PRACTICA PRAC TICAL L PERS PERSPECT PECTIVE IVE
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WINTER 2016
A USER’S GUIDE TO CHARCOAL
4 Steps to
DRAWING DRAPERY
The
CHARCOAL ISSUE INVENTED WORLDS, LUMINOUS LANDSCAPES, L ANDSCAPES, LARGE-SCALE PORTRAITS
Portrait of Merwin (Merf) Shaw (detail) by Mary Borgman
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GRAPHITE LINE
by CARAN d’ACHE
GRAFWOOD GRAFCUBES GRAFSTONE TECHNALO
Creative Art Materials, Ltd.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS WINTER 2 016
74
88
FEATURES 32
Charcoal Gaze The larger-than-life portraits of Mary Borgman stem from chance encounters.
40
Practical Perspective By mastering some general principles of perspect ive, you can create stronger, more volumetric drawings.
54
The Sky's the Limit Hilary Brace creates powerful imaginary worlds.
40
64
Charcoal Radiance April Gornik imbues her large landscapes with a sense of the transcendent.
74
Curator's Choice: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Presenting thirteen outstanding drawings from a top Texas collection.
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CONTENTS
54
COLUMNS
ON THE COVER
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION 62
22
Material World
22
Charcoal's Charms 28
88
4 Steps to Drawing Drapery
Drawing Drapery
32
Large-Scale Portraits
New & Notable
40
Practical Perspective
54
Invented Worlds
64
Luminous Landscapes
74
Great Drawings by Modigliani, Schiele, Stella
First Marks
Mike Lee
DEPARTMENTS 6
Editor’s Note
7
Contributors
COVER IMAGE
10
Frontispiece
Portrait of Merwin (Merf) Shaw (detail)
Sketchbook
by Mary Borgman, 200 9, charcoal on Mylar, 47 x 45. Courtesy Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.
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A sponsored guide to artists' charcoals.
A User's Guide to Charcoal
28
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Drawing VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 48 MANAGING EDITOR
Brian F. Riley SENIOR EDITOR
Austin R. Williams ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Michael Woodson ART DIRECTOR
King Charcoal
C
harcoal is a medium of fantastic range, equally useful for dashing off quick sketches as for creating refined finished drawings, and in this issue Drawing celebrates charcoal in all its dark, dusty glory. We learn the ins and outs of the medium in our Material World column, where we also consider mixed media applications and products that can be used in conjunction with charcoal (page 22). Mary Borgman shares her large charcoal portraits drawn on Mylar, which feature stunning textures, as well as captivating eye contact with her models (page 32). Hilary Brace likewise prefers a synthetic surface, working on polyester film to depict imaginary landscapes dominated by dramatic cloud formations (page 54). In comparison to Brace’s crazy creations, the landscapes of April Gornik may seem reassuringly familiar, but they too depart from reality—albeit in smaller ways—in order to achieve ineffable effects (page 64). Putting down the charcoal sticks for a moment, we study the basic principles of perspective, leaving aside mathematical formulas and focusing instead on ways to incorporate perspective seamlessly into the drawing process (page 40). Dena Woodall, the associate curator of prints and drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gives us a tour of outstanding works on paper in that collection (page 74). Our First Marks column considers strategies for how to draw drapery (page 28), and New & Notable introduces us to Mike Lee and his intriguing vignettes (page 88). Whether or not charcoal is your medium of choice, we hope you can �nd inspiration in the work of these accomplished artists. Happy sketching!
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Copyright © 2016 by F+W Media, Inc., all rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of the copyright owner, F+W Media, Inc. Drawing (ISSN 2161-5373 (print), ISSN 2330-0949 (online) USPS 001-780 Issue #48) is published quarterly by F+W Media, Inc. $9.99 a copy U.S.A. and $11.99 a copy Canada. Yearly subscriptions in U.S.A and Possessions: $23.95; in Canada: $27.95; and in all other countries: $30.95. Payment in US funds only. Periodicals postage paid at Fort Collins, CO, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Drawing, P.O. Box 433289, Palm Coast, FL 32143. Subscriber Services: U.S. and Canada (866) 917-3888, International (386) 246-0105, E-mail
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N I L R E B N E B Y B O T O H P
CONTRIBUTORS S H E R R Y C A M H Y (“Material World”) is a faculty member of
the Art Students League of New York, the School of Visual Art and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is the author of Art of the Pencil: A Revolutionary Look at Drawing, Painting and the Pencil. For more information, visit sherrycamhy.com. M A R G A R E T D A V I D S O N (“First Marks”) is an artist,
illustrator and former teacher at the Gage Academy of Art, in Seattle. She is the author of the book Contemporary Drawing: Key Concepts and Techniques. For more information, visit margaretdavidson.com.
Students League of New York and the National Academy School of Fine Arts, both in New York City. His new book, Figure Drawing Master Class, is available for purchase at NorthLightShop.com. J O H N A . P A R K S (“Charcoal Radiance”) is an artist who
is represented by 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel, in New York City. He is also a teacher at the School of Visual Arts, in New York City, and a frequent contributor to Drawing, as well as the author of the book Universal Principles of Art. View his work at johnaparks.com. A U S T I N R . W I L L I A M S (“Charcoal Gaze” and “Curator’s
D A N G H E N O (“Practical Perspective”) is a New York artist
whose work can be found in many private and public collections, including the Museum of the City of New York and the New Britain Museum of American Art, in Connecticut. He teaches drawing and painting at the Art
Choice: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston“) is the senior editor of Drawing. M I C H A E L W O O D S O N (“Sketchbook,” “The Sky’s the Limit”
and “New & Notable”) is the associate editor of Drawing.
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ON OUR SHELVES THIS MONTH What’s new from North Light Creative Sketching Workshop 21 Sketch Crawl Ideas and Exercises Pete Scully Discover 21 slice-of-life workshops lead by 12 accomplished artists taking you out into the world for unexpected sketching opportunities. Each workshop is made of various challenges and prompts that will take you to bustling bars, crowded beaches, workplaces and more. You’ll be challenged to convey the sensory experience of a meal, the fleeting view through your passenger window, and a day in the life of a child. You subjects will range from popular landmarks and performing musicians to fire hydrants, shoes, and sushi. Each challenge will ask you to slow down, look closer, and explore the endless possibilities.
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Strokes of Genius 7 - Depth, Dimension and Space The Best of Drawing Edited by Rachel Rubin Wolf This seventh volume in the beautiful Strokes of Genius series celebrates creative drawing with more than 140 diverse pieces by today’s best artists in charcoal, pencil, pastel, colored pencil, scratchboard, pen + ink and more. Inside you’ll find: entrants comments
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FRONTISPIECE Three Studies of Ludovic Halévy Standing by Edgar Degas ca. 1880, charcoal on tan laid paper, 12 5 /8 x 18 7 /8. Collection National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
The artists featured in this issue use charcoal for powerful finished works, many of them created on a grand scale. But as a versatile and portable medium, charcoal has just as often been the choice for compositional sketches, quick figure studies and drawings made on-the-go. Those qualities of charcoal can be seen in this sheet, which shows Degas (1834–1917) fine-tuning the figure of his friend Ludovic Halévy (1834–1908), a novelist and librettist whom Degas painted several times. The artist takes advantage of his charcoal’s dustiness, gently smudging it to create warm middle tones.
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LEFT
M Is for Mother 1998, pen-and-redink with colored pencil and graphite, 9 x 11¾. Artwork this article collection National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. All images this article ©The Easton Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, NY
BELOW
the puritan (4) 1990, engraving in black with additions in gouache on handmade paper with Japan gampi chine collé, 257 ⁄ 8 x 19¾.
Louise Bourgeois AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY “Louise Bourgeois: No Exit,” an T HRO UGH M AY 15 exhibition at the National Gal National Gallery of Art lery of Art in Washington, DC, Washington, DC presents drawings spanning (202) 737-4215 more than 50 years in the career nga.gov of the notable French-American sculptor. Bourgeois (1911–2010) was born to a prosperous Parisian family, met influential Surrealist artists when she was a university student in the 1930s and moved to America with her new husband, the art historian Robert Goldwater, in 1938. She worked well into her 90s, and over this long career she gradually gained acclaim for her abstract sculptures evoking anatomical and sexual forms. “No Exit” largely focuses on the sculptor’s works on paper in media including graphite, crayon, pen-and-ink and gouache, along with a small selection of sculptures in marble and wood. Also on view is He Disappeared Into Complete Silence, an unbound suite of engravings from 1947 dominated by depictions of unconventional structures
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Y N , A G A V Y B D E S N E C I L / N O I T A D N U O F N O T S A E E H T © E L C I T R A S I H T S E G A M I L L A
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BELOW
the puritan (7) 1990, engraving in black with additions in gouache on handmade paper with Japan gampi chine collé, 25 7 ⁄ 8 x 19¾.
that evoke imprisonment, paired with brief stories described in the book’s introduction as “tiny tragedies of human frustration.” Bourgeois was often called a Surrealist—in part because she associated with prominent Surrealist artists both in Europe in the 1930s and in America aft er World War II —but she hated the term. “At the mention of Surrealism, I cringe,” she said. “I am not a Surrealist.” She instead preferred to be labeled an existentialist, a movement she was inspired to participate in by the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus. “While Bourgeois’ illogical spaces, irrational juxtapositions and distorted anthropomorphic forms might appear Surrealist in nature,” write the exhibition’s curators, “her subjects testify to her commitment to existential thought.” Drawing / Winter
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Colored Pencil Call
for Entries Colored pencil artists are invited to enter the 24th Annual Colored Pencil Society of America International Exhibition , with more than $15,000 in cash prizes to be awarded. Artwork must be 100% colored pencil. Entries close March 31, 2016. Tis is a juried gallery exhibition to be held in acoma, Washington, from June 25–August 13, 2016. CPSA also holds an annual convention in conjunction with its exhibitions. For more information, download the prospectus at www.cpsa.org/IND
My Dog Has Fleas Mikela Cameron, CPSA (California) Juried into the 23rd Annual CPSA International Exhibition
Moving Pictures THROUGH FEBRUARY 28 Weatherspoon Art Museum The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, North Carolina (336) 334-5770 weatherspoon.uncg.edu
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The border between art and the scientific field of kinesiology is explored at the exhibition “In Motion,” at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, in North Carolina. Kinesiology, also referred Horse and Lion to as human kinetby Peter Agostini, ics, is the study of 1942, graphite, human movement, 16¾ x 13 ⁄ . incorporating biomechanics, anatomy, physiology, psychology and neuroscience. “In Motion” is inspired by a collaboration bet ween the Weatherspoon’s educational staff and the faculty in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 7
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The exhibition features artwork depicting a variety of implied movement—physical, psychological or optical. The works by artists such as Peter Agostini (1913–1993), John Steuart Curry (1897–1946) and Abraham Walkowitz (1878–1965) range from agitated to humorous and span a variety of media including graphite, printmaking, watercolor and mixed media. The motions depicted range from mundane everyday routines to dramatic physical feats and violent confrontations, and each image invites the viewer to conceive the complete course of the motion, imagining what has happened just before the moment depicted and what will happen after.
The Missed Leap by John Steuart Curry, ca. 1934, lithograph, 21½ x 13 5 ⁄ 8 .
Pierre Jean Mariette COLLECTOR EXTRAORDINAIRE THROUGH MAY 1 The Morgan Library & Museum New York, New York (212) 685-0008 themorgan.org
Major collectors not only provide patronage but can impact the ways in which subsequent generations view art itself. One such in�uencer was Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694–1774), whose renowned collection forms the basis of
“Pierre-Jean Mariette and the Art of Collecting Drawings” at The Morgan Library & Museum, in New York City. The exhibition allows an indepth look at a marvelous group of drawings and more generally provides an opportunity to
Stablemen of Various Nations
school of Albrecht Dürer, 1517, pen-and-brown-ink. Artwork this article collection The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, New York.
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reconsider the role early collectors played in shaping our view of the Old Masters. Mariette was the heir to a dynasty of Paris printmakers, publishers and art dealers, and he became one of the world’s �rst prominent collectors of drawings. The current exhibition includes some 20 representative drawings from his encyclopedic holdings. Works by Parmigianino (1503–1540), Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), Guercino (1591–1666) and Salvator Rosa (1615–1673) are among those on display. Mariette’s approach to collecting was unique, for he not only acquired drawings but interacted with them physically, cleaning and remounting them and often going much further. According to the museum, Mariette “cut [his drawings], integrated them with additions, completed and assembled together fragmentary sheets, and sometimes split double-sided drawings using his extraordinary ability as a paper restorer.” Such practices would be almost unthinkable today, but they form an important part of Mariette’s legacy. He also mounted his drawings on custom-made blue mats, which have themselves become highly prized objects. Most of the works in the exhibition are owned by The Morgan, but a few are loans from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York; the Princeton University Art Museum, in New Jersey; and private collections. Lady Seated, With Two Children attributed to Cristofano Allori, ca. 1600–1620, pen-and-brown-ink over black chalk.
2015 1st Place Drawing Casey Childs, Natalie, 14x11”, Charcoal
The Portrait Society of America invites artists to enter the 18th annual International Portrait Competition. Mark your calendar for March 2, 2016, the online entry deadline. $45 Entry Fee Submit up to three images Over $65,000 in cash and prizes recognizing Painting, Drawing and Sculpture Open to all artists and mediums On-line entry deadline: March 2, 2016 Exhibition dates: Washington, D.C. April 14-17, 2016 To enter, register or for membership information: Call toll-free
1-877-772-4321
info@port raitsoci ety.org www.portraitsociety.org
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The 2016 Williams Prize in Drawing for Emerging Artists d r a w A e c i o h C s ’ r o r u J 5 1 0 2 , r e p a p d e n o t , l e t s a p , l a o c r a h c ” , n i v r a G f o t i a r t r o P “ , m a d A r o n a e l E
Prints of Darkness THROUGH MARCH 6 Minneapolis Institute of Art Minneapolis, Minnesota (888) 642-2787 artsmia.org
Submissions will be accepted through CaFE, beginning February 1, 2016 First prize: $1000 10 Juror’s Choice Awards: $200
Printmakers have long experimented with a variety of techniques to create tonal effects, and an upcoming exhibition in Minneapolis spotlights aquatint, a variation on etching that excels in this area. “Prints of Darkness: The Art of Aquatint” features
visit: www.artistforartistsproject. org 18 Drawing / Winter 2016
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N N O B , T S N U K D L I B G V / K R O Y W E N , ) S R A ( Y T E I C O S S T H G I R S T S I T R A ©
works ranging from early experiments in aquatint by Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734–1781) to haunting 20thcentury images by Otto Dix (1891– 1969) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). Popularized in the 18th century, aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique capable of producing �at tonal areas that appear rather like ink or watercolor washes—hence the name “aquatint,” evoking watermedia. The technique involves exposing a metal plate to an acid bath while protecting areas of the plate with a powdered resin. Fine gradations of tone can be achieved by varying the applications of resin and the strength and duration of the acid baths.
DRAWINGMAGAZINE.COM
Unterstand (Fox Hole) by Otto Dix, 1924, etching, aquatint and drypoint, 7¾ x 11 3 ⁄ 8 . Plate 45 from Der Krieg (The War). Collection Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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19th-Century Noir FEBRUARY 9 THROUGH MAY 15 J. Paul Getty Museum Los Angeles, California (310) 440-7330 getty.edu
In the middle of the 19th century, French artists began creating darker drawings, in terms of both their subject matter and their drawing media. A selection of works created in this darker register will soon go Woman Strolling on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum, in Los by Georges Seurat, ca. Angeles, in “Noir: The Romance of Black in 1884, Conté, 12½ x 9 ⁄ . 19th-Century French Drawings and Prints.” Artwork this article collection J. Paul Getty During this period artists explored darkMuseum, Los Angeles, ness through subjects including shadowy California. alleyways and urban views; nocturnal landscapes; �gures draped in black; scenes of the poor and working classes and their often grim surroundings; and the dark underbelly of French high society. To explore these darker corners of the world artists took 7
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MalePortra it(TheLutenist Mascheroni) by Annibale Carracci, ca. 1593–1594, red and white chalk on 1 1 toned paper, 16 ⁄ 8 x 11 ⁄ 8 . Collection Albertina, Vienna, Austria. HeadofaYoungMan by GiovanniBattista Tiepolo, ca. 1750–1760, redandwhite chalkon toned paper, 10 3 ⁄ 8 x 7½. Collection Metropolitan MuseumofArt, New York, New York. TheBlessedLucy
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by Domenico Tiepolo, ca. 1754–1755, redandwhite chalkon toned paper, 13 x 8¾. Collection Albertina, Vienna, Austria. Wendy by Jon deMartin, 2015, redand whitechalkon tonedpaper,17x 14.
50 Drawing / Fall 2015
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advantage of materials, many of them relatively new, that could produce deep darks, including man-made charcoal, black chalk and Conté crayon. The artists on view include Rodolphe Bresdin (1822– 1885), a draftsman and printmaker who specialized in eccentric and fantastic scenes; Maxime Lalanne (1827– 1886), a major �gure in the revival of etching in 19thcentury France; Odilon Redon (1840–1916), a leading Symbolist known for his mysterious, dreamlike images; and Georges Seurat (1859–1891), the Neo-Impressionist who produced sensitive tonal drawings in Conté in addition to the large-scale paintings for which he is best known. The exhibition includes drawings and prints from the Getty’s permanent collection along with loans from private and public collections in Los Angeles. DRAWINGMAGAZINE.COM
Apparition by Odilon Redon, ca. 1880–1890, vine charcoal and powdered vine charcoal with stumping and yellow pastel, 20 11 ⁄ 16 x 14 11 ⁄ 16 .
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MATERIAL WORLD
Getting the most out of drawing media BY SHERRY CAMHY
HISTORY
Charcoal’s Charms
C
harcoal is often recommended as a medium for people learning to draw. T here are certainly reasons for this—it’s an approachable medium that does not require too much technical know-how to get started, and its bold black-and-white tones are immediately appealing. It can be used in linear or tonal, precise or painterly techniques. It ’s soft, rich, dark and responsive to the pressure of the artist’s hand. All this said, charcoal is neither easy to master nor limited to beginners. For hundreds of years, highly accomplished artists have spent careers working in this medium, which can be all the more stunning for its apparent simplicity.
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Charcoal is a porous dark solid consisting of an amorphous form of carbon obtained as a residue when wood, bone or other organic matter is heated in the absence of air. It is one of the oldest drawing media known to man. About 40,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic Period, Homo sapiens lifted charred pieces of wood from �res and used them to make lines on cave walls, and a new form of human communication emerged: drawing. Painting was born soon after, when that charcoal became mixed with cooking liquids, mud and natural colors. During that period of time, human handprints, abstract forms, and images of horses, bison, saber-toothed tigers and ibex began to appear in rock art in locations such as Altamira, in Spain, and Lascaux and ChauvetPont-d’Arc, in France. Some caves even contained rare depictions of men and women or hybrid human-animal creatures. Similar images later began to appear in caves in Africa, Australia and South America. Millennia later, Old Masters including Michelangelo and Leonardo used charcoal for many of their drawings. Even after graphite became widely available in subsequent centuries, artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso and Käthe Kollwitz chose to work in charcoal. Today, ranks of contemporary artists are bringing fresh concepts to the medium in both small drawings and extraordinarily large-scale works made possible by new surfaces.
TYPES OF CHARCOAL
Trees Suite, No. 4 by Donna Levinstone, 2015, charcoal, 12 x 9.
Abundant varieties of charcoal can be found in art stores, many of them quite affordable. Charcoal is usually categorized as either hard, medium or soft and either light, medium or dark. It comes in many sizes and a wide variety of types, including vine, fusain,
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compressed, tinted, dry, water-soluble, black, white, carbon-pencil and powdered. Here are some of the most common varieties, which work beautifully on their own or in combination with one another: Vine charcoal is created by the controlled burning of natural vines or branches from trees such as willow or linden. The resulting sticks can be curvy or straight but are always thin and fragile. They produce sensitive lines and somewhat translucent tones. Vine charcoal’s best and worst quality is that it is extremely erasable—it can disappear with an accidental �ick of the �nger. It is often used by painters to make preliminary drawings on a canvas, but beware that gritty charcoal granules can work their way into subsequent layers of paint. Fusain charcoal is manufactured in traditional fashion and usually sold in long, thin rectangular sticks. Compared to vine charcoal, fusain charcoal is harder, stronger, easier to sharpen and control, and more permanent, although still cleanly erasable. Compressed charcoal is made up of powdered carbon granules mixed with gum, wax or oil binders and contains varying amounts of carbon, graphite, soot, colored chalks and black pigments. Available in many shapes and
Metaphor, Light and Illusion by Sherry Camhy, 2005, charcoal, compressed charcoal and graphite on black paper, 30 x 40.
sizes, compressed charcoal is hard and dark. It can be difficult to blend or erase. Charcoal pencils comprise different formulas of dense, compressed ingredients encased in wood or paper. They are designed to be easily sharpened and retain �ne points for crisp details. Several types of charcoal are available in powdered form. You can also make small quantities of powdered
charcoal yourself by sanding a charcoal stick or pencil into tiny particles. Powdered charcoal is particularly wellsuited for an under-painting technique similar to that used in oil painting. You can use a brush or cloth to spread the charcoal over a surface to an even middle value. Then you can use darker charcoal sticks or pencils to establish the composition and a chamois cloth or various erasers to pull out light
ABOVE
Sticks of vine and fusain charcoal. RIGHT
An assortment of vine and willow charcoal sticks.
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MATERIAL WORLD BELOW
Charcoal powder applied thickly to blue paper. BOTTOM
Charcoal powder, charcoal pencil, compressed charcoal and white charcoal applied to blue paper.
images. Pieces can be cut to size with an X-Acto knife. You can work on it directly, prepare it with any medium or affix several layers of heavy paper to it to create a softer, more responsive drawing surface.
ABOVE
Wing by Sherry Camhy, 2008, vine charcoal, compressed charcoal and white charcoal with white pastel and sanguine on black paper, 18 x 40.
BELOW
FIXATIVE
shapes for shimmering tonal effects. Large areas of light can be protected using artist’s tape, wax or masking products.
SURFACES Charcoal can be used on a whole range of papers, as well as some more surprising surfaces. It can be used dry or painted on almost anything by combining its granules with water, oil, turpentine or wet media. Using brushes and other applicators, charcoal or carbon powder can be put on layers of translucent Denril or Mylar. A recent addition to the arsenal of supports is Dibond, a composite material that facilitates working on a large scale. It consists of two sheets of aluminum that sandwich a polyethylene core, and its strength and lightness make it a �ne choice for creating and transporting mural-size
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Drawing / Winter 2016
It is sometimes necessary to use �xative with charcoal, especially delicate vine charcoal. One possibility is workable �xative, which can be used before starting a drawing on ordinary paper, wood or canvas to make it more receptive to charcoal and increase the medium’s adherence to the surface. It can also be used to seal in and segregate one layer of a drawing from another. The downside to workable �xative is that it can alter the delicate texture of a work. It has a tendency to pull charcoal molecules into clearly discernable points, adversely affecting carefully modulated and blended areas. On the other hand, workable �xative’s ability to supply new layers of fresh working surfaces provides a valuable opportunity to continue developing a drawing by softening edges, adding crisp details, overlaying multiple images
Sarah With Feathers by Thomas Butler, 2015, charcoal, 15 x 11.
and enriching dense darks. I’d advise experimenting to see how much you want to make �xative an active partner in your creative process. Permanent �xative can be applied to the surface of a �nished drawing,
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ADVICE for ARTISTS Charcoal is not a dangerous medium overall, but take basic precautions when using fixative or when drawing in a manner that produces large amounts of charcoal dust. Work in a well-ventilated area and consider covering your mouth and nose with a mask.
protecting it from normal damage but also rendering it unworkable. After carefully considering the pros and cons of �xatives, many artists prefer to avoid its use and choose instead to protect their �nished work by framing it under glass.
Razor-sharpened white-charcoal and carbon pencils.
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MATERIAL WORLD
Road Series—Morning Mist
BLENDING CHARCOAL AND GRAPHITE Charcoal combines well with many media—pastel, in particular—but you don’t often see it mixed with graphite. Charcoal and graphite are opposites in some notable ways. Graphite re�ects light; charcoal absorbs it. Graphite’s
hard, slick, shiny surface resists the adhesion of charcoal, making it difficult to combine the media. But it’s not impossible, and juxtaposing the two can lead to a unique, subtle illumination within an image. For example, the glow seen in my drawing Road Series—Morning Mist is the result of the play of charcoal darks against the lights re�ecting off of graphite marks.
by Sherry Camhy, 2004, charcoal and graphite on black paper, 30 x 70.
Whether you are inclined toward new surfaces and unusual combinations of media or to the classic combination of charcoal and paper, take the charcoal challenge. Try the oldest medium known to man and make it yours.
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FIRST MARKS
Introductory lessons in drawing BY MARGARET DAVIDSON
Drawing Drapery Drapery—in the form of clothes, curtains or fabric arranged on a model stand—can be a difficult thing to draw. But as with many subjects, there are some basic techniques and a couple of wonderful tricks that you can employ to make the drawing of cloth something that can be managed and even enjoyed. In this column, we’ll look at four skills to help you draw drapery. The �rst of these is not so much a drawing skill as a seeing skill. It consists of learning how to “read” cloth and recognize its features. We’ll next look at how to draw these various features. Our third skill will be “mapping” the whole cloth so that you don’t get lost during the drawing process. Finally, we’ll learn how to unite disparate tonalities into one united and believable drawing.
READING THE CLOTH The main diffi culty with cloth is that it can seem to have no beginning and no end—it �ows on and on. To successfully draw cloth you �rst need to break it up visually into discrete areas. To do this, you want to look for a few separate things the cloth may be doing. I call each of these things a “feature.”
RIGHT, FROM TOP
Knotted Cloth
2013, charcoal. Illustration 1: Fold
To draw a fold, I draw a line along the edge where the cloth turns back on itself, and then I usually draw another line more or less parallel to the first where the cloth straightens and heads back in its initial direction. Then I draw in whatever other edges I see.
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LEFT, FROM TOP
Illustration 2: Wrinkle
To draw a wrinkle, I put in one light line on the dark side of the wrinkle and an even lighter line on the lighter side. Sometimes I only put in the former line, as the line on the light side will be taken care of when the drawing is colored in. Illustration 3: Crease
Drawing a crease is actually easier than drawing a wrinkle because the edges of a crease are so sharp. As with a wrinkle, I draw a line on the dark side and sometimes—but not always—another on the light side.
They fall into four main categories: folds, wrinkles, creases and puckers. • Folds happen when cloth changes direction and doubles back on itself. They are the largest of the features and are usually rounded. (See Illustration 1.) • Wrinkles are smaller than folds. They indicate the cloth changing direction but only slightly. They are sometimes rounded and sometimes sharp-edged. (See Illustration 2.) • Creases occur where cloth has been pressed, either by an iron or simply by being piled under weight. They always have a sharp edge. (See Illustration 3.) • Puckers are marks appearing
where stitches are made in cloth, for instance along a hem. Where the stitch goes in and where it comes out causes the cloth to indent a little. (See Illustration 4.)
DRAWING THE FEATURES Here’s the �rst neat trick: Every feature has only three values—dark, medium and light. It always has all three, although not necessarily in that order. If you’re looking at a big fold, you can see the three tones easily because they occupy quite a big area. In a small crease or a pucker they are much smaller, but all three are there, and all three should be drawn. ABOVE
Illustration 5
I began my drawing Child’s Dress by blocking in the subject, starting in the middle.
LEFT
Illustration 4: Pucker
To draw puckers, which are usually found in groups, I just need one pale mark where the shadows of the puckers start. Then I lightly color in edgeless bits of tone where the shadows and medium tones are, while leaving the highlights alone.
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FIRST MARKS The three values are not necessarily simply black, gray and white. If the feature is in a brightly lit area, the three values could be medium gray, light gray and an even lighter gray. In a shadow, they might be black, dark gray and a medium gray. Where these three values reside depends on where the light is coming from and on the feature’s angle relative to the light. In my drawing Child’s Dress, the light is coming from the upper right, as can be seen by the large shadow on the left of the dress. Each of the features that run up and down the dress, therefore, has shadows on the left and highlights on the right, with middle tones in between. But for features that run laterally across the dress, as do a couple of creases, the shadows are below the feature and the highlights are above, with the middle tones below the highlights and above the shadows. The puckers that occur along the piping across the chest of the dress all have tiny shadows to the left, along with tiny highlights to the right, with middle tones in between.
ABOVE
Illustration 6
Part two of the block-in, extending to one side.
RIGHT
Illustration 7: Child’s Dress
2015, graphite. To finish the drawing I put a pale layer of graphite over everything except the highlights. I then added the big shadow on the left and put in the final tiny details, such as the dots in the lace on the bodice.
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MAPPING IN THE CLOTH Now that you know what the features in your drapery are, you can make a light line drawing or “map” of your cloth, placing each feature where it belongs relative to all the others. A second trick is to start your map in the middle of the cloth, rather than at one side or the other, and draw those middle features �rst. After they are blocked in, then you can extend the cloth, feature by feature, �rst to one side and then to the other. That way you have the best chance of keeping the features in their correct positions and in proportion to one another. As an example, see Illustrations 5 and 6, which chart the course of Child’s Dress.
UNITING YOUR DRAWING Once you have lightly mapped in each feature you can add their highlights, middle tones and shadows. At this point you have a drawing that is a collection of colored-in features. Two �nal steps can help unite this collection of elements into a cohesive drawing. First, lay a light tone over everything except the highlights. Second, add the brightest highlights and darkest shadows of the whole drapery. To add these �nal lights and shadows, it helps to take a step back and maybe squint to get the general sense of the shape of your cloth. Once you see that, then you can make sure your drawing has an overall highlight on the side where the light is and an overall shadow on the side opposite. When adjusting these last values, don’t worry if you lighten or darken a few features. The overall form is more important than any individual wrinkle or crease and will make your drawing hold together, looking �nished and beautiful.
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Charcoal Gaze Mary Borgman’s larger-than-life portraits stem from chance encounters that grow into meaningful connections between the artist and her subjects. BY AUSTIN R. WILLIAMS
The drawings of Mary Borgman can overwhelm a viewer in several ways. First is their scale: They hang like grand medieval tapestries, with �gures standing as tall as eight feet. There is also their texture—Borgman creates her portraits using charcoal on Mylar, and the results are richly gestural, with distinct charcoal strokes and eraser marks animating �gure and ground alike. And perhaps most powerful of all, the viewer is caught by the gazes of the models, who stare forcefully out of the picture. They seem to be examining us every bit as much as we’re examining them. The human �gure and the personality of individuals have long fascinated Borgman. “I like to look at people,” she says. “When I’m not drawing them, I’m actively staring at them.” This is true whether she knows a person or not. A few of Borgman’s subjects are longtime friends, but most are strangers she approaches on the street. When on the lookout for possible subjects, she watches for a casually dressed person who is “visually striking, with eyes that show experience and wisdom, distinct
Portrait of Merwin (Merf) Shaw 2009, charcoal on Mylar, 47 x 45. All artwork this article courtesy Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.
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Portrait of Shakira Wilson
2012, charcoal on Mylar, 60 x 44.
shadow shapes on their face and laid-back body language.” When Borgman sees someone who �ts her criteria she engages in a bit of subtle reconnaissance, following the person for a few minutes and watching his or her motions, facial expressions and interactions with others. If she thinks she’s found a suitable model, she approaches the person and introduces herself. She asks if the man or woman will pose for a photo shoot and tells them what she pays—making sure to add that it is clothed modeling. “I trust my intuition when approaching strangers, and it has never failed me,” she says. “But walking up to someone you don’t know is not as easy as it sounds. It used to be that when a stranger turned around and looked me in the eye, I froze, and who knows what I’d say. So now I have rehearsed opening remarks.” Borgman arranges to meet the subject at a café for an initial discussion, where she learns more about the person. “It’s fascinating to hear their stories,” she says. If all goes well, Borgman and her model decide on a shoot date, held at the artist’s house. “My assistant and I serve tea and cake and we all just hang out and discuss travels, hobbies, family, et cetera,” she says. “It’s very laid back. When we all feel relaxed, we go shoot in another room that is all set up.” The artist takes around 100 photos, frequently changing the lighting. In the days after the shoot, Borgman examines each photograph. “Many of the shots look very much alike,” she says. “I evaluate the underlying value pattern, zoom in on the eyes and then choose the best one.” She titles the image with the time and date and drops it into a folder, repeating this process multiple times over several days,
never looking in the folder to compare the images she’s selected. “When I �nally look in the folder, I’m always amazed to see that I have saved the same photo over and over again, even though the ones taken right before and after it are almost, but not quite, identical.” Once she has settled on her reference photo, she spends a few days simply looking at it before she begins drawing. There’s a pronounced pattern to many of Borgman’s compositions. Most are either a three-quarter portrait or a closely cropped bust showing the head, neck and only a little of the shoulders and torso. In both these con�gurations the subject is generally centered, perhaps seen at a slight angle. The sitters stare straight out, making eye contact with the viewer. “I try to honor the people I am drawing by centering them in the format and shooting from slightly below their eye level,” Borgman says. “I choose an expression that exudes intelligence, self-awareness and complexity. I try to convey their humanness. I want the viewer to feel this person might be someone interesting to know.” The artist says that her subjects’ intense gazes “may also be related to the many years I communicated in sign language, which is based on sustained eye contact.” During the �rst few days of drawing, Borgman’s marks are fast and sweeping—a friend of hers has described this part of the process as a “tornado.” The artist switches back and forth between charcoal and eraser as she draws. “I work from general to speci�c, except for the eyes,” she says. “I render the eyes just enough to see the expression, because what the eyes are communicating in�uences how I will proceed.
“I try to honor the people I am drawing by centering them in the format and shooting from slightly below their eye level ... I try to convey their humanness.”
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Portrait of Kaveh Razani
2009, charcoal on Mylar, 55 x 45.
