New Painter: Irving Wiles

I've seen this one around about several times. It always reminds me of my mother. It looks a little like her face, but the whole picture makes me think that this is the sort of woman she ought to have been, and could have been if feminism hadn't ruined her. This is her true self.

And this period of dress was her favourite.



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Pop Science Is Cool Quiz

1)

2)

1) What is it?

2) Where is it from?



Plus, bonus video of terrifying baddass Japanese ninja honeybees totally...
cooking to death a deadly giant hornet.

It's actually one of the most dangerous insects on the planet. Called in Asia the Yak-Killer Hornet, it kills more people in Japan than all the poisonous snakes put together.

Cool huh?



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No, I haven't forgotten

What did it teach us? That until we renounce Fantasy and face up and live in The Real, none of us is ever going to be safe.



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Brain training

A friend dropped by this afternoon while I was typing away and made me take a little break from work. I showed her a new drawing I'm working on, of my nice old suede boots. I showed her the basics of how the sight-size method is done, where to put your feet, how to hold the plumb line and plot points, make a contour line, how a cast shadow has usually got a bit of reflected light inside it, the difference between a cast shadow and a half-tone... basic stuff.

I lent her a book about it and she said she would come over some time in the mornings when I usually draw and I can get her started on a project of her own.

Something I realised when I was showing her a little bit of the stuff I've learned in the last couple of years, is that I have two distinct drawing styles. The Hilary Method, and the Andrea Method. The Hilary Method is a combination of my personal iconic system and a few of the little observational tricks I've picked up here and there to make things "more realistic". Cobbled together from books like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and from Grandma's old instructions and the little bits of advice I've had from artist friends.

The Andrea Method, that is, the classical realist, sight-size method, is the one that actually produces something that looks like art. It is totally a matter of disciplined observation skills and produces a strange state of mind in which much of my verbal and interpretive mental skills are switched off. At least, that's what it does when I'm concentrating. It is also when my iconic system is turned off completely.

Everyone who has ever drawn anything, particularly as children, will have a personal iconic system. It's just a way we decided as children how to depict things we like to draw, like cats, horses, houses, trees, birds, cars and human faces. This iconic system often sticks with a person their whole lives, and is the reason they think they can't draw. When I draw a face now, if I'm not looking directly at a person's face, I will at least start with the standard human facial proportions, because I've studied them and can more or less approximate them from memory. Not very well, but more or less.

It might be a big handicap when you're learning how to draw, but the personal iconic system that most people have, and used for drawing in childhood, is actually an important function of human cognition. When infants see, they don't differentiate things that are far away, or coloured or in perspective. It is only as they go along that they learn to see objects being distinct from each other, or learn things like the difference between far and near.

Unfortunately, when you're learning to draw, these essential mental skills get in the way. We look at a chair we are asked to draw as an exercise, and think, "Well, a chair has four legs, a flat part to sit on and a back, so I'll draw those things." Then we get annoyed that the chair we have drawn doesn't look a thing like the chair we are looking at. We have actually not drawn a chair at all, but our personal mental icon of a chair. A symbol of a chair. Or even, if we want to be Platonic about it, a symbol of chairness. But certainly not the actual object in front of our eyes.

It is usually at this point that we decide that drawing realistically, with perspective and whatnot, must be some kind of magic trick reserved to those with the magic Harry Potter Drawing Gene which we don't have. And we give up and never draw again, and when asked will give the inevitable line, "Me? oh heaven's no, I can't draw a straight line." (Banned at this blog).

Anyway, I have found that my own personal iconic system is still firmly in there, making demands that I draw all four legs of the chair, no matter what my eyes can actually see. It's very insistent about things being drawn properly. The trouble is, my combination method does not produce anything like art.

There are days when I am out in the world (not that many lately, actually) and I am trying to draw something I'm seeing, and I'm distracted or in a hurry, and not paying attention. It is at this moment when my lifelong Hilary Drawing Method tends to take over, and I start drawing eyes and hands and noses of statues that are directly in front of me, in the way my child-brain insists they are supposed to be. The Andrea Method is still very new to me, and not very deeply ingrained in my brain. The old method will come out if I'm not paying attention, and it is at those moments that I think, "Dammit! I can't do this! I suck."

Of course, the most tempting reaction to these failures is to quit, thereby sparing oneself that pain of being either bad at something or having to work hard at it. I'm a grown woman, and most of the things I'm good at I've been good at for a very long time. It's been a long time since I've been in the position of wanting to learn something that I didn't know how to do, that was very difficult and required a lot of work to learn and a lot of practice. (I think typing was the last thing, which was 15 years ago now.)

It's funny, though, that you can really see when flipping through my sketchbooks which drawings and scribbles were done under the strict Andrea Method rubrics and which came from me.

Learning is interesting, isn't it? I think I'll find a documentary about it.



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Mind boggling

Most amazing nature show about the intelligence of crows.




