Horn Island Expedition

The following is a video by Memphis filmmaker Willie Bearden entitled "Horn Island Voices". It focusses on an annual expedition taken by Memphis College of Art students, faculty, and alumni to Horn Island, a small barrier island just of the gulf coast of Mississippi. Willie put it together in celebration of the expedition's 25th anniversary in 2009. Some of my good friends, Bob Riseling, Don Dumont, Lisa Tribo, and I (with considerably shorter--and not yet tamed--hair) are featured in the video being interviewed by Willie. In the spring semester, there will be meetings that will discuss the exhibition. If this sounds like something you'd like to do, then I'd suggest you attend those meetings and get information.

"Horn Island Voices," and all footage therein, is the property of Willie Bearden.

Andrew Wyeth Draws A Portrait

Welcome Back!

Welcome back everyone. I hope that your Thanksgiving weekend went well and that you were able to enjoy the company of family and friends. If travel wasn't possible for you, I hope that at least you were able to make the most of your time during what I am sure was a much-need break from the grind if nothing else.

We are truly down to the wire now. We have only two more weeks of class before you turn in your portfolios on December 14. THAT'S IT! Where has the semester gone? Doesn't it seem like just yesterday you were giving your muscles a workout erasing through layers of charcoal, making a mess all over the studio and your home, and picking black boogers out of your nose? I should hope that you feel your work is far more confident now. And hopefully you see why it was important to START there before moving on to more advanced drawings rather than diving straight in without any scuba gear.

So, then, allow me to give you a few quick reminders here so you can be ready for what's coming up:

1. Don't forget that December 7 is the final day to turn in any assignments you have reworked for the possibility of a better grade. I will accept any reworked assignment from any point in the semester, but I will NOT accept late drawings that weren't turned in on the date they were originally due. I don't have the time nor patience to grade, in addition to the reworked assignments, a bunch of drawings that were due weeks ago that you never turned in. This isn't make-up time. This is a final-shot chance to improve your grade through good, honest hard work. I will have them graded and returned to you on Monday so you can add them to your portfolio.

2. Make sure to have the correct materials for class each day. PLEASE DO NOT RAID THE STORE RIGHT BEFORE CLASS. If you come unprepared in these last few classes I will request that you just leave the classroom so that you will not disrupt the class nor waste our time. Especially remember the list of materials for next week. Make sure you gesso and sand your paper BEFORE class next Tuesday. DO NOT COME TO CLASS WITH A WET GESSO ON YOUR PAPER!

3. Don't forget that this is "Bring Your Own Music Week." Bring a CD or, if you have an MP3 player and a cord that will connect it to my radio's auxiliary jack, you can make a short playlist.

4. Here is what you need to do in preparation for your portfolio on December 14:

Don't wait until the night before!

Build your portfolio: Before you do anything else, gather all your work and make sure that everything is fixed and will therefore not get smudged or transfer onto other drawings. Place everything you have done in this class (both in-class assignments and homework) in chronological order into your portfolio. Find a way of organizing the work (dividers that separate assignments, techniques, or homework/classwork, etc.). The way you organize your portfolio is up to you, but it needs to be easily understood. EVERYTHING from the semester (homework AND classwork) should be inside the portfolio. On the outside of your portfolio HAVE YOUR NAME PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED.

Prepare your sketchbook: Make sure that YOUR NAME IS PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED ON YOUR SKETCHBOOK. I had a few at midterm that I had to guess by a process of elimination. You wouldn't want me to accidentally put your grade down by someone else's name, would you? Make sure that your syllabus and any handouts, articles, or research given to you or obtained on your own are in that pocket in the back. Hopefully your sketchbook is already in very good shape right now, but if you are one of those last-minute procrastinators, you have two weeks to make it look like you DIDN'T procrastinate until the last minute. Remember everything I wrote in your sketchbook at midterm and everything was said to you at the last sketchbook review and make sure it is well-designed, shows your progress and research, and is reflective of an entire semester's worth of diligent WORK.

Submit your final portfolio and sketchbook: You have until 1:30 PM on December 14 to bring your portfolio and sketchbook to the studio. After 1:30 I will lock the door and accept nothing later. There will be designated areas to place each item. Simply place your portfolio and sketchbook in their areas and you will be free to go. Return at 8:00 PM to pick everything up again. Inside your sketchbook I will write a sketchbook grade. This grade is for the sketchbook only and is not necessarily reflective of your final grade for the course, which will be averaged together just as I outlined in your syllabus and submitted to the dean. You will receive all of your final grades at some point over the winter break. I will grade your portfolio based on how well it is organized, craftsmanship, and whether or not everything is actually in it. Due to time limitations, and the amount of portfolios I need to go through that day, I won't write an actual grade on your portfolios. If you really want to know your portfolio grade, you can e-mail me after you pick up your portfolio and sketchbook. I will more than likely be too busy when you come into the studio to actually answer questions then. I will also be taking images of work that day, and I will leave a note in your portfolio to let you know if I used any of your work. If you are at all uncomfortable with this, let me know and I will not use them.