“I work with the image turned sideways,” she continues, “because it’s just values, movements, shapes and marks to me until much later in the process, when the portrait emerges. Then I turn it right-side up. When I think the portrait �nally looks like the person, things bother me. I may need to make slow, painstaking changes—marks as small as a sixteenth of an inch. Or I may need to tear into it and rework almost all of it. I never hesitate to ruin a drawing, even if I have been working on it for months, because if something bothers me, I can’t let it go.” The artist loves the directness of drawing. “Drawing in charcoal is immediate,” she says. “There is no lag time; I don’t have to wait for anything to dry. I can see and act almost simultaneously.” Borgman works with synthetic charcoal, which she can manipulate to achieve varying levels of darkness and opacity. “I prefer synthetic charcoal because its slightly sepia tone complements warm skin tones,” she says. “It’s also messy, and I like that.” Borgman draws on Mylar, which she �rst saw used with charcoal in the 1990s at an exhibition of work by Jim Dine. “I like the translucency of Mylar,”
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Portrait of Tomiwa With Arms Crossed 2008, charcoal on Mylar, 80½ x 41½.
ADVICE for ARTISTS Cleaning Erasers: To clean her erasers, Borgman uses small-area sanding sponges she buys at the hardware store. “I leave the paper on and cover the rougher edge with masking tape,” she says. “I hold this covered side in my hand, exposing the fine-grit side. I don’t even have to look down to clean the eraser, so it doesn’t break my stride.”
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OPPOSITE PAGE
Portrait of Brent Haddock 2015, charcoal on Mylar, 61 x 42.
she says. She �nds the combination of synthetic charcoal and Mylar to be particularly luminous, although she notes that this is often lost in reproductions. She also says that Mylar, like any surface, has its limitations. “If I want a really rich black, I have to put it down with force on the untouched surface, because once I have erased and reworked an area, that surface will not accept the same deep black again.” Asked why she prefers working so large, Borgman says, “I think the large scale gives the portraits a certain presence, and standing up and drawing large feels more natural to me than sitting down and drawing small.” Having the image placed upright also allows her to constantly check her work by looking in a mirror hung on the opposite wall. A rather grand conclusion to the process is achieved when Borgman invites the model to return to see the �nished work. “They are sometimes stunned to silence at �rst, I guess because it’s so big,” she says. “Then they smile and often laugh. We take photos of the model standing in front of the portrait and send them the pictures. I’ve had shows in Chicago where models and their families travelled to attend the opening, and it was really fun to meet everyone.” It’s a �tting end for a process that evolves from a �eeting encounter into a sustained relationship between artist and model, all leading to portraits of uncommon dignity and power.
ABOUTTHEARTIST After earning a B.F.A. in graphic communications from Washington University in St. Louis, Mary Borgman went on to earn a degree in sign language interpreting and work as a sign language interpreter for many years. She later turned to drawing and earned an M.A. and M.F.A. from Fontbonne University, in Clayton, Missouri. She has shown her artwork in numerous venues, including the National Portrait Gallery, in Washington, DC, in a 2012 exhibition. She is an instructor at Washington University in St. Louis and is represented by Ann Nathan Gallery, in Chicago. For more information, visit annnathangallery.com.
A V L I S L E U N A M E S O J : O T O H P
Borgman at work on Portrait of Kaveh Razani.
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Practical Perspective Arms Clasped by Dan Gheno, 2015, colored pencil, 18 x 24. Collection the artist.
Perspective isn’t only a matter of strict formulas and painstaking measurements. By mastering some general principles, you can create stronger, more volumetric drawings. BY DAN GHENO
I
f the study of perspective gives you a headache, you’re not alone. However, if you want to draw the �gure—or anything else—with a palpable sense of three-dimensional form, it’s vital to understand at least the basic principles of perspective. Even so, many artists shy away from the subject—some thinking it’s too technical to understand and assimilate into their working method, others alienated early on by teachers who insist on fealty to a fastidious accuracy. The inconvenient truth is that it’s impossible to master perspective completely, in all its vast complexities, if your heart is not in it. But a very convenient truth is that complete mastery of perspective is not necessary to render successful �gure drawings. You need only grasp the elementary
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logic of linear perspective as it was codi�ed by the artists of the Renaissance, along with a few geometric formulas developed since then. Indeed, many artists �nd it freeing to ignore the more complicated, dryly mathematical aspects of perspective, working instead to integrate its most useful precepts into their intuitive, natural drawing processes.
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Z X
YL
YR
Y
Boxing In
ABOVE
llustration 1: Cubic Forms
by Dan Gheno, 2015, grease pencil, 24 x 18. Collection the artist. Nothing on the human form is ever absolutely symmetrical or parallel, but trying to locate visually opposite landmarks as you might find in a box will help you create the illusion of depth. For instance, notice how the shoulders line up along the sloping perspective width line (X). You can also see how some of the major accents of the stomach muscles, the edge of the rib cage and the shadow edge of the pectoralis seem to coordinate along the frontward edge of the imagined box (Y). RIGHT
Illustration 2: Aviva Over Shoulder
by Dan Gheno, 2005, colored pencil and white chalk on toned paper, 8 x 6. Collection the artist.
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The block or cube shape is the easiest form to analyze and draw in perspective. Helpfully, you can imagine almost any form within a block structure, whether it’s architecture, furniture, cars or something organic such as a person. So if you can learn to draw a cube in perspective, you can use the same concepts to draw the �gure. The cube or box is a powerfully volumetric form. It has three major sets of lines describing its width, height and depth—respectively called X, Y and Z —that you can use to directly describe the three dimensions of form and space we live in on a �at piece of paper. With this boxlike equivalence in the back of your mind, you can use all the standard linearperspective tools that you might utilize to draw a simple house or table to more accurately position the body’s structural landmarks in their correct relationships. Let’s start with the torso. It’s not an obviously blocky or boxlike form, but if you look closely you can discern many boney and muscular landmarks that help you visualize the torso’s planes (front, side, back, top and bottom) as a
sort of box. (See Illustration 1.) Some of these landmarks will have a topto-bottom relationship (Y, shown in red), whereas others will have a lateral relationship (X) or depth relationship (Z). Likewise, you can “box in” the head, playing up the vertical side plane and the bilateral relationship across the features of the front plane just as you would when drawing the lines of a box. (See Illustration 2.)
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Swooping Figure by Dan Gheno, 2005, oil sanguine pencil, 18 x 24. Collection the artist.
Cornering Effect In visualizing a cube overlaying a torso, notice how the width, height and depth lines all converge toward a common vanishing point along your eye level when the planes they describe move away from you and diminish in size, as in Illustration 1. All of these lines are vital to the form effect, but the most important is the front-most vertical line (Y). When drawing a simple box, many artists �nd it useful to start with this line representing the nearest corner of the cube, followed by the two back vertical lines (YL and YR). Emphasizing the front corner creates a powerful, form-making cornering effect , even before the front and back planes are connected by the diagonal lines of the top and bottom edges. It’s just as crucial to �nd this cornering effect when drawing the human �gure—in fact it’s probably the most effective tool at your disposal for giving your work three-dimensionality. Too often, novice artists �xate on the �gure’s outlines and wonder why their work looks �at. When drawing a box, you wouldn’t spend much time on its outer edges before indicating its inner corners—imagine how difficult it would be to show the three-dimensional qualities of a box by only drawing its outer silhouette. You’ll have the same difficulty if you attempt to draw the �gure using only its outer shape. Instead you should work back and forth between the body’s outer and inner edges, giving them equal attention as you draw.
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Life Study of a Seated Female Nude, Seen From Behind by William Holman Hunt, 1858, pen-and-India-ink on buff 1 8 x 14. Collection Birmingham paper with touches of white, 20 ⁄ Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.
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It’s usually not too hard to locate this cornering effect on a boxy form such as the torso. It’s most frequently found along a shadow edge, as in Swooping Figure. As you can see, I often like to dramatize this cornering effect by emphasizing the core shadow, the dark part of the shadow near its inner cornering edge that receives no direct light and less re�ected light than the rest of the shadow. I normally prefer to work with my light source to the side of the model, putting my subject into either three-quarters light or shadow to guarantee a distinct, cornering shadow shape along major plane breaks. But when your subject is frontally lit, leaving you with few dramatic shadow shapes, you can usually indicate the cornering effect with a string of highlights running along a plane break, as William Holman Hunt does in Life Study of a Seated Female Nude, Seen From Behind. You can �nd cubic form or some sort of cornering effect throughout the body, even in forms you presume to be soft and circular—particularly when viewing the �gure in a strong side light. The limbs are cylindrically based, but where the limb turns completely away from the main light source it’s usually possible to �nd a strong shadowshape edge that seems to simulate the cornering effect of a more cubic form. And whether or not you see a strong shadow shape on the limb, you will frequently �nd highlights running along its most forward-turning corner. These highlights may be obvious, as in my Receding Leg , or hardly
Seated Female Nude by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 18 th century, red chalk on cream paper, 17½ x 14 5 ⁄ 8 . Collection Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
noticeable—it all depends on the angle of the light. As always, you should trust your eye before all else. Additionally, you will frequently �nd stray value edges or boney landmarks that nearly line up vertically, horizontally or diagonally across from one another in a boxlike formation, as in the knees in Seated Female Nude, by Greuze. Here the artist expressively emphasizes a cubic quality to the knees that simultaneously adds an end-plane feeling to the cylindrical upper legs. However, there’s no necessity to overemphasize these landmarks—just keeping them in the back of your mind as you draw is often enough to help impart a third dimension to the form.
LEFT
Receding Leg by Dan Gheno, 2015, colored pencil and white charcoal on toned paper, 24 x 18. Collection the artist.
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Persp Per spe ecti tiv ve Subt Su btle leti ties es Don’t be misled by the seeming simplicity of all this. Often perspective issues are relatively obvious and easy to tackle, such as when you’re standing close to and above the model, as in On One Arm. Here, the head is obviously larger than the rest of the body, which gradually tapers in size toward the ground plane. But when the perspective issues are a little more subtle, you must approach your drawing with extra vigilance. Try to be conscientious and consistent in your use of construction lines to orient the planes and forms of the �gure, particularly the perspectival relationship between the many paired body parts such as the feet, knees, hands, shoulders and hips. Consider, for instance, drawing a standing �gure, your eyes level with the model’s midsection,, as in Illust midsection Illustration ration 3. Observe Obs erve how the back foot and knees are drawn higher than the near ones, as if converging toward a vanishing point (VP) along the horizon line (H). As the body rises upward, approaching your eye level, these bilateral relationships become less oblique and start to level out. Above your eye level, they start to angle downward. Note that when drawing the �gure from a low vantage such
ABOVE
On One Arm
by Dan Gheno, 2015, colored pencil, 8 x 10. Collection the artist. You can find cubic form, or some sort of cornering effect throughout the body, even in areas you presume to be soft and circular. For example, the crease lines that traverse the stomach area are not smooth circles. Each part of these curves has an angularity, often squared off or flattened. BELOW
Illustration 3
Parallel construction lines converge toward a common vanishing point when the planes and/or the bilaterally paired body parts they describe (feet, knees, hips, etc.) move away from you and diminish in size.
VP
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H
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ELLIPTICAL IRISES All perspectival elements are equally important, and a subtle one that many people overlook is the relationship between the irises, the colored circles of the eyes. A basic perspective rule is that a sphere looks perfectly round when seen from any angle, but a circle such as the iris is only a perfect circle when seem from straight-on. Viewed from any other position, or when the model’s eye turns away, the iris turns into an ellipse. The eyes usually move in unison, so double-check that the axes for the ellipses of both irises Hasen . If they don’t match, as they do in Holbein’s Portrait of Jacob Meyer zum Hasen. align, your portrait may end up with a confused or cross-eyed look.