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Scribbles

From the book I carry around with me. It wouldn't be accurate to call it a sketchbook, but I do draw in it from time to time. I do a lot of drawing on the train into the City.


Longest project in history. Started while sitting in a waiting room to hear the cancer verdict from docs. Still not finished. San Andrea by Borromini in the Lateran.


From the Turtle Fountain, Rome


View at the beach in S. Marinella.


First go with coloured charcoal pencils. The face of Joseph of Arimathea, Caravaggio.


Fooling about with anatomy from Bridgeman's


Infant John the Baptist, Leonardo


St. Jerome, Leonardo


Hand of Christ, from a statue by Michelangelo in Sopra Minerva.


Worked on him mostly at Gardone, sitting at the breakfast table in the mornings.


A friend taking tea at my place last week.


My first attempts at sketching Winnie. She never lies still for more than about ten minutes, so it's a speed exercise.


Something to work on while in hospital.


First attempt from life with charcoal


Fooling about with Bridgeman: working on proportions.


From a photo in a magazine. I tried to get that right eye about six times. Gave up.

Work more. Try harder.



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Feminism: symptom or cause of insanity?

Kathy tackles the question.

Firestone published her radical manifesto calling for the liberation of women from childbirth’s unfair burden—and from gender itself—at only 25. That’s around the age when schizophrenia tends to claim its victims, of which she was one.

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Drawing the figure

Figure drawing is considered the backbone of the practice of realist drawing, and therefore the foundation of all classical realist painting. The human figure, since Renaissance times, has been looked upon as the "measure of all things," the centre of interest in all the humanistic arts. And it is probably the most practical thing to start with when learning to draw, simply because we are so familiar with the form. A totally untrained eye can spot an error instantly. (It might be interesting to discuss how modern media has distorted this instinctive human perceptual ability.) We simply know what a human being is supposed to look like, so errors in proportion are easy to understand.

This little essay on the stages of figure drawing, really does a good job of illustrating and demystifying the process. When we look at a completed drawing, and see how incredibly lifelike classical drawing can be, it is a little intimidating. We think it can only be a sort of magic, a gnosis available only to the initiate. But it really is simply a matter of mechanics, of transferring what is seen by the eye, without the brain trying to interpret, onto a flat surface. It's the trick of creating an illusion of depth and light and shadow, with paper and pencil. It's not easy, but once the mechanics of it is revealed, the magic trick is revealed as simple. After that, it is only a matter of practice.

From the London Atelier of Representational Art: it is split into two separate stages but you can see that the process of breaking down the elements of the shape, then thinking about the lights and darks, is all one linear process.

Exercise one:
The aim of this exercise is to accurately ‘block-in’ gesture, proportions and the particular body type of the model in a simple manner, so that mistakes can easily be corrected.

Step one:
Using a soft piece of charcoal, begin by marking the top and bottom of the figure, making sure that you have about the same amount of blank paper above and below, so that the final drawing is vertically centered on the paper. Next,make a note of the widest horizontal points of the model so you can estimate the placement of the drawing and decide the composition of the final image from the start.

At this point draw an arbitrary vertical (plumb) line parallel to the side of the paper. As a useful tip, try to find the most static point in the figure (in this example I chose the front of the lower standing leg). To complete this stage, indicate on the plumb line where the plane of the shoulders and the pubis bone (anatomical centre of the body) are.

Step two:
Starting with the torso, indicate the tilt of the ribcage and pelvis, keeping in mind their relationship with the imaginary vertical line drawn in step one. Try to keep the drawing as simple as possible, at this time, focusing on the biggest gestural lines you can find. Don’t get distracted by details, but concentrate on drawing the average width of the main body parts. By using such simple lines and constantly returning to your observation point and using your plumb line, any obvious discrepancy between the drawing and the model can easily be corrected. You can employ this simplifying drawing approach to virtually any subject.

Step three:
Once you’re reasonably satisfied with the gesture and proportions of the mainlines, it is time to start breaking down big shapes into smaller ones. Try to introduce obvious anatomical landmarks such as a line to indicate the centre of the breasts, the position of joints like wrists, elbows and knees. Use the new marks to further judge and refine the drawing by taking your time comparing your work with the model in front of you. At this point you can take the drawing in different directions such as pursuing line to a more refined stage, or introducing values to capture the impression of light.

Exercise two
Having tackled how to break down a complicated figure into simple lines, this exercise will take you through the use of value to convey a sense of atmosphere and light in your work.

