Category: Portrait

Portraits of people painted and drawn from life.

Redrawing a portrait sketch

This is an example of something that I think I’ll be doing more often…a redrawing from a failed piece.

The story, briefly told, is that I had a good start and a dismal failure on a drawing from the model, done in a drawing group I attend. When I stepped well back from the drawing, a three hour pose, I realized that there were some mighty awful passages that I’d allowed to get by. In the interest of moving quickly and with overconfidence in my skills, I’d ignored some of the most basic fundamentals by working almost horizontally, working sitting, not stepping back frequently, ending up with distortions, picky handling, and a piecemeal drawing. It was awful, and I was surprised…I’d thought that I had something much better.

You won’t see a post of that drawing here. It was abysmal, and I need to help make the world a better place but not showing bad things.

Samrdclk

Humbled but not wishing to give up entirely, I decided that the solution was to make a redrawing, using the bad piece as a model and setting up the new piece alongside it, literally on the same drawing board, and then sort of sight-sizing a new version in my studio, away from the model. After all, I liked the look of the subject, and the image of her posing was fresh enough in my mind that, in a couple hours, I managed the piece you see here, which is one that I can live with. Truth be told, I already have an appropriate handmade frame for this portrait, one which is crying for a red chalk drawing, and part of the motivation for this was to have a new portrait sketch to show. Through it all, I guess it’s healthy to pick up from a little disaster and make something out of it that’s better.

I have yet another portrait drawing, one that I’m already happy with, which received some water damage, and I may do the same redrawing process with it.

Cast painting in oil, revisited

Coming across this beautiful old plaster cast kindled the desire to revisit the discipline of cast drawing. It’s a training exercise for refining one’s ability to see truthfully. The cast itself is a large one from the old days, over three feet across, and molded originally from the South Frieze of the Parthenon, if I’m not mistaken.

Elgin Horse cast Parthenon cast, oil 22 x 24″

I haven’t really touched anything like this in many years, but I do enjoy the discipline and so happily devoted a number of Friday afternoons at the Honolulu Academy school to making this study, for me a rare opportunity. Tall windows cast daylight on the cast and my canvas, which was a good 12′ or more away from my vantage point. The softness of the daylight, as opposed to the hardness of artificial light, comes across in the painting I think.

I decided to approach this as I’d paint any other subjects, because I wanted to see what I’d learned since the early nineties (when I last did this) so I allowed myself to be selective to the degree of “finish” in the study. The background is appropriately sketchy, and the paint is handled as I would in a landscape or portrait, with a varied handling reflecting my effort to capture the true, big look of the object in space.

Well worth the time.

Drawing, because

I’ve had studio visitors lately, and sometimes when that happens the flat files get opened to a collection of drawings in a variety of mediums, some that have rarely seen daylight in years. This accumulation is to the point where I now am regularly surprised to uncover pieces I’d forgotten about.

Drawing was my first love in art. I imagined just “drawing” as a profession long before painting began to come into the picture, and I return to it as often as I can in some form or another.

Often if there is an emotional upturn or downturn in my life, I’ll eventually find myself drawing somewhere. Alone with a tree, a person, or other subject, drawing centers my attention outside and away from myself. That’s a very good thing, a creative and constructive place for that sort of emotional energy, and it leaves something tangible that may be of value to others.

Tree Study Conte Crayon on paper

Trees are great subjects for learning to grasp the large shapes (something I struggle with) and for experiencing as beautiful, living forms. I draw them out of a desire for the discipline that accompanies outdoor drawing, done carefully but not with tedious detail. When one draws something with a certain degree of fidelity, it’s most certainly not “slavishly copying” but absorbing the subject, bringing it into cognition at an intuitive level. Inside one of my watercolor palettes, I have written a three word maxim: ” Suggest, don’t explain”, which applies to drawing as well as conversation. Don’t we all know the person who, when asked a question, offers far too much information in response, to the point where you’re sorry you asked? To be able to distill a paragraph into a sentence or two has so much more gravity. I think it works that way in drawing and painting.

Here are some other examples I hope might be of interest, graphite pencil on Strathmore drawing paper, 11 x 14′ or so, and drawn from nature for various reasons.

The ocean pieces are especially challenging because it’s moving, and you have to harness that somehow, make it intelligible by giving it direction. The values are pretty high, and the usual line conventions can’t tell the full story. Homer (Winslow, not Simpson) worked wave themes out in black and white on toned paper, as painters so often have.

With enough practice, you begin to anticipate certain characteristic motions in the sea, and once it gets under your skin a bit, your ability to recall it increases. I don’t know that you can develop that sense with photography. I’m reminded (and invigorated) by that great story about Frederick Waugh being able to draw a wave at any point in it’s progression convincingly out of his head, the result of the effort he put into studying them while living on the island of Sark in the English Channel.

Architectural subjects are always great to sharpen my eye, almost the opposite of the wave drawings. The visual measuring was a real difficulty, but I love this old steeple and wanted to work it out with a “loose correctness”. That required a lot of seeing past and through the details, finding the big blocks they’re covering. Just like the figure, come to think of it.

Speaking of which, here’s one of a number of the figure drawings that I work out in my figure classes, and there’s no end to what can be studied there. Just showing up, as in so many things in life, puts you on the right track, and the incremental investment over time of studying the live model is invaluable.

Last night, I was just rereading the Drawing chapter in Birge Harrisons’ classic “Landscape Painting” (1910) where he wrote the following:

“…you will find it difficult to place your finger on the name of a really fine landscape painter who is not also a fine draughtsman…inquiry will disclose the fact that the best of them have devoted at least four or five years exclusively to the study of drawing. This is none too much. But the best place to acquire this knowledge, even for the landscape painter, is not out of doors before nature; because it is so much easier to study drawing indoors from the nude.” (p.81)

So, I guess we know what we have to do. It’s endless, thankfully.

Drawing from life- some pieces from Linekona

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I love drawing.

I love the discipline mingled with the exciting possibilities, the reminders that occur as I examine how wonderfully we’re put together. The lines, shapes, the unbelievable functions, and how they complement one another. The economy of it all. We’re vessels in many ways, vessels that house a soul and spirit as well as mechanisms. What better use of time than to spend an evening each week drawing the figure of an enthusiastic model?

My usual practice is to use a good quality paper, and draw the sequence of poses on one or two sheets. This can result in a more interesting final piece, if things work out. That’s the point of using a decent paper, I want something archival for those times when I get something truly worth saving. One never can tell when that will happen.

For the gestural poses, those five minutes and under, I look for the relationship of the three main masses and a line of action. Sometimes I use block forms, sometimes not. I compel myself to do things that are not the usual, like beginning with the placement of the feet and working up the figure. or making all of the quick poses tiny, and creating a montage of them in serial form, arranging them to create a pattern on the page. One can do whatever one wishes, and for a professional artist it’s great to be able to play with no strings attached, no public to please.

For longer poses, those up to one hour, I simply do as much as I can. “Seeing the whole”, measuring well, finding better ways to express a form, and hopefully creating a palpable image…. these are my goals.

Here are a few of the things I’ve done in the last six months or so. The bad ones get tossed, and believe me, they are plentiful. But some evenings, you pull something together with some quality that you are pursuing, and it’s delightfully rewarding.

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If you’d like to join me and some like minded enthusiasts, I conduct a life drawing studio class at the Academy School at Linekona. Call 808.532.8742 to get enrolled. It’s great, and it’s open to you.

Life drawing Honolulu Academy

Back to Nature

Haven’t posted recently…busy with show arrangements for “A Sideward Glance”, my next show at the Gallery at Ward Centre in October.

I’ve been working on some quiet, smaller paintings to go with a couple fairly involved pieces I’ve posted over the summer. They round things out nicely when (and if) successfully painted. I enjoy doing them very much, but I find myself somewhat in the minority amongst outdoor painters (I think it’s time to give “plein air” a little break) in that I have no reservations about working on them over as many sessions as necessary.

Anyway, when I get the gumption I’ll write out a cranky p.o.v. piece about the whole thing of outdoor painting devolving into something resembling a sporting event.

This morning, I returned to a location I worked from a couple of years back. I actually began the rough drawings a few days ago, and from those I felt I could attempt a small painting that explores the possibilities evoked by this place. I do this a lot, and think it’s actually a healthy sign. It’s not that the “scene” changes, but certainly the artist does, a fact that becomes evident to any painter who revisits a favorite painting in a museum after a long absence and sees it differently. The painting hasn’t changed, but it looks different. You find your emphasis and taste has evolved, or that you identify with the artist in a new way. It’s sort of the same thing with some locations.

Here’s the final of a half dozen little sketchbook drawings, followed by the inital lay-in of what I’ll be working on most mornings next week. I’ll try to remember to take a photo of the place and the painting setup I’m using these days.

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Layin 9:10

The painting, on a flake-white primed birch panel, is 11 x 14″, and I’ve tipped it into the frame that will be developed as I work on the painting. At least that’s the idea.

I could easily spend a week of mornings on this piece, in one hour snippets, depending on the weather and consistency of the light effect. Ten minutes from home, so not a big problem.