Portrait of Jacob Meyer zum Hasen by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1516, silverpoint, red chalk and traces of black crayon on white 1 16 x 7 ½. Collection Kunstmuseum Basel; Basel, Switzerland. 16 primed paper, 11 ⁄
as this, the forms of the shoulder will often overlap and obscure the neck or the head. This need for vigilance applies to the linked forms of the face as well. If you show the under-plane of the chin, for instance, you probably should also show the under-plane of the eye socket. Look for the position of the ears relative to the rest of the face: Are they below the eye sockets, as usually happens when viewing the head from a low vantage? Or are they above the eyes, as often occurs when the head is seen from above? Forgetting just one aspect of the perspectival relationships within your drawing, even something as subtle as the relationship between the irises, can invalidate all your other hard-fought observations. (See “Elliptical Irises” sidebar.)
Centerlines Many of us subconsciously tend to make shapes bigger as we zero in on the details, and we often don’ don’tt notice that we’ve made the far forms too large until days later. Try to check this habit by drawing a vertical centerline on your forms early in the process, especially when sketching torsos or faces. By dividing these forms into
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The Artist Drawing a Model in Front of a Mirror by Egon Schiele, 1910, graphite, 21¾ x 13 7 ⁄ 8 . Collection Albertina, Vienna, Austria.
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Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (detail) by Michelangelo, 1508–1512, red 16 . chalk, 11 3 ⁄ 8 x 8 7 ⁄ 16 Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York. Notice how each form and the line describing it overlaps another in succession down the arm, in a kind of relentless, telescoping deepspace effect.
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The Po Powe wer r of Ov Over erla lap p At th thee mo most st ba basi sicc le leve vel, l, sh show owin ing g ob obje jects cts of si simi mila larr sizee gra siz gradua dually lly dim dimini inishi shing ng in siz sizee and ove overla rlapp pping ing onee an on anot othe herr is a gr grea eatt wa wayy to in indi dica cate te an il illu lusi sion on of spac sp ace, e, as Eg Egon on Sch chie iele le do does es in The Art Artis istt Dr Draw awin ing g (page ge 45) 45).. Si Simil milarl arlyy, a Mode dell in Fro ron nt of a Mir irro ror r (pa when wh en dr draw awin ing g in indi divi vidu dual al bo body dy pa part rtss fr from om a
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Drawing / Drawing / Winter 2016
foreshortened view, view, notice how each sub-form seems to telescope into and overlap another, as in Michelangelo’s Studies Michelangelo’s Studies for the Libyan Sybil, one of the greatest examples of illusionistic overlap in art history.. Here the artist produces an illusionistic history sense of space in the left arm by drawing a series of overcutting lines and value shapes that begin in the neck and, slipping one into the other other,, continue into the far distance of the hand. On the other side of the �gure, Michelangelo furthers the effect by putting the upper right arm into complete shadow. shadow. He plays its silhouetted shape against the lighter big shape of the lower arm, accentuating a sense of volumetric overlap between the two forms.
Line Weight Weight Artists have long used line weight to help create an illusion of volume and a sense of gravity. After sketching in the overall �gure and big plane breaks of the torso, I usually like to look for places where the body’s individual forms overlap or interlock with one another, as in Pondering Lean. Lean. I purposely emphasize a hard line where the elbow overlaps the leg, trying to impart weight and gravity to the
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FAR LEFT
Pondering Lean by Dan Gheno, 2015, colored pencil, 24 x 18. Collection the artist. Gravity can often serve as a volumetric tool. Emphasizing the line weight of a form, such as the arm where it presses into the leg, can convey a sense of weight and volume to the top form. LEFT
Fading Figure by Dan Gheno, 2012, oil sanguine pencil, 24 x 18. Collection the artist. BELOW
Poetic Ideas in the Summer Mountains by Kameda Bōsai, 1816, woodblock print, 10 15 ⁄ 16 x 73 ⁄ 8 .
form. Farther up the leg near the knee, I try to show the positive, volumetric forces of the leg pressing up against the lower right arm with an overlapping line. I attempt the same all over the drawing, alternating between depicting the forces of gravity and projection of form by the use of stronger and fainter lines, such as where the head meets the hand and where the top leg sits upon the bottom leg.
Atmosphere You can use line weight throughout your drawing to emphasize the spatial quality of overlapping forms, rendering them �rmer in the foreground and fainter in the distance. This doesn’t mean there has to be a constant diminution of line strength as your forms recede in space but just that each overlapping volume is locally stated a little more strongly than the one that slides behind it. Think of it as a type of atmospheric perspective applied to �gure drawing. In this, I often take inspiration from traditional Chinese and Japanese landscapes such as Kameda Bōsai’s Poetic Ideas in the Summer Mountains. The artist works within a long-held Eastern convention of placing atmospheric voids between foreground, middle-ground and background layers. Notice how he purposely lets each background mountain ridge fade into nothingness as it slips behind a foreground mountain. Sometimes I like to take this concept so far that entire forms fade into the tonality of the paper, as in Fading Figure.
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Cross-Contours Curving lines that traverse a form—as in my drawing Contorted Man—are called cross-contours, and they can greatly add to the effect of rounded form. You can �nd useful implied cross-contours all through the body’s anatomy. In general, linear cross-contours are most effective when treated loosely and faintly. Let your gut instincts guide you. But even when they are used boldly and expressively, and even when your lines appear seemingly random, as in Contorted Man, they will still serve your perspective purposes as long as the majority of the lines follow the logic of the underlying forms. (Just be sure not to carry lines rigidly all the way across the form, lest your �gure end up looking like the Michelin Man.) You can use the same approach when drawing a clothed �gure, choosing to emphasize the folds of drapery that describe the underlying forms while underplaying those folds that run counter to perspective norms. Cross-contours can be found on the �gure even when working without line and using only value masses to describe curving details. See, for example, the ribs in Greuze’s Study of a Male Nude or the cast shadow in Pierre-Paul Prud’hon’s Acade’mie d’homme, which swells with the underlying chest. ABOVE
Acade’mie d’homme
by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, ca. 1758–1823, charcoal with stumping heightened with white on blue 1 8. paper, 23¼ x 16 ⁄ Collection Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, France. LEFT
Contorted Man
by Dan Gheno, 2015, ballpoint pen, 8 x 10, Collection the artist. Cross-contours can greatly add or detract from the effect of rounded form. When drawing them, think about how an elliptical line around a cylinder will curve downward when the form is tilted away or below your line of sight. Conversely, it will curve upward when the form is above or angled away from you. When viewed head-on at eye level, an elliptical line wrapping around the cylinder will often look straight.
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LEFT
Study of a Male Nude by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, ca. 1767, red chalk on cream paper, 1 1 2 x 13 ⁄ 2 . Collection Musée 18 ⁄ Bonnat, Bayonne, France. BELOW
On One Leg by Dan Gheno, 2015, charcoal, 18 x 10. Collection the artist.
value shapes as the form turns away from the source of illumination. The further the form recedes from you and the light source, the smaller these diminishing halftone facets become. Like the proverbial train tracks that blend together in the distance, these value shapes converge and merge together in a dramatic darkening along the silhouette of the �gure. (See On One Leg.)
Values As you can see by looking at Greuze’s Study of a Male Nude, the intensity of the light and the gradual drop-off in value greatly enhance the drawing’s sense of space. Note how the values on the body and wall diminish as they recede downward, creating a feeling of distance between the body’s lower forms and the higher �xed source of light. Likewise in Prud’hon’s drawing, notice how the cast shadow shooting backward along the �oor helps to indicate space behind the �gure, demonstrating that the values in the environment are almost as important to the illusion of form as the �gure itself. As you know, individual shadow shapes tend to follow the big plane
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breaks of the underlying cubic or cylindrical forms, especially when the main light source is located off to one side. But don’t overly generalize your shadows, treating their edges like those of simple geometric shapes. Pay close attention to the way the shadow edges interlock with one another, as they do in the foreshortened arm in Michelangelo’s Sibyl drawing. Even when a body part is viewed dead on— such as the Sybil’s back—these backand-forth, interlocking shadow shapes give the smaller forms a feeling of overlapping fullness. It’s hard to create dimensional form when drawing the �gure in full, frontal lighting. However, it’s useful to notice that there is always some kind of gradual darkening of half-tone
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Perspectival Study of the Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci, ca. 1481, pen-and-ink with traces of silverpoint, 6 3 ⁄ 8 x 11 3 ⁄ 8 . Collection Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
The Perspective of Backgrounds So far we have mostly considered the positive shapes of the human form, but you will �nd that the perspective of the surrounding environment can also contribute to the dimensionality of the �gure. For instance, when working from life, many students automatically draw the front plane of the model stand parallel to the picture plane. This may be true to reality on occasions when you are centrally located in front of the model stand, but it’s not a given. When you are positioned enough to one side to see one of the stand’s side planes, then the front plane must angle at least a little bit away from you.
Illustration 4
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Another recurring problem comes in the converging lines of the model-stand planes and furniture props. Sometimes artists “�ip” the orientation of these lines so that they appear to diverge as they recede, instead of converge. You can solve this problem by using pencils to check your angles. Hold up two pencils in front of you, as if pressed �at against a windowpane, keeping one tightly vertical while swiveling the other to coincide with the angle of the model stand or furniture edge you’re considering. (See Illustration 4.) Then, carefully move this pencil con�guration in front of your paper to double check your drawn angles. There will always be something in the background besides the model stand that you can use to create a sense of space around your �gure, such as chairs, walls or even shadow shapes. If you decide to include them, it’s important to keep them all in scale, measuring their height with a pencil held horizontally at arm’s length against some portion of the �gure. Also, remember that you will see more of an object’s top surface when it’s below your eye level and less of it as it approaches your eye level. A surface located right at your eye level will often look like a straight line. Notice, too, that as objects such as stools and chairs move back in space, you see less and less of their top surfaces. Always be mindful of how the edge of each background form—such as a window frame, furniture or shadow shape—relates to the edges of the �gure. You already know that when you subdue the line of a background form as it crosses behind the �gure in your drawing, it pushes the �gure forward. You’ll want to jog the overlapping edges a bit so that the shapes don’t precisely line
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up. Tangential edges, with one line running directly into another, tend to reinforce the two-dimensional picture plane of the paper and negate the threedimensional effect.
Abstract Perspective Sometimes the model stand is surrounded by the emptiness of a �at backdrop or a vacant dark room, or you simply choose to ignore the items surrounding the �gure for compositional reasons. It’s still helpful to think “perspectivally,” even when you’re only trying to hint at some hazy value shapes around the �gure.
I frequently hatch swatches of multiple lines over or behind the drawn edge of a body part so as to blur or create a sense of receding space around the �gure’s forms. Other times I like to employ simultaneous contrast (the pairing of visual opposites that reinforce each other’s power) by placing abstracted, dark, negative shapes against the lights of the �gure and light shapes against the darks of the �gure, as in William Preston, Actor. The opposing value shapes tend to put the emphasis on the positive form of the �gure, pushing it forward, away from the background. Thinking perspectivally is also useful even when working in a totally nonobjective manner. Because of our everyday experiences, diagonal lines are associated with receding planes and by their nature
William Preston, Actor by Dan Gheno, mid-1990s, charcoal and white chalk on brown paper, 24 x 18. Collection the artist. Irises normally move in tandem as a person looks around the room—but not if one of them is prosthetic, as it was in the case of the late actor William Preston. He knew how to control his head movements when performing so that the lack of iris coordination was not noticeable.