Step 1
Using the block-in of your previous exercise, introduce a flat value (don’t go too dark at this stage) to represent the main shadow shapes. This sounds like an easier task than it actually is, as the defining line between light and shadow can be quite confusing in parts of the figure. To get around this potential stumbling block, squint when you observe the model to compress values and minimise the distracting influence of some mid-tones. If you still have trouble making a clear distinction between the main value areas, think of a fax or a bad photocopy with just two values and arbitrarily decide whether the mid-tone at hand is closer to light or shadow value. It also helps to position the model under one single light source

Step 2
By keeping the two tones of the previous step, start adding complexity to your shadow shape design. Pay particular attention to the edge quality of each individual shape and make a note of whether it is sharp or soft. I cannot stress enough how important edges are, as they visually describe how light (and consequently shadow) follow form in nature. At this stage you can also start to introduce a background value to further isolate the light shape. This also helps to evaluate the accuracy of the drawing thus far.

Step 3
Now it is time to establish the full value range (key) by establishing the darkest dark (soft charcoal) and lightest light (white chalk) within the figure. This may expose the limitations of the drawing medium, as it is usually impossible to match the depth of the shadows or the brightness of the light we see on the actual model. A way to try and achieve a similar light impression is to compress shadows, by keeping them as unified as possible and minimise distracting variations. As soon as you have clearly committed to the extremes of the value range in your drawing, the tone of the paper takes its place in the scale as a halftone.

Step 4
At this point the pace seems to drop, though you are getting close to finishing.Here you need to start comparing smaller and smaller sections of your work against the model, judging and adjusting shapes and value by adding or removing small amounts of charcoal and chalk to ‘push and pull’ the three-dimensional impression of form. Use harder grade charcoal sharpened to a fine point to achieve subtle transitions. If you have a view of the model’s portrait in your drawing, now is the time to really concentrate on getting the likeness.

Step 5
In this final stage it is very important to use the background to add atmosphere. Create contrast where a focal point is needed and bring the value of certain parts of the figure and the background closer together to make those areas optically recede in space. I find one of the most telling differences between an average figure drawing and a good one is in the handling of the bony points close to the skin surface. Being able to represent the feel of flesh and bone in your life drawings is one of the most challenging, yet rewarding aspects of it. So make sure you leave plenty of time to work on elbows, wrists, knuckles, knees,ankles… well, you get the idea.

Figures by Luca Indraccolo



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Ateliers, painters, writers and teachers about art, the world and The Real

Camie Davis - no longer posting or teaching, but lots of great pics at her site. Studied at the Grand Central Academy, she is into something called "classical narrative painting" which is that old Academic style of painting scenes from famous mythical or biblical stories. V. big in the 19th century.

The mind of James Howard Kunstler - an interesting thinker who believes, oddly, that beauty is better than ugliness and that old stuff is better than new stuff. He also paints a bit.

Helen Frost - Metadrawer Many videos and pictures of her drawing and an especially good anatomy section, particularly on how to get started when you're feeling overwhelmed.

An interview with Juliette Aristides, the Seattle instructor and author of the Classical Drawing Atelier and Lessons in Classical Drawing, which are becoming the standard beginning texts. And her studio has a blog.

Artbooklook - A multipurpose blog about classical realist and representational art books.

David Clayton - an Englishman who studied at the Florence Academy and has a great paying gig teaching art Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and painting icons. He's a very friendly fellow who helped put me in touch with some local painters and instructors when I was looking for a place to study a few years ago.

A romantic at heart, the lovely watercolours of Jean William Hanoteau.

Hein Academy blog.



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It's raining in Santa Marinella,

it's eleven pm, and I'm about to go to bed, and you have no idea how happy I am about it.

Evil Yellowface is defeated! All hail the gentle and benevolent god Greyroof!

It really can't be overstated how much difference it makes to everyone's lives when the weather changes at the end of August. It's very reliable. We get six to eight weeks of complete misery. Temperatures in the high 90s every day, humidity 80-90 per cent, we don't sleep, we don't go out, we move as little as possible. It's too hot even to go to the beach and swim.

Then one day, it's over, just like that, and we ex-pats come out of our caves, blinking owlishly and rubbing our tired eyes, and joyfully break out the cardigans. We leave each other notes on FB saying we feel like we've just woken out of a three-month-long fever-induced coma, and are looking around the world to see what has been going on since we went into our bunkers.

The forecasts had predicted the drop to happen on Friday night, so I went to bed at midnight to try to start shifting my schedule around to normal hours again. And, sure enough, right on schedule, about three am, I woke up, lying under my sheet with the fan going full blast as usual and rather muzzily thought, "What's wrong? What is this? I feel funny."

It took me, I swear, at least three minutes to figure out that I was ...

chilly!

I switched the fan off, (first time since June) and went and got a quilt from the cupboard.

It's the same every year. The only way to handle it, I've found, is to become effectively nocturnal. You sleep in the day, and by two am, the temperature is finally nice enough to make you feel at least a little perkier. You do housework, you write, you draw, you go for walks, between two and six am, go home, make something to eat, send a few emails, and go to bed about 7:30. You drop the blinds (which are more like blast shields) point the fan at the bed and take a melatonin and don't surface again until the late afternoon.

We went into the City today for Mass for the first time in three months. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to leave the house and not have to worry about getting fried by the Great Italian Death Ray.





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