A secondary point of interest is that a big gathering of AA folks meet near where I’ll be working, and years ago I noticed what I considered a particularly strong attraction to my painting activities from some of them, which I welcome. I have a hunch that some seekers, perhaps in a cul-de-sac of addiction, see something special in the involvement of a painter and nature. The comments I’ve received from them has often seemed unusually respectful, almost reverent. Am I off base?

Willard Metcalf-Backstage Pass

Willard Metcalf (1858-1925) has been one of my favorite American landscape painters since I first encountered his work at the Spanierman gallery in the 1980’s. I never tire of him, and love to introduce him to modern painters who don’t know his work.

Metcalf was chiefly a painter of the New England countryside, and his works possess a spaciousness and beauty that seems to be the result of massive natural affinity for his subject, talent, and a tremendous grasp of essentials.

Here, we have the opportunity to examine one of his outdoor studies and then be able to compare it to a finished painting. Both works were painted in 1887, when the artist was twenty nine, and working at Giverny, France with the group of painters attracted to and surrounding Claude Monet. What a time that must have been!

My often repeated (to myself, anyway) statements about the value of seeing “unfinished” works by great painters holds true here. It’s like a backstage pass to a magic show, where the hidden apparatus of how things are done is more easily discerned than from the audience side.

In this study or sketch ( I think of it as more than a sketch) all the basics of the location and the movement of the eye in the composition are evident, but are painted pretty bare-bones, everything being reduced to values and rough hewn shapes.

Metcalf study

Giverny, oil on canvas, 12 x 16″

After the initial attraction of the foreground shadow leading to the tree and the shaded area left of it, the dark passage attracts us to the right side of the canvas. This strategic element has a great effect on the balance of the picture, both by contrast (it’s the darkest spot directly next to a light) by weight (it’s close to the edge), and line (the shape of the river). Without that dark, I don’t think the eye would have much incentive to do anything but zoom right out on the upper left hand corner and be gone. But because of it, we cross the canvas to see what’s going on, and then walk our way back across the picture to the exit provided by the interest of the buildings and patch of sky. You can test this easily by covering the dark patch with your thumb and observing what your eye does.

The answer to the question of how Metcalf decided on such things and makes them operate without us even noticing is that it’s all planned. The initial thinking for this painting had to include where the eye would be led. An enormous part of the pleasure in experiencing his works is this marvelous business of composing carefully.

Metcalf Giverny Giverny , oil on canvas, 26 x 32″

And here, we see what he eventually arrived at in his finished painting. I have no way of saying for sure that this was painted directly from nature or was a studio work from the study above, which is, by the way, about one quarter size of the final painting. It could easily be both, and that’s my guess. But the question I have is this: would he have possibly arrived at the beautiful completed work without the initial study effort? We can see that his generation of well-trained artists moved slowly and thoughtfully, and that their work reflects this.

The continuing lesson is about planning our work carefully, slowing down, equipping ourselves with experience and knowledge of composition, and giving ourselves the best possible chance of a worthwhile outcome for our efforts.

Today, so many painters of the landscape seem burdened by the belief that a painting increases in artistic merit by being completed in one session. The evidence of the late nineteenth century indicates quite the opposite, does it not? I suspect that current practice is more a function of our culture, pushed by inner restlessness, and I believe that this confusion of a sort of alla prima painting with plein air painting needs a second look. I don’t believe I’m qualified for the job, and can think of many who are, but since they are quiet maybe I’ll attempt that another time anyway.

Drawing for composition.

I’ve finally gotten two compositional sketches for my next potential painting together. That business with the tsunami put a hold on things; we who dwell near the sea were directly confronted with how uncertain a place that this world (even in the best and most beautiful of places ) can be at times. A sobering experience, from which I hope I’ve gained an appreciation of just how blessed we are.

Which is all the more reason to seize the day. Believe it or not, during those hours when none of us in Hawai’i knew what was going to actually occur, I found myself thinking of the courageous musicians on board the Titanic who, accepting their fate, performed chamber music on deck as she took on water…art revealing it’s significance at a point when mankind’s other devices had failed dramatically.

Of the two rough compositional sketches I’ve completed, I’m showing the one I will pursue. I’ve learned over the painful years to never commence without the preliminary drawings and groundwork to figure out where I’m heading. Thanks to all the old painters I’ve been privileged to study…they left behind a pretty clear map of what to do if one is willing to take the time. That topic gets into a whole “plein air” rant that I’m storing up for a future disgorgement.