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Male Figure Reaching Across Floor by Dan Gheno, 2015, charcoal, 11 x 17. Collection the artist.
tend to convey a sense of perspective. Therefore, even one diagonal line or a couple of loosely hatched strokes thrown obliquely on an otherwise empty piece of paper will have a spatial impact on the viewer. Any abstract value mass that diminishes in size with diagonally converging sides will also create a sense of space. Even a series of �at, non-convergent shapes diminishing in size, contrast or value will infer a spatial depth.
Practice As boring as this may seem, it really will help you to practice drawing a lot of squares and ellipses. Start carefully, by using perspective guidelines and vanishing points to familiarize yourself with the geometric formulas. Before too long you should switch to drawing them in a freehand manner so that their forms become more integrated into your natural drawing process. As mentioned earlier, when drawing a freehand box it helps to draw the forward edge �rst. When drawing freehand ellipses, it will greatly aid your accuracy to put tic
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marks at their outer edges before attempting them, being careful to not make their outer corners too pointed. Instead, make those corners rounded and a little fuller as they swing forward to account for the effects of foreshortening. After a little of this clinical practice, I think you’ll �nd that when you approach your more creative endeavors from life, such as drawing a model holding a cup or someone sitting in a chair, these props won’t look so mechanical and stiff. But you need to cut yourself some slack when doing so. Looking at the work of Sargent, you can see that an elliptical vase or squared table doesn’t need to be perfectly even to look correct—just con�dently and �rmly rendered. While you are in the throes of your perspective campaign, don’t forget why you’re subjecting yourself to drawing all of these boxes, cylinders and ellipses. Keep working from life in order to encounter the many problems that your perspective study will help you solve. As with most subjects, you need to know the problems before you can fully understand the solutions.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY There are some very good, accessible books on this subject, such as Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators, by Ernest Watson. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to learn perspective only by reading books; it’s much easier to absorb the information through personal interaction with a teacher, following his or her step-by-step demonstrations and asking questions as you go along. If you don’t have a good instructor to study with in person, check out the many YouTube videos on the topic by such diverse artists as Alphonso Dunn, Stan Prokopenko and Marshall Vandruff. I’d recommend that after you spend time with their videos and do some of your own sketching, you turn back to the books to reinforce what you’ve learned. Don’t worry if you forget the more complicated information over time; you can always refer back to a text when you’re faced with a specific drawing problem.
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Michael Seated
by Dan Gheno, 2014, colored pencil and white chalk on toned paper, 24 x 18. Collection the artist.
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THE KY’ THE LIMIT 54 Drawing / Winter 2016
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Untitled
2012, charcoal on polyester film, 23½ x 32. All ar twork this article private collection unless otherwise indicated. All images © Hilary Brace.
The fantastic views seen in the charcoal drawings of Hilary Brace are entirely imaginary but feel real nevertheless. BY MICHAEL WOODSON
THE DRAWINGS of California artist Hilary Brace imagine a vast world dominated by powerful elemental forces: towering clouds, monstrous waves and deep chasms. Her otherworldly landscapes are invented yet somehow recognizable, seemingly governed by many of the same physical laws as the real world. Through their dramatic subjects and stunning black-and-white rendering, the drawings show how powerful the medium of charcoal can be. Brace studied art as an undergraduate and went on to earn an M.F.A. at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I experimented with various media, mainly painting, but began to focus on drawing by the time I entered graduate school,” she says. She worked for a while in pastel before turning to charcoal, which has now been her primary medium for about 20 years. “I love the spontaneity that a dry medium allows,” she says. “I feel more connected to the work when I can respond quickly to the image at any point in the process. Working in black and white is even more direct than drawing in color. I also like the drama and mystery of black-and-white images.” Brace’s landscapes, all untitled, span thousands of feet of air, sea and earth. They depict nature as both beautiful and somewhat dangerous, with tunnel clouds and dramatic cliffs. “I developed this imagery in a gradual, very �uid way,” says the artist. She began her career creating drawings based on architectural interiors, but as she progressed the walls de�ning interior spaces started to drift off into a hazy, luminous atmosphere, and the �oors began re�ecting and rippling like water. “I let the interior spaces transform into misty, cloudy landscapes,” she says. “Over time, more clouds rolled in and the landforms began to disappear, leaving vistas of mainly clouds and light. At that point my imagination was set free by the possibilities.” The drawings are clearly fantastical, but they also seem just plausible enough to make one wonder how much legitimate science �gures into Brace’s process. “I don’t apply what I know
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The progression of one of Brace’s reference images, from initial assembly (upper left) to finished reference image (lower right.) Brace creates her references by using Photoshop to combine and arrange fragments from various images, including photos of her dioramas, found images and her other drawings.
about natural science in a direct way,” she says. “As I bring an image into focus, each drawing becomes a meteorological landscape with its own atmosphere and physical laws. Our natural world provides an important foundation, but the elements of clouds, mountains and water in my work often seem to be in the in the process of becoming one another, as though they are being transformed by forces unique to the place I’m depicting.” In the creation of these drawings imagination works hand in hand with speci�city and precision. “The work has become increasingly detailed over time because I have wanted to bring these places psychically closer and to have a more vivid experience of the space and atmosphere,” Brace says. “Making space tangible is a magical thing that drawing and painting can achieve. Whether working abstractly or representationally, it requires the volume and position of forms within the space to be clearly described. So as my desire to depict space and atmosphere increased, the images naturally became more re�ned.”
IN MANY OF BRACE’S DRAWINGS the grand scale of the landscape is checked by the size of the artwork, which can be as small as a postcard. Brace has found that drawing on a small scale allows her to work more quickly and explore more ideas. To begin a small drawing, Brace applies removable tape to the edges of her drawing area to ensure a clean edge on the �nished piece. She then covers the entire surface with a middle tone of powdered charcoal. “I use compressed charcoal and create a powder by rubbing the stick against �ne sandpaper,” she says. Brace prefers compressed charcoal—which includes a
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binder—to vine charcoal, which she �nds too dusty for her process. She mostly avoids charcoal pencils, which she says produce harder marks that don’t integrate well with compressed-charcoal powder. Once her surface is covered she begins working in an intuitive manner, removing charcoal with cotton, brushes, Q-Tips and kneaded erasers until an image suggests itself. “I slowly bring the scene into focus, gradually re�ning it with more detail by alternatingly adding and subtracting charcoal,” she says. “I can add lighter values with brushes, but because I have much more control removing the medium than adding it, most of the drawing process is subtractive.” Since the mid-1990s Brace has worked on matte polyester �lm. “The surface is smooth, like very �ne sandpaper, and it holds a surprising amount of the medium,” she says. “I can work very quickly and intuitively because the charcoal spreads so easily on the surface. It also erases very easily, which allows me to create atmospheric effects and to include a lot of detail.” Over the years Brace has increased scale of the drawings, and the imagery has become more complex. “I could make the places I depicted more speci�c and tangible, while I still retained my sense of wonder about them. T he real and the unreal began to coexist.” But greater complexity also made working entirely from imagination more complicated. She needed references. Instead of looking to the sky, Brace created the worlds in a tangible way by building them in her studio. “I �rst used paper towels and cotton to create cloud forms and photographed them against a white backdrop to observe the shapes and shadows,” she says. “But the photographs themselves intrigued me, so this led me to make larger sculptural tableaux, eventually �lling a good part of my studio with an 8'-x-8' diorama built around numerous lights.” In 2006 Brace exhibited a series of digital photographic prints of various dioramas. A finished drawing in Brace’s studio. The artist uses Q-Tips and other tools to remove powdered charcoal from the smooth surface of matte polyester.
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Photographing the dioramas and correcting those digital �les not only helped give shape to Brace’s evolving inner vision but also provided her with useful knowledge of the Photoshop software. “I discovered that the computer is a liberating way to explore new ideas,” she says. “As with the small charcoals, the process allows me to be very spontaneous. It’s somewhat like putting together an unpredictable puzzle. Tiny bits and pieces of my dioramas, other photographs, drawings and found images are tossed together and then stretched, �ipped, rotated, darkened or otherwise altered.” As an image begins to form organically, Brace uses various drawing tools in Photoshop to connect pieces or change elements. At last, an image she’s satis�ed with emerges, and she moves to drawing in charcoal, using the digital image as a reference. Brace has found that while using the computer to create a reference image is helpful, it doesn’t necessarily make the process any easier. Instead it widens the possibilities. “I can make many more changes in a given period of time using Photoshop than I can by repeatedly erasing and redrawing with charcoal,” she says. “Making the �nal drawing is a different challenge and offers further opportunities for exploration and surprises. When I work on very small drawings, I still invent the image directly with charcoal, but I’m enjoying the complexity of larger, more detailed images.”
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LEFT
Untitled 2014, charcoal on polyester film, 22½ x 31½.
BELOW
Untitled 2004, charcoal on polyester film, 5¼ x 4¼.
ABOUTTHEARTIST Hilary Brace earned a B.F.A. from Western Washington University, in Bellingham, and an M.F.A. in painting from the Universit y of California, Santa Barbara. Since 1996 her prac tice has focused on charcoal drawings of fantastic landscapes done on polyester film. S he is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Gug genheim Fellowship and two Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants. She is represented by Craig Krull Gallery, in Santa Monica, California. For more information, visit hilarybrace.com.
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PART OF THE INSPIRATION for Brace’s drawings comes from the landscape of her childhood. “The dramatic landscape and displays of light and atmosphere I experienced growing up in the Paci�c Northwest had a deep impact on my work,” she says. As for other artwork that inspires her, Brace says, “I’m most excited by looking at work that is subtle and rewards careful observation, whatever the medium or style. For instance, I’ve always loved medieval miniatures and the paintings of Vermeer and Morandi, but during a recent trip to Italy I was crazy about the Giotto paintings in the Uffi zi, and Botticelli was like a breath of fresh air.” As contemporary favorites, she mentions the Light and Space artists Robert Irwin and James Turrell, Bill Viola’s work with slow-motion video, the drawings of Michelle Stuart and the abstract paintings of Suzanne Caporael. Throughout her artistic career, Brace has kept in mind what she says is the best piece of advice ever given to her, by Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000). “I was lucky to have him as a professor at the University of Washington,” she says. “He was a good teacher and wonderfully kind man. During one critique he said to me, ‘It’s a �ne painting, Brace, but there’s no magic here.’ I thought he had raised the bar awfully high on me, but he gave me a new way t o think about making art and something to strive for. Over the years I’ve learned what’s most important to me as an artist, and it’s all about the magic.”
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OPPOSITE PAGE
Untitled
2014, charcoal on polyester film, 1 8. 11¾ x 9 ⁄ BELOW
Untitled
2014, charcoal on polyester film, 6 x 7.
