Tuesday, November 2, 2010
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.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
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.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
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.
Monday, October 25, 2010
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.
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