Studio Practice - Reflections on the week's progress, Appropriation, Interpretation, Adaptation

As I'm keen to continue in the study mode of the Atelier, I took some time to read some of the Material of Harold Speeds' wonderful book, written in 1905 called The Science and Practice of Drawing.

Whilst showing this to Prof. Swindel, he was not entirely giving me the impression that he agreed with my choice to study drawing in the classical way.  I accept that this is perhaps a rather laborious route, and may not necessarily lead to a commercially sound means of getting myself a unique identity, which it seems, is the most important focus for a contemporary art student to gain.  Nevertheless, he did come up with a quite novel way for me to bridge both my own desire for classical study, together with a mechanism to "loosen" myself up. It was to use these drawings to paint on a very large scale, he suggested potentially the whole of my studio space wall.  Which I duly did, coveering a large Fabriano paper of 6ft * 4ft proportions, AND, by doing the study upside down!

I think it works, and he too was pleased with the results...

It produces a strange result, something I need to explore further...

In the meantime I have put aside drawing by started last week.  Basically this was just a kind of doodling and I started at a time when I was unsure of where to take this project.  Nevertheless it has developed into a nice record of my peers as they breezed in and breezed out, just like the autumn leaves which is alluded to in the top of drawing. 

Initially I was a little bit disappointed with the feedback from the tutorial that I had with Prof Swindel.  The reason for my disappointment was that he felt my drawing was still rather amateurish, and in that the subject matter, whilst convenient, didn't really express any transformation before my art making.  He has a fair point.

My tutorial with Christian was however a little more productive because I explained my initial concept of the second part of the project and my decision to base it upon the theme of Tumbleweed.  I like the phrase he used which originally came from Paul Noble which was allow yourself to imagine.  This deals with the subject of the awkward silence, which Christian feels is a much richer source of material for me to adapt interpret and appropriate.  There was positive encouragement for my drawing in the sense that whilst I am not a virtuoso, the concept of one key drawing or a drawing of that is either out of place or slightly missed dimensional and, can have a good impact.  For example the work of El Greco and also the works of Giorgio De Chirico, about the absence of things.  Another source of material which would be useful to read and to look at would be that of the works of Edward Hopper, in which he tackles the phenomenon of waiting or "awkward moments".  The same awkward moments during waiting can also be seen in a number of Victorian domestic "melodrama" paintings.  In these types of paintings, the "stiffness" of English culture is explored with stories that also contain a message.

Further works to look at might be Ed Kienholz and his portraiture and sculpture, which can be found in the Beanery-cafe in Amsterdam, which proved to be an alternative approach to realism.