Back to the positive:

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Kailua beach pencil sketch, 9 x 12″

This painting will be a color piece. By this, I mean that the delight of the painting is primarily in the color and the subsequent values and shapes. The color is really exquisite here when the light breaks through, with the dusky orange-greens and strange violet-grays that the Ironwood trees and their shadows have at this time of day, mid morning. Cool pinks pop about. There’s an aquamarine blue/green in the water that is extraordinary, especially as it’s placed against the warm-colored light sand.

I’m constantly amazed at the elegance and sophistication of God’s color choices. Combinations of colors reveal themselves that would never occur to me if I hadn’t pursued them through direct observation. Lately (meaning the last couple years!) a blue/violet/orange thing has been happening…who would have thought of it?

But perhaps most exciting to me are that there are also wonderful opportunities for dramatic paint handling and a staccato impressionist light/shade treatment that will reveal forms and movement. As a composition, it is very rich in that regard, and I hope that I can avoid allowing the freshness of the vision to get bogged down in “issues”, other than capturing a joyous and dramatic slice of life. That’s the point, entirely.

If the weather and light are cooperative, I plan to start tomorrow morning and see if I can lay the painting in. I have my eye on an oil-primed linen 22 x 28″ canvas that’s been “aging” in the studio for many months. It’s on heavy stretcher bars, which I may replace later…they’re a bit much for that size.

We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.

Rembrandt “A Child Learning To Walk”

As I begin this small series investigating the drawings of Rembrandt, it would be helpful for me to mention where this great interest of mine comes from and why.

In my own search to become a better draftsman, I’ve looked at everything I could find to try and learn what distinguishes the good from the great. Of all the many known good draftsmen in Western art, I personally find Rembrandt to have the best documented and largest body of work that is capable of speaking to us today.

Many of Rembrandt’s subjects are right in our own living rooms, or outside of our own front doors. His drawing practice overflowed with all of the good lessons of picture making; we simply have to look past the funny clothes and the rugged handling. Rembrandt’s is not the beauty of Raphael and the Italians, his is a streetwise, subway-platform to Starbucks mirror of our existence.

I’m so enthused because I’ve learned so much from looking at these drawings and asking the right questions. Compositional lessons abound. Rembrandt is entirely capable of leading your eye without your even knowing it.

A confession…I don’t find most of Rembrandt’s drawings very beautiful at first sight, like I might with Raphael or Michaelangelo, or Ingres or Degas. I find them fascinating; it’s sort of like comparing the appearance of Pierce Brosnan to Daniel Craig as James Bond. One’s pretty, but the other’s got character and looks a bit crazy.

Okay, that’s the pitch. Let’s see what we can find in this drawing.

First thing we all notice is probably that it’s badly cropped by another hand…I don’t know why, but it happens. A lot. Monks cut a doorway into the bottom of Leonardo’s Last Supper, because sometimes you don’t know what you have.

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The drawing can be divided and viewed in two parts, foreground and background planes, and the thing to examine first is the foreground group.

Rembrandt groups things carefully, and below is what a diagram reveals (another use for your sketchbook, students).

Rembrandt triangle115

There’s a clear triangular arrangement, (art experts love to add “the most stable of the basic shapes”) I suspect you might even be able to say conical if the cropped off feet made up an eliptical arrangement, which I bet they once did.

All four of these figures connect physically…I mean that they touch, and your eye, beginning on the left with dad, goes up, down, and through, very rhythmically, to the actual reason for the grouping…the toddler being helped. The central-most figure in the whole piece is the one we see the backside of, which is a Rembrandt kind of touch. I think that’s Grandma on the right. Mom has the bucket, and I hope it isn’t dinner in there.

Rembrandt 116

Speaking of Mom, previously all of my attention in this drawing had been focused on this fantastic woman with the bucket in the background. For so few lines, most all straight and thick, she possess the perfect feel and character of someone carrying a heavy load. The straight arm carrying the bucket, upraised arm counterbalancing, the slightest rightward tilt of the figure…we can feel the strain in her arm. Head looking down slightly…just what you do when you’ve got a heavy burden in one hand.

Did you notice that none of her ink lines touch those of the other grouping? The effect is to create an atmosphere between the two planes.

Rembrandt 114

A couple of other things: Rembrandt manages to show us the human figure from the front, profile, backside, three quarters (the toddler), and another profile. That’s clever. And the drawing, from side to side, balances perfectly. I also admire the sense of near-balance in the toddler, just slightly tipping forward in the masses of head, thorax, and pelvis. She may stumble forward if not supported. Those are the three masses that create rhythm and balance in the figure, arms and legs just follow where they are told.

And finally, here’s a good question. Do you think all these folks were posing?