Steven Spazuk - Drawing With Fire

Drawing with fire, also called “Fumage", is an art technique that consists in bringing a lighted candle or kerosene lamp close to a piece of paper in order to create dark abstract shapes, then turning these shapes into drawings (mostly by scratching off the soot in certain places). Even though “Fumage” already existed during the surrealist era, drawing with fire was mainly explored and developed by the contemporary French-Canadian artist Steven Spazuk, who dedicated 14 years of his life to perfecting his skills. His works include both shockingly realistic and abstract portraits, as well as color images, wall-size fragmentation drawings and collages, all obtained by using fire. Please find below some of his major works – as well as a picture and a video of his creative process, and an interview he gave to the French series Expression of Montréal.

Sources:

Interview With Expression 

More about the Artist

More about the Artist's Creative Process

Some of Spazuk's Major Works:

Links (in case titled links do not work):

Interview with Expression: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usR9Iqu4vZk

More about the Artist: 

http://www.boredpanda.com/soot-art-fire-paintings-steve-spazuk/

More about the Artist's Creative Process: 

http://www.bustle.com/articles/109026-steven-spazuk-paints-with-fire-and-soot-and-the-process-is-hypnotizing-video

Why I Enjoy Drawing - Susan Hynes

Why I Enjoy Drawing – Susan Hynes

            When I was little, my mom always encouraged my brother and I to go outside, build things, take things apart, and make stuff. Making stuff included drawing, painting, sculpting, carving, or any other art form that you could thing of. We learned how to play an instrument, braze and weld, use a lathe, work with motors, and many other ways to express our creativity. Unfortunately, you can’t do many of those things everywhere you go; but you can draw anywhere. This is why drawing became my favorite art form, I could pack up a pencil and some paper and take it to my swim meets, in long car rides (or even short ones), and to school.

           

When I started to enjoy drawing, I would draw teeny-tiny pictures right in the middle of a full sheet of paper, I thought I was showing off my ‘detail skills.’ My mom would always tell me “draw bigger,” which I ignored until a few years ago. I thought I enjoyed drawing before, but drawing bigger made it so much better. I could draw in more detail and try to make the picture as representative of real life as possible. I would carry papers and pictures in folders in my backpack throughout middle and high school hoping to have time to draw in class. I would sometimes ‘make’ time to draw in class, which would cause me to get a mean look from a teacher or two. I would try to draw as fast as I could while maintaining the same level of ‘perfection,’ I didn’t like spending more than one day on a drawing. Eventually, I got over that and I can now spend days on a drawing trying to make it as photo-realistic as I can. Over the years, drawing has become my hobby and stress relief, I simply enjoy doing it; I have not real reason behind it other than it has been a part of my entire life, but it makes me happy.

Thoughts on Drawing (Jessica Yan)

Before this class, my most recent experiences with drawing consisted of copying down problem set diagrams and schematics for my engineering classes. Before that, it was middle school art class. I never thought I would be taking a drawing class when I came to Duke, but when the schedule freed up finally in my last semester, I decided to just go for it, and it really has been a great semester of developing my own drawing style and learning about what I preferred and disliked.

At the beginning of the semester I was very nervous that I would struggle to come up with ideas for my sketchbook since I had never really taken classes that encouraged creative liberty, but I found that it was actually easy to find inspiration in current events and in my daily routine. One day it was Pokemon's 20th anniversary, so I decided to draw Pikachu. Another drawing is a sketch for a design I've been developing in one of my engineering classes. I experimented with many types of drawings in my sketchbook, including some abstract patterns and pen and mechanical pencil work, but always felt the most comfortable with realistic observational pencil drawings.

One of my biggest takeaways is learning to enjoy the process of art, instead of viewing it as a task that needed to be finished, as I was used to doing with all my other class assignments at Duke. I also learned to develop patience as I spent hours shading the same gray value for a particularly large side of a building, or as I regretted allotting so much space for my grass that I needed to add texture to. Eventually I learned to not be afraid to draw long lines and curves in one go as opposed to the sketchy short strokes I was used to doing. I learned that even though I liked looking at the sharp lines and geometric details of buildings and other structures, I liked drawing organic, uneven lines and abstract textures such as trees and people more.  

My final fiction drawing is a reflection on my past four years at Duke. Almost all of the classes I've taken have been very structured and lecture-based, so I was unused to this type of skill course at first, but I'm so glad I registered for this class last minute and gave it a chance. Overall, I am proud of the work I've done and the progress I've made over the past few months. I am more confident now in my drawing ability and now have a new creative outlet. I hope that though my time at Duke is coming to a close, I will be able to begin a new hobby of pursuing and appreciating art in the real world. 

Drawing and I, Reflections by Amy Cheng

I grew up having tried out many different extracurricular activities throughout the years: ballet, piano, violin, tennis… However, drawing has remained my constant hobby since childhood and the only one that I continue to do semi-regularly even in college. When I was younger, my interest in drawing had started out with coloring books, which then evolved to drawing anime characters (such as Pikachu and Sailor Moon). As I got a little older, I began imitating framed artwork in my house and realized that artwork often made great, heartfelt gifts to my parents, friends and other family members. Drawings express a certain type of dedication—as it could often be extremely time-consuming, contain a personal touch from the artist’s unique style, and most importantly, drawings as gifts could be hung and displayed in the personal spaces as meaningful decorations. Drawing also has a therapeutic effect on me, as I remember during the stressful period of high school, I always looked forward to my Sunday art classes when the detailed stripes on a tiger or the back and forth motion of coloring required such intense focus and concentration that my mind would feel cleared afterwards. Looking at a finished piece of work often brought about a sense of accomplishment and joy. Hitting two birds with one stone, drawing is an activity that is both enjoyable and pleasant to the artist and for its function as an end product—be it decoration or to be part of a personal collection to be looked back on, reflected, and appreciated, 

I find art fascinating because there are so many different types of mediums as well. From the initial lead pencil and color pencils to color pastel, charcoal, watercolor, acrylics, ink, oil paint etc. I have always taken amateur art classes during the weekends or summer holidays while growing up, but most of these classes often just entail following teachers’ drawings step by step or imitating a print out of pictures under instruction or guidance. This studio drawing course has been the type of drawing class I have been longing to take for quite some time: drawing from still life and models, with an emphasis on observation and realistic portrayal. (I often would see similar set-ups in movies or French novels, which have a certain underlying atmosphere that I found intriguing.) I could feel my drawing abilities improve and my line work becoming less sketchy. However, I did enjoy the sketchbook assignments quite a bit, as it provided me the opportunity to draw anything I liked, which often involve magical, fantastical, and animated objects. I recall Professor Fick mentioning in the first class that this course was designed in hopes that the students could get a sense of how an artist would live; for sure I could say that I got a taste of what that entails. Artists would probably dedicate hundreds of hours to perform study drawings from multiple perspectives, testing out different types of tools, and also truly observing and studying the objects they are drawing—at least for the more traditional type of artistic style. Overall, this course had deepened my understanding of drawing, and I am glad to have this experience at some time within my college career.