Author: Joan Vienot

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Negative Space in Figure Drawing, with Heather Clements

Negative space is the space surrounding the “subject”.  Negative spaces which are bounded by the subject are called negative shapes.  The boundaries of negative shapes also can be the edge of the art piece, or the edge of another shape.  Heather showed examples of negative space, and we spent the entire 2½ hours finding and filling in negative space, from warm-ups through extended poses.  Well, there was one pose where I just couldn’t stand any more ignoring of the form, and I quickly drew a rough approximation of the light on the form, below right.  Otherwise, in each drawing, the positive shape was drawn, or rather, not drawn, as a silhouette.  Our model was very cooperative, positioning to create empty spaces in his pose.  When negative shapes are interesting, they can be very helpful in defining the form.  We recognize many things by the silhouette of the shape.  So even though the interior of the form was not developed, anyone looking at these drawings can tell that they are depictions of a male figure.

Sometimes our studio workspace is overflowing with people, but on this night I was the only student.  I am so grateful that Colleen Duffley, owner of Studio b., continues to provide this creative opportunity through thick and thin.  And Heather Clements, the instructor, talked to me as if I were a whole classroom of students.  She is such a professional.  She drew along with me, practicing the same exercises.  Later she showed me examples of Egon Schiele’s work, pointing out how he used negative space to make his figurative work even more interesting.   Such intense focus on negative space is sure to make me more aware of it in my compositions, even as I have been “seeing” more negative shapes in my ordinary daily activities today.

Interior form developed at right...
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The Figure is Beautiful

There is something about the figure as an art subject that fascinates me.  Most North-Americans are raised with the view that nudes are  naked and nasty, instead of beautiful and natural.  Like everyone in our mass-marketed-to-death culture, I have been indoctrinated with the mindset that thin, idealized proportions are beautiful, and fat and wrinkles less beautiful.  Since I have achieved middle-age, and I have acquired a few wrinkles myself, and an extra pound here or there, I am looking at people differently.  Certain wrinkles show a time of loss and grief, others show laughter, some show a lot of hours working in the sun.   Wrinkles lend visual character, a sag shows maturity, a little fat here or a paunch there has probably been earned.  But the beauty I am most interested in, is the play of light across the subject, any subject.  It’s just that the figure happens to be a difficult subject, one which challenges me every single time I attempt to draw it, so it becomes a game to me, to achieve a reasonable resemblance as well as to find the light.  The folds and shadows of fabric, while challenging, are very forgiving, in that the untrained eye might never notice if you’ve drawn a clothed figure “wrong”.  The nude figure on the other hand, is unforgiving — if I draw something in the wrong place, it looks wrong, and anyone looking at it can tell it is wrong.  That is the construct of realism that I like to work within, and that is one of my joys in nude figure drawing.  Another is the sheer immediacy, in that a model can only hold a pose for just so long.  And finally, I love the camaraderie and the energy of the other artists, and I am always inspired by seeing the way they tackled the problems they found in the same pose I was drawing, but from another point of view.  I guess I can even be a little philosophical about it, in that multiple points of view are all true, and there can be no arguing.  Maybe political leaders should take figure drawing classes!

Below are drawings done at Studio b. at the weekly figure drawing session.
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Guest Artist at Studio b: Susan Alfieri

At our weekly  figure drawing session at Studio b. last night, we were privileged to have one of the regular participants as our guest artist, Susan Alfieri, a retired teacher living in Inlet Beach, FL.  Susan enjoys working with Vis-a-Vis water soluble markers to  sketch the form and then she uses a clear water wash to allow the marker lines to bleed and blend to create tonal relationships.  The impermanent black marker wash separates into blues, violets, and shades of bronze.  I used a blue pen similarly, to produce one of my favorite drawings last winter, on February 12, 2010.  You never know what’s going to happen when you wash over the drawing.  Because the marker is impermanent, it needs to be protected from sunlight, by UV-protectant spray or UV-resistant glass.

I enjoy media exploration.  After working with the markers on smooth (hot press) watercolor paper, I tried out a tinted charcoal pencil from a set that I had just bought, which also is water soluble, but the colors don’t separate.  It leaves the grainy marks of the pencil showing through the wash on the textured cold press watercolor paper.  I used Derwent “Bilberry”.

There was some discussion and experimentation with the model’s pose.  It is not very important to me how the model is posed except that I am not fond of contortions that look like they would hurt an ordinary person.  I do like asymmetrical poses, and I like poses where air spaces create negative shapes in the composition, but usually, if the model takes a position they can hold for the duration of the pose, then I can move around the room to find a vantage which gives me some lighting I like.

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Portrait Drawing

On Saturday I attended an all day workshop on Portrait drawing, taught by Heather Clements at Studio b.  I’ve taken this class from Heather before, but it was spread out over several weeks, so this time it was intense, being all in one day.  First we studied a skull to learn the underlying structure of the face.
Next we drew Heather,  and then we drew her skull underneath her features that we had just drawn.  Our final drawing was also of Heather.  When she was teaching the location of features in relation and proportion to each other, she explained that proper position of the features was perhaps more important than whether the drawing was a good likeness, accuracy being less important than not turning the person into something grotesque or sinister.

I don’t expect I will ever be much of a portrait artist because I don’t have that much interest in it, but I would like to put more accurate faces on my figurative work, so I will take the next Portrait class too.

Postscript:  Lest anyone think otherwise, let me say my drawing does not compliment Heather — it has a lot of distortions.  She forgave us all before we even started.

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Figure Drawing with Background

Live figure drawing is often very hurried, and the whole time is spent drawing only the model.  It is tempting to omit essential elements in the surroundings, because the artist always thinks he or she can draw them later.  As a result many figure drawings end up with a figure just floating in space, without context or compositional  “anchoring”.  Heather asked the Studio b. figure drawing group for a second week to continue to include backgrounds in our drawings.  She showed examples from several books, discussing different artists’ inclusion of background, or in many cases, invention of background.  One of the examples was a figurative piece, tied down similar to Gulliver by the Lilliputians, and it reminded me of  a playground sculpture of Gulliver that I had seen in Valencia, Spain, where the ties holding him down actually were hanging knotted ropes that children could climb on, and parts of his clothing formed slides and crawl spaces for them.  The children interacting with the sculpture then became the Lