Traditional drawing techniques and objective drawing.

 I thoroughly enjoyed today's lecture, which was more like an academy class in an Artists Atelier. In reflection, I picked out a number of key points;
Prof Steve Swindell discussed traditional drawing techniques, such as looking for the systematic approaches to style, materials, discipline, consistency, and the concept of creating exploratory series of paintings or works.
This last point is the most important; - the exploratory "series" shows a potential view of how things have been worked out.  "How have you arrived at your final piece"?
Art cannot be foreclosed, there is always a sense of continuum and the works of narrative & verse in art must be left open.

This is the antithesis to the scientific method which closes down on finding a solution, and leaves the reader with a "finality".  Art however, in contrast, must leave this sense of the continuum, - the view, being left open.  More questions need to be asked as a result of the piece, [of art] than the questions that are 'closed' by it.
Following Prof Swindells examples of objectivity drawing, the most important first step of any art project is to create the size limits of the work you are about to undertake. -This is known as starting the format.

We use our fingers to touch and sense an object, and so with our eye, hand, mind and body working together, we do the same in the performance of creating a drawing, - to use a piece of charcoal, a pencil, or brush, between our fingers in such a way as to 'cantilever' the agent of drawing, against the surface to which we are applying our trace.

Charcoal in particular is a wonderful medium, and can be used in such a way as to consider it as a sculptural process, to define contrast, to build a subject out of a solid piece of an imaginative geometric form.
 A sense of shadow and contour can thus be created well and by using compressed charcoal this can be used for greater detail and line contour in particular.

When we are about to commence the drawing or sketching of everyday objects, such as a simple cup or a mug, remember that when drawing in any form of perspective, the ellipses are also subject to the vanishing points of your diagram.


When creating any beautiful sketch, we are looking to create "elegance of line" which is often achieved through the speed of mark making.  This is particularly prevalent in the works of Dormier and Delacroix, these two artists in particular display considerable elegance in the way they have formulated a lines contained within their drawings.

"Honore Daumier was a master at exploiting the suggestive power of the sketch. He would let his hand move freely, conjuring the figure as he scribbled. His drawings evolved naturally from evocative impulses into more concrete and discernible forms, yet they always retained the sense of energy and movement found in his gestural sketches. 

...you can see this progressive development, taken in two different directions. to draw the right-hand figure, Daumier uses a strong singular line that overrides lighter ones and confirms and encloses the body's edges. Daumier recasts and intensifies the original lines of the left figure through repetition to build value that seems to fill out the body from within. A third figure, barely visible in the center of the drawing, suggests how Daumier began, using light marks to coax his figures into being. As the figures evolve, they become increasingly volumetric."  - Drawing From Life by Clint Brown and Cheryl McLean (2003) 3rd Edition, Cengage, New York. p. 23

Eugene Delacroix, Crouching Woman, 1827,
The Art Institute of Chicago,  Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection

Elegance is found through the application of touch.  It requires simplicity and yet sophistication, through the skill of an artist, in order to find its own elegance.  Consider the wonderful works of Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci who have the quality of line to perfectionism.  Their understanding of humanism during the Renaissance is unparalleled.
Contemporary present day artists such as Julian Opie, in his installation work at the Yorkshire sculpture Park, also demonstrates a contemporary sense of "elegance".

Consider the fashion model walking down the catwalk and the elegance with which she holds herself.  This is completely unnatural, and nobody would walk in the same way, - were they to take a journey down Huddersfield High Street for instance.  However, the emphasis is on them, that thin "fine-ness", combined with elegance creates the performance similar to ballet.  Indeed the word ballet which means to glide is a perfect explanation of the sense of elegance that we as artists are trying to achieve when we make a line in our drawing.
The line therefore, is about "affectation".

Just like the fashion model I have just mentioned, who walks on a catwalk in this very unnatural way, they are commentating upon the fashions that they are trying to show off, in their own paradigms of the fashion industry.  In other words it is a performance in that specific industry of fashion.
Likewise the line may also "play", to its own paradigms in the art industry.  The simple elegance of creating a line, with the intention to create affectation into a viewer, is exactly the same here, as in the previous example. Whenever we create any line in our drawings we need to think in terms of elegance and finesse which can only be achieved through practice, practice and more practice.