And that's all, folks! We are so near the end of the semester I can hear it squeak. (I don't know, it's something I used to hear oldtimers say and I always found it funny.) Good luck with all your academic endeavors for these last few weeks!

Collage/Drawing: Self Portrait

Collage/Drawing Examples

Below are the student work examples that I WOULD have shown in class yesterday if I hadn't forgotten my flash drive.

An Archive Artist: Brian Belott

Brian Belott is an artist who collects and archives anything he can get his hands on. The collage method we worked on in class made me think a little bit of him. The first video below is a studio visit with him. The second video documents a huge collage he built. Below that is an odd collaborative performance piece of his called "The Wordless Chorus."

Just For The Fun Of It: Peter Jackson's "Dead/Alive"

OK, so, if you're squeemish, skip this one. Seriously. Don't watch this if you aren't a hardcore lover of gory horror films. In class a couple of weeks back the question was brought up about whether or not horror movies are more gruesome now than in the past, and I pointed out that in the 80s there was, in many case, far MORE gore than what we see in many newer films. So, I decided to post, just for the hell of it, this scene from Peter Jackson's (yes, the LOTR director) first film. It is known in the United Stated as "Dead/Alive". It has some other title in Australia that I can't remember now. Anyway, IF you can handle it, ENJOY!

In-Class Example Of Ink Wash (Wet On Wet)

The Artists Working With Limited Values From Class

Fernando Bryce

Vik Muniz

Elizabeth Peyton

Artist April Gornik Talks About Working From Photographs

So, there are often those who have asked me if we aren't breaking some cardinal rule by making drawings based on photographs rather than on direct observation. Well, there are plenty of artists out there that draw and/or paint with photographs as source material. Listen to April Gornik as she talks about her exhibition "Out Of Africa." When she describes her reasons for utilizing photographic source material, see what you think.

Some Of My "Film Noir" Drawings

For several years now, I have continued a small series of small black ink drawings based on film stills I grab the from old Film Noir movies that I love. These drawings have no grand conceptual purpose. They just keep my hand nimble and give me something to do when my brain is tired of having to think so much when it comes to my everyday work. Also, given their small size and the fact that many midtowners think they're "cool", they often sell. I am posting a few examples of this series here because my own particular approach to value and my EXTREME breakdown of the image into planes of value is, I think, pertinent to what we're doing in this class. In these, I give myself rules and limits:

1. The drawing must mimic the proportions, perspective, and formal composition of the original still accurately. In other words, I must stay true to the director's decisions when framing this scene.

2. I can only use pure black, the white of the paper, and ONE mid-tone grey (a wash of ink mixed with water), and no other values.

3. I look for the abstract shapes formed by the planes of value in each original still.

4. I can use horizontal hatching marks over the white paper or grey areas of the drawing to give subtleties of value.

This means that I force myself to ignore the smallest of details and extremely subtle value shifts and break the image down, instead, into broad "blocks" of value, which create dynamic contrast and a push and pull of space that at once seems both abstract AND representationally (or, at least, photographically) accurate.

Soon you will be working with ink washes. One of these assignments will be to work with only four values. So, perhaps, looking at these may jog your brain to start thinking in that manner already.

RAIN!

Good God, Y'all! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!

It seems that the 70% chance of rain that the meteorologist gave us this morning has turned into 100%. So, if you should happen to actually read this before coming to class today at 1:00, then let me apprise you that we will NOT be working in the Veterans Plaza today (as if you didn't figure that one out for yourself). Therefore, as I mentioned in class, we will work inside the basement of the main school building today. As a result, you will need a new sheet of Fawn paper for today's assignment. If the weather improves this week, then perhaps we'll spend some time outside again on Thursday. We'll see.

See everyone at 1:00.

Examples Of The Mark-Making Self-Portrait Assignment

So, Blogger has been acting really weird here lately. I have been trying to upload these images for three days now. Each time I tried, Blogger would lock up. Finally, I shrank them down in size a bit, and this seems to have finally worked. I'm sorry these are so late.

Studio Visit: Kehinde Wiley

Artists Working On Toned Paper

Here are a few examples of established artists who use mark-making on toned paper similarly to the way you are using it in this class. Notice that not all of these artists are using warm toned paper and not all of them use exclusively black and white conte. Still they are good examples to observe and from which to learn.

Edgar Degas

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

John Currin

YOUR Chance To Critique ME

(If you've had me in class before, you've already seen these.)

I thought this could be an interesting experiment. Below, I have images taken from old (very old in some cases) sketchbooks of mine when I was a student. Some are from undergrad classes and some are classes I took while attending grad school here at MCA (I won't say which are which). Some are from drawing classes and some are not. So, after you read through the comments I left in your sketchbooks, feel free to browse through my old sketchbook pages here and see if I practiced then what I'm preaching to you now. Then, feel free to critique by posting a comment. It's your turn now. My feelings aren't going to be hurt. So, anything you see that needs to be criticized, praised, or taken out into the street and flogged, you can point it out without fear.