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April Gornik’s charcoal drawings render the world as a magical and transcendent realm. Forests are suffused with a radiant, almost otherworldly light. Flooded lakes re�ect starkly outlined trees in stretches of curiously limpid water. A storm cloud drops a shadowy column of rain on two rocky islands far out to sea while a surging ocean washes a shoreline in the foreground. These drawings display
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their subjects in a highly recognizable, almost photographic manner, yet everything has been subtly changed, transformed in a way that suggests a kind of spiritual intimation about nature. In meticulously presenting the surface of the world, Gornik suggests unknown forces that lie beneath. This sense is reinforced by the large scale of the drawings; measuring up to 50 inches wide, they envelop the viewer,
providing an almost cinematic experience that is rich, ravishing and �lled with wonder. “My work started in an unexpected way,” Gornik says. “I began, by the end of college, as a kind of very bad conceptual artist—one with romantic tendencies, I would now say. I became obsessed with the notion of somehow depicting light, and an image popped into my head that seemed would do
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had many dreams at that time that I’d try to paint,” she says, “and for a few years I thought that if I didn’t make my work up it would be cheating and unpoetic. Then I went to the desert in the American Southwest and realized no one could make that crazy landscape up. I began using photos, at �rst hesitantly but then with great enthusiasm as I realized I had a tendency to alter them and make them my own, anyway. No photograph I’ve used has been strictly ‘copied.’ I worried about this a lot at �rst, but I can’t follow a recipe start to �nish either, so it must be a character �aw—or a plus.” lthough she is primarily a painter, drawing and sketching play an important part in Gornik’s work. “I’ve always made sketches—usually quite small even if they were to become large paintings, but strictly sketches,” she says. “I’ve always drawn, and when I’m not making charcoals I also do pretty elaborate drawings on my canvases before I paint over them. I need to be a little elaborate because of the scale of both; they’re a lot to wrangle with.” For Gornik the choice of charcoal as a medium for �nished drawings came naturally. “When I was �rst in college at the Cleveland Institute of Art I took printmaking and loved the effect of the way a black line or aquatint would embed itself into an etching,” she recalls. “I sought some kind of drawing material that would give me some feeling of that, and I �rst used charcoal and black pastel— this was around 1984—later �nding charcoals themselves that were black enough for my needs.” Gornik points
“I don’t want to leave evidence of the struggle of art. I’m interested in the hit of the picture. I want people to be amazed.”
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just that. I had been making sculptural forms, occasionally throwing some paint on them, but this image necessitated a two-dimensional surface, and I suddenly found myself painting a picture of something. When I stepped back I realized I’d made a landscape, to my surprise.” Gornik continued to paint and draw landscapes in a highly individual way, generally inventing the entire scene. “I
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Breaking Waves 2014, charcoal, 38 x 50.
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Winter Light 2014, charcoal, 36½ x 50. All artwork this article courtesy Danese/Corey, New York, New York.
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out that charcoal is a very �exible medium. “I use all different kinds— harder, lighter, softer or blacker—to arrive at something complex and rich. I also deeply value the light the paper gives in relation to the marks made on it. It’s a great exchange between the paper and mark making.” Gornik will often sketch from a computer screen using one or perhaps several images as reference. “There are a multitude of changes that take place, often some pretty extreme collaging,” she says. “Something from Africa might be combined with something from Long Island. I print out sketches from the computer to work from, but I don’t value those, as I know they’ll change with the drawing or painting process. The forest drawings I’ve been doing have come a lot from my backyard, but I alter them quite a bit, erasing trees, collaging photos, bending space.” Having prepared her composition through sketching, the artist moves to the �nal drawing, which she executes on an etching paper made by Lenox. Gornik pins a sheet of paper to the wall of her studio, using another sheet beneath to prevent any unevenness on the surface of the wall from interfering with the drawing. She begins with a light pencil line. “I demarcate the principal points of the sketch I’m working from—the horizon line, the place where the lower edge of a mass of leaves meets a tree trunk, or whatever. I then sketch the rest of it loosely in freehand.” Gornik then changes to charcoal. “Usually I start with a drier, lighter charcoal and work up the image from right to left,” she says. “Then I go back in with a softer, blacker charcoal to �nish it.” Gornik generally keeps the charcoal fresh and direct, but at times she’ll do some blending. “My best blending tool is my little �nger, which I use for smudging,” she says. “I only rarely use
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Light Sweep 2009, charcoal, 35 x 50.
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a kneaded eraser to lighten an area, but typically there’s very, very little correcting possible. I tend to press pretty hard, so s o it’s difficult to impossible to to erase if I make a mistake.” Once the drawing is �nished the artist �xes it. “I apply several very thin layers of a �nal �xative while I wear a chemical mask,” she says. “I don’t take that stuff lightly, and I wish there was something less toxic to use.” Gornik doesn’t want the �nished image to reveal all the work that went into it or show the changes and deci-
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sions that she has made. “I don’ don’tt want to leave evidence of the struggle of art,” she says. “I’m interested in the hit of the picture. I want people to be amazed.” he results of this process are on display in Light Sweep (page 69) from 2009. We are presented with a view of a shadowy forest �oor as we look through a wall of trees to a brightly illuminated open space beyond. The contrast is considerable—the trees and foreground are
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richly dark while the light �ooding through the trees is almost uncomfortably bright. We have a sense of a powerful and active radiance operating just beyond our view view,, something unnatural taking place. If we look closely we can see that this sense of radiance is reinforced by a manipulation of the direction of the shadows. They radiate out from a central point, something that would not happen in nature— sunlight casts parallel shadows. As with all Gornik’s drawings it is the subtlety of the transformation that is
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After the Rain
2007, charcoal, 35½ x 50.
so important. “I’m interested in an attractive moment or condition,” the artist says. “The radiant light carries the idea of there being a certain kind of energizing force emerging through the image. A lot of what I do is distorted, but I’m not trying to make it too to o overtly weird. I like that in-between in-bet ween stage where things are just slightly surreal.” Finding this middle ground between the real and the surreal involves �ne judgment, and the artist stresses that securing this sense is highly intui-
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tive.. “W tive “Whe hen n I’ I’m m wo work rkin ing g up a sk sket etch ch,, I’m I’ m no nott th thin inki king ng,, ‘O ‘OK, K, at wh what at po poin intt will wi ll th this is be beco come me to tooo th this is or th that at?’ ?’”” sh shee expl ex plai ains ns.. “I ha have ve no fo form rmul ulai aicc wa wayy of approa app roachi ching ng eac each h ima image. ge. It’ It’ss alw always ays some so meth thin ing g th that at I’ I’m m fe feel elin ing g my wa wayy through.” Onee th On thin ing g th that at Gor orni nik k do does es co cons nsis is-tent te ntly ly is to co comb mbin inee hi high ghly ly dr dram amat atic ic light lig ht effe effects cts wit with h qui quiet et,, sl slowow-mov movin ing g pass pa ssag ages es of to tona nall sh shif ifts ts.. Thi Thiss al allo lows ws thee vi th view ewer er’’s ey eyee to sw swit itch ch wi with thin in th thee samee wor sam work k betw betwee een n alm almost ost the theatr atrica icall exci ex cite teme ment nt an and d mu much ch mo more re re re�e �ecctivee ex tiv exper perien iences ces.. In In After After the Rain, forr in fo inst stan ance ce,, th thee ou outl tlin ines es of th thee tr tree eess agai ag ains nstt th thee sk skyy ar aree ve very ry st star ark k an and d grap gr aphi hic, c, bu butt th thee to tona nall ch chan ange gess wi with thin in thee tr th tree eess an and d ac acro ross ss th thee wa wate terr ar aree ex ex-quisi qui sitel telyy su subtl btle. e. Si Simil milarl arlyy in in Breaking Breaking (pag agee 66 66)) th thee dr dram amat atic ic sh shap apes es Waves (p and an d mo move veme ment nt of th thee wa wave vess ar aree contra con traste sted d wit with h the ex extre treme mely ly qui quiet et passag pas sages es in the for foregr egroun ound, d, wh where ere a thi hin n sk skeein of wat ateer la lap ps ac acro rosss a sand sa ndyy be beac ach. h. “Th “Thee co comb mbin inat atio ion n of �eet �e etin ing g an and d be beau auti tifu full is a pr pret etty ty es es-senti se ntiall allyy poi poigna gnant nt asp aspect ect of li life fe its itself elf,,” the art artist ist ob obse serve rves. s. The hu huma man n �g �gur uree is co cons nsis iste tent ntly ly absen abs entt fro from m Go Gorni rnik’ k’ss wor work, k, whi which ch can ca n ma make ke sc scal alee ha hard rd to de dete term rmin inee an and d perha pe rhaps ps con contri tribut butes es to the so somew mewhat hat otherw oth erworl orldly dly qua quali lity ty of the ima imager geryy. “I ev even entu tual ally ly re real aliz ized ed I di didn dn’t ’t wa want nt vie iew wers to hav avee a sens nsee of how big they th ey we were re in re rela lati tion on to th thee pl plac acee they th ey we were re ex expe peri rien enci cing ng in my wo work rk,,” Gor orni nik k sa says ys.. “I “Itt be bega gan n as an in intu tuit itiv ivee impu im puls lse, e, bu butt it it’’s pr prov oved ed to be ve very ry cons co nsis iste tent nt.. I th thin ink k it it’’s al also so pa part rt of th thee ‘sp spiri iritua tuali lity’ ty’ of the wo work, rk, wh whate atever ver that th at re real ally ly me mean ans, s, th that at an anyy gi give ven n pe perrson so n wi will ll pr proj ojec ectt on onto to an and d ex expe peri rien ence ce the wor work k diff differe erentl ntlyy fro from m som someon eonee th else el se.. It It’’s a ve very ry 20 -centur -centuryy noti notion on
that the spiritual is also individual, I think. Not that there’s not a shared experience—far experience —far from it—but the invitation into the work is to allow a pretty free projection onto it.”
G
ornik’s in�uences are many and varied. She admires artists whose enterprises might be considered close to her own but also expresses admiration for a broad array of artists including Rogier van der Weyden, Matisse and Rodin. She is a huge fan of Seurat’s drawing and declares a love for the work of Charles Burch�eld, saying that she relates to his very personal response to nature and light, along with his idiosyncratic approach to art making.
ABOUTTHE ABOUT THEARTIST ARTIST April Gornik received a B.F.A. from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, in Halifax. Her work was exhibited at the American Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 1984 and in the Whitney Biennial, in New York City, in 1989. Her work is represented in many museum collections including those of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, all in New York City; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, both in Washington, DC. Gornik is represented by Danese/Corey, in New York City. She makes her home in New York City and on Long Island with her husband, the painter Eric Fischl. For more information, visit aprilgornik.com.
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In broader terms Gornik’s work seems to share a great deal in spirit with such 19th-century Romantics as Turner and perhaps especially the German painter Caspar David Friedrich, whose landscapes also combine meticulous observation with a pervasive and spiritual sense of illumination. Her enterprise also shares some of the ambitions of the American Transcendentalists, who made paintings about the wonder and scope of nature and light. Gornik adds to this tradition a sense of the surreal; she shares the Surrealists’ interest in dream imagery and the subconscious, although her work never ventures into the aggressive juxtapositions that the Surrealists embraced. And then the compositions, with their generally frontal arrangements, have a highly contemporary feel. “There’s a certain essential �atness to my work,” says the artist. “It’s more frontal than older landscape artists. There’s something more speci�cally part of our consciousness in the 20th and 21st centuries that makes the surface of the picture a more comfortable space. Something has changed about the way we put things inside that space.” As for the �nal effect of her work on the viewer, Gornik has no closely argued program. “People intersect with what I’ve put into a drawing and add their response,” she says. “I guess I would hope that they’d feel moved by it and feel it’s emotionally signi�cant to them in some way.”
Storm Along the Coast 2000, charcoal, 38 x 47.
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Curator’s Choice
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
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In our ongoing quest to seek out the most accomplished and interesting works on paper in American museums, Drawing turned to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). Its collection includes drawings donated by the museum’s early benefactors alongside some significant recent acquisitions. We spoke with Dena M. Woodall, the museum’s associate curator of prints and drawings, who chose several notable drawings from the collection and explained why they rank among her personal favorites. BY AUSTIN R. WILLIAMS
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Return of the Bluebirds by Charles Burchfield 1917–1958, watercolor and graphite on five sheets of paper, adhered to board, 33 x 45. All artwork this article collection Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Houston, Texas.
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It’s thought that Burch�eld (1893– 1967) worked on this large drawing over the course of more than 40 years. “He’s pieced together �ve different sheets of paper, which is typical of how he worked,” says Woodall. “He’s been able to capture the light and a sense of the landscape, and it has such a graphic quality. But his landscapes also always have that eeriness—it’s very moody, very interesting to look at. And it’s curious to think about him revisiting the drawing over and over for years, whereas so many of these other artists were just sketching them out in one sitting.”
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Girl in Red Robe and Black Stockings by Egon Schiele 1911, watercolor and graphite, 18 x 13 15 ⁄ 16 .
The dramatically foreshortened pose of this �gure is characteristic of Schiele (1890–1918), the provocative Austrian artist. “I love how he’s outlined the form with white and left so much of the drawing bare, using the paper to indicate her legs,” says Woodall. “Also the way he’s captured her in this particular moment, covering herself with her hand.”
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Caryatid by Amedeo Modigliani ca. 1914, gouache and watercolor with chalk and graphite on wove paper, 55 3 ⁄ 8 x 26 3 ⁄ 16 .
Woodall says that this enormous drawing by Modigliani (1884–1920) is one of the highlights of the MFAH’s collection. “He did make other drawings of caryatids, but this one is particularly large and muscular. It relates to his in�uence by Brâncuşi [1876–1957] at the time. And Modigliani is normally so much more known for painting that it’s fascinating to see him attacking a sculptural �gure with drawing media, using gouache, watercolor, graphite and chalk.”
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Haus Wildboden (Wilderness Home) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
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1924–1925 , watercolor and grap hite, 14�⁄� � x 17⅞ .
This watercolor shows Kirchner’s (1880–1938) home in Switzerland. “I love it for the intensity of the artist’s mark making,” Woodall says. “It’s in color washes, but it makes me think of his woodcuts and Kirchner gouging forms out of a woodblock.”
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Landscape With a Farmhouse and a Peasant Wheeling a Barrow by Léon Bonvin 1865 , watercolor heightene d with gouache and pen-and -sepia-ton ed-ink over graphite, 6 x 7⅞ .
Léon Bonvin (1834–1866) was a self-taught artist and the younger brother of the more famous painter François Bonvin (1817–1887). Léon Bonvin’s many drawings realistically and lovingly depict the �ora and fauna around his home on the outskirts of Paris. “It’s rare to have one of his paintings,” Woodall says. “Many of his works are in the Louvre, but we acquired this one in 1996. It’s part of a series the artist made experimenting with inks and these �lmy watercolor layers, which he used to really indicate the lushness of the landscape. He captures that early spring morning with meticulous detail: The season is indicated by the bare tree with its intricate branches and by the �owers—probably bluebells—in the foreground.”
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Veil From Alnitak
by Sam Messenger
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2013–2014, pigment, ink and rainwater, 18 x 18.
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Messenger (1980–) is a British artist who earned an M.A. from the Royal College of Art. “I love his labor-intensive process, which involves paper, drawing material and inclement weather,” Woodall says. “Veil From Alnitak is part of a four-piece series, for which the artist spent time on a rooftop in the rain, adding ink slowly. The work recalls Minimalist grids and Process Art, but Messenger is going back in with his hand and meticulously, irregularly drawing these white-ink grids. They look like handspun nets, and the artist says they relate to constellations, as well as to the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. In putting those ink lines on top of the capricious effects formed by the rainwater and the ink wash, he’s embedding a sense of chance with a determined artist’s hand. T hey’re quite wonderful to look at.”
K R O Y W E N , Y R E L L A G Y R A R O P M E T N O C N O S D I V A D Y S E T R U O C ; R E G N E S S E M M A S © ; 4 1 0 2 R E P A P + T R A Y B D E D N U F E S A H C R U P M U E S U M
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Deposition by Denys Calvaert ca. 1595, black chalk, pen-and-brown-ink, watercolor and white heightening, squared for transfer with black chalk, on laid paper, 10 3 ⁄ 8 x 7 7 ⁄ 8 .
This sketch by Flemish artist Denys Calvaert (1540–1619) is fully �nished and squared for transfer, and Woodall admires it for how completely it tells the story of Christ’s deposition. “You have Christ himself being anointed by Mary Magdalene and held by Nicodemus, and behind them the grief of Mary,” she says. “Up above you can see three crosses and men carrying their ladders after taking Christ down from the cross. In the background you can see the tomb. Calvaert has just packed a lot in there—you have this whole narrative scene in one image. I also love his approach to the ink wash and the way he has been able to manipulate the texture of everything, even the rocks.”
S G N I W A R D D N A S T N I R P Y K S N A M O R . S N I V L A E H T Y B D E D I V O R P S D N U F L A N O I T I D D A H T I W , S R O T C E L L O C M U E S U M E H T D Y N B D U E F D T N N E U M F E W S O A D H N C E R S U N P O I M U S E S S E U C C M A
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Young Man in Front of a Great Oak by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
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ca. 1840, graphite heightened with white gouache on buff wove paper, 11 ½ x 15 11 ⁄ 16 .
The white heightening in this drawing is somewhat rare for Corot (1796– 1875) and suggests that this was a �nished presentation drawing. “Overall it’s a study of the oak, but there are two �gures, one leaning against the tree and the other reading,” Woodall says. “The drawing really embeds you in this landscape and shows the grand size of the tree and how small the �gures are in comparison. It’s reminiscent of a quote that Corot often said: ‘The muse is in the woods.’ I love the way he’s able to manipulate the landscape simply by changing the angle and pressure of his pencil.”
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Les Arbres (The Trees) by Odilon Redon
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1890s, charcoal, 19¾ x 14¾.
“This drawing is just gorgeous,” says Woodall. “As with the Corot, you feel there’s something else going on besides the artist studying the trees. The way Redon [1840–1916] has approached it and hit it with charcoal reminds me of his lithographs, yet it also has a sort of spooky quality to it. He’s relating these trees in a more fantastical sense, as if they are becoming their own personalities.”
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Pyrotechnic Fires by Joseph Stella 1919, paste l, 40 x 29 ⅞ . N E Z S N A H . C Y R R A H . S R M F O T F I G
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This large pastel by Joseph Stella (1877–1946) is a recent acquisition for the museum. “His works in pastel have a real sense of mysticism,” Woodall says. “He’s blending realism and abstraction as he covers an entire sheet with pastel. Stella is really able to give a sense of that shimmering volcano using sticks of pure pigment. Even though it’s dark in the foreground you can still see him modulate the color there.”
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Head of a Young Woman Looking Upward by Guido Reni
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ca. 1609, black and red chalk with touches of white chalk on brown laid paper, 14 7 ⁄ 8 x 10 5 ⁄ 8 .
Reni (1575–1642) was an Italian Baroque painter who would often draw studies of his subjects’ heads before moving on to drawings and paintings of full bodies. “The studies are large and captivating— they have such immediacy,” Woodall says. “It’s not known what particular painting this study refers to—it may be a study for Lucretia or Mary Magdalene. It’s rendered in red and white chalk, and you can really feel the vitality of the �gure.”
E I R O J R A M E N H O T T D S U N O A H , D S N T U R F A T E N N E I F M F O W O M D U N E E S N U O I M S E S H E T C Y C B A S D G E S N I N E C W A I L , R R D E D P N P A O S H . T N N I E R N P I Y H K P S E N S J A O F M O O S R . R S I E N I H V L © ; A D E N H U T F Y T B I N D R E P D G N N U I F N E R S O A H H . C C R N U A P V E M U D E N S A U . M G
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Mademoiselle de Clermont-Tonnerre by Alfred Stevens 1865, black chalk and watercolor over graphite on wove paper, 22 5 ⁄ 16 x 15¾.
This portrait, acquired by the museum in 2010, is more fully �nished than most drawings left by the Belgian artist Stevens (1823–1906). “It shows a woman lost in thought, sitting in a room in�uenced by the Parisian fashion for Japonisme, with the birds and �oral motifs on the screen behind her,” Woodall says. “What I love is how he treats the medium, the calligraphic form and the compositional precision. You see an array of chalk marks and rich textures. You can see where he’s gone back in and scraped and incised lines to reveal the whiteness of the paper. You get the sense of this muscular weight—that the artist is really going at the drawing. And then there are hints of watercolor throughout. It’s very elegant, very fresh, and you really get the sense of this woman.”
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Cat Study by Edward Hopper 1941, Conté, 15 x 21¾.
Hopper (1882–1967) drew these sketches while he and his wife were summering in Truro, on Cape Cod. Their neighbor was the novelist Jon Dos Passos (1896–1970), and Hopper became fond of the writer’s cat. “The cat’s name was Perkins, and Hopper often made sketches of the cat stretching, sleeping and lounging around,” Woodall says. “You really get a sense of this Siamese cat and his personality. You can also feel Hopper’s quickness in studying the animal in different positions—the study in the lower-right corner is just a line contour drawing.”
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THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1900 AND IS HOME TO MORE THAN 65,000 WORKS OF ART. LOCATED IN HOUSTON’S MUSEUM DISTRICT, IT INCLUDES TWO BUILDINGS OF GALLERIES, A SCULPTURE GARDEN, TWO LIBRARIES, A MOVIE THEATER AND THE GLASSELL SCHOOL OF ART, AS WELL AS THE BAYOU BEND AND RIENZI HOUSE MUSEUMS. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT MFAH.ORG.
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Drawing / Winter 2016 87
NEW & NOTABLE
W 218 th St
2011, graphite, 18 x 24.
Mike Lee
Cactus
2015, graphite, 8 x 8.
WHY NEW? Mike Lee, a California native who now calls New York City home, has participated recently in numerous exhibitions, including t he Giant Robot Biennale, a recurring exhibition of alternative Asian American art and culture, held at the Japanese American National Museum, in Los Angeles.
WHY NOTABLE? In his graphite drawings, many of which feature small subjects surrounded by expansive white space, Lee strips everyday figures, objects and settings to their simplest forms. These visually arresting interpretations boast a certain artificiality at the same time that they achieve a sort of curious realism.
IF YOU LIKE I T… See more of Lee’s work at his website, mlee.us.
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Drawing / Winter 2016
For additional drawings by Mike Lee, visit DrawingMagazine.com. SEE MORE ONLINE >>
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This is your chance to see your art featured in North Light Books’ hardbound showcase of the very best in contemporary drawing.
THE BEST OF DRAWING
C R E AT I V E D I S C O V E R I E S
The theme for Strokes of Genius 9 is Creative Discoveries and may be broadly interpreted. We’re looking for the best in a variety of styles—in any dr y medium that would be traditionally considered drawing. This includes—but is not limited to—pencil, charcoal, Conté crayon, pen and ink, scratchboard, silverpoint, colored pencil, pastel and even some wet paint mediums if used in a linear or sketchy manner.
ENTRY DEADLINE:
APRIL 15, 2016 For more information or to enter online:
www.artistsnetwork.com/strokesofgenius Questions? Email:
[email protected] Art Credits: On a Down Time Train (detail) by Gina Rugito-Anderson, Dreaming Big (detail) by Denise J. Howard, Colored Pencils (detail) by Lorna Hannett, Light Up Your Life (detail) by Cecile Baird
NORTH LIGHT BOOKS AN IMPRINT OF F +W, A CONTENT + ECOMMERCE COMPANY
