as a painter; I knew his famous oil paintings, which are mostly on canvas. However, I did not know that he had also produced etchings and drawings as well. Choosing him made me have a deeper understanding of his artistic abilities and interests.

Sources

Longstreet, S. (Ed. 1). (1963). Drawings of Rembrandt. New York, NY: Borden Publishing Company

(2007). Rembrandt Drawings: 116 Masterpieces in Original Color. NY: Dover Publications

Hirschfeld

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Albert ("Al") Hirschfeld is one of the preeminent modern caricaturists. Despite the fact that he is most famous for his minimalistic black and white line drawing caricatures of Broadway actors, he also worked in a number of different mediums, subjects, and experimented with color.

History

Childhood
Born in St.Louis in 1903, he began his art training at the Art Students League of New York in New York City.

Hirschfeld began working with with Samuel Goldwyn Studios on ads. Then he moved over to Selznick Pictures where he became the art director-- at the age of 17. After Selznick went out of business several years later, Hirschfeld traveled to Paris and then London where he studied an array of artistic mediums: from sculpture, to painting, and finally, drawing.

His career in theater caricature because with his portrait of Sacha Guitry, a French star, in 1926 (image on right).

Hirschfeld went to the theater with his friend Dick Maney, a press agent. He began to scribble a drawing of Guitry. His friend thought the scribble was good and asked Hirschfeld to redraw the image on a clean sheet of paper. Hirschfeld gave Maney the image and the next Sunday it was in The New York Herald Tribune. For the next 20 years, Hirschfeld made a weekly contribution to drama section of the Sunday edition of the Tribune. Shortly after his drawing of Guitry, Hirschfeld began drawing for The New York Times.

Early in his career, Hirschfeld was still trying to define his style. He "flirted" with pointlism (Florence Reed, 1926), shading, and line weight (Cafe Crown 1942). However, he eventually turned his focus towards clean, black and white lines.

In 1927, Hirschfeld went to Russia. Russia was undergoing a revolution. While there, he spent some time drawing Russian theater greats like Stanislavski. He also drew images of the Russian people in the first decade of Communism. He planned on creating a book out of these sketches. However, many of the drawings were lost and the book was never published.

Many of his drawings were of political figures or offered some sort of political commentary.
Art and History 1931

Inflation 1932

Politico-Erotica 1933
Peace in Our Time 1939

As Hirshfeld' name because synonymous with theater caricature, it became a right of passage for the theater greats to be drawn by him.
Zero Mostel

Danny Kaye - 1953

Woody Allen and Diane Keaton - 1977

Newspapers often tasked him with trying to capture the heart of a play prior to opening night.
Carousel - 1945

Rent - 1996

Process and "NINA"

While watching shows in rehearsal or at previews, he would make notes, understandable to only himself, on a small sketch pad or would draw with a small pencil on piece of paper taken out from his pocket. He would break the actors and shows into their most fundamental, basic pieces. "I would try to put down as accurately as I can the things that are visually exciting to me: certain movements of hands, the way the actors sit, cross their legs, or look at each other." He would also become grossly enthralled with the scenery. After a show, because his focus had remained mainly on these "details", when questioned about the plot he often would have no idea what the larger piece of theater was about. When he would return home to his studio, he would do his best to recreate the show/character from his notes. "To be sure of the actor's appearance when he made that gesture, Hirschfeld went to the mirror... Hirschfeld quite often cast himself as his own model, miming female as well as male roles in order to remind himself how performers look stage." When the drawings were basically finished, Hirschfeld would then add in his famous "NINA"s. After the birth of his daughter in 1945, Hirschfeld would secretly slip in the word "NINA," his daughter's name, into all of his drawings. It has become a "game" for Hirschfeld fans to find the Ninas in his works. He would sometimes write a number text to his signature that signified the number of "NINA"s to be found.

His "process" of creating is unique, to say the least, and speaks to both the interesting drawing form that is caricature but on a more general level to the many ways an artist can approach beginning a piece.

Why Hirschfeld?
I have always been passionate about theater and was interested in learning about its' intersection with drawing. I remember how captivated I was going to Sardi's (a restaurant in New York with hundreds of Hirschfeld's) and wanted to learn more about the artist.

Caricature also fascinates me. I am interested in how one can convey an idea in the simplest way possible. How does one capture the true essence of a subject? How do you break a person down into component pieces?

Also, in caricature, the physical form is stretched and mutated-- yet the human brain still understands who the subject is. I am also interested in experimenting with that idea.

Finally, in this class, we first started learning about line drawing. Line drawings are the most fundamental form of drawing and I wanted to examine an artist who manages to convey idea only with line.

Hirschfeld, Al. Hirschfeld on Line. New York: Applause, 1999. Print.

Joan Miro

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Joan Miro 1893-1983

“An eternal child mirroring our earliest dreams to the disenchanted adults we have become.”

– Bruno Racine

Joan Miro was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1893. Beginning at a young age, Miro was captivated by the arts. He spent much of his childhood drawing the scenes of Mallorca—an island in the Mediterranean Sea—where he felt a deep connection with the land. Drawing was his way of freeing himself from the pain of his loneliness. His parents were not close with him, and he did not receive much attention from anyone else either. He studied art at the La Llotija, and was heavily involved with the Dada and Surrealism movements. Critics did not receive Miro’s first exhibition at the Galeries Dalmau in 1918 warmly; however, Miro continued to embrace his unique style and “follow his stars” to become one of the most influential artists of his time.

1949 - etching with color

As a representative of Surrealism, Miro developed and often used the automatic drawing technique which counter acted the traditional techniques artists were expected to follow at that time. Automatic drawing is a way of freeing the subconscious into a tangible form, and Miro often let his mind spill out on to the page without any reservations.

The Farm - 1921(oil on canvas)
Miro moved to Paris where he gained prominence as a respected artist. His work was compared to poetry by the American writer Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway purchased this painting of Miro's parent's farm in Montroig, Barcelona, and said this of it: "It has in it all that you feel about Spain when you are there and all that you feel when you are away and cannot go there. No one else has been able to pain these two very opposite things." Miro possessed an invaluable gift of being able to connect with people by accessing their inner desires through his honest and sentimental work.

Pit Sawyer

I have always loved Miro’s work. The bright colors and his child-like character drew me in at a young age, and still continue to fascinate me. Miro was an individual thinker who followed his heart and never let go of his childhood dreams. The playfulness of his art is captivating, and always seems to make me happy.

“Joan Miro stands looking towards a point of light that nobody sees; he does see it and deciphers it; it is the marrow of the world, the peachstone that contains the luminous ultimate essence of life.” –Camilo Hose Cela

Tumbler with Guitar - Painting

SOURCES

Serra, Pere. Miro and Mallorca. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1984.

Lanchner, Carolyn. Joan Miro. The Museum of Modern Art. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1993.

De La Beaumelle, Agnes. Joan Miro. London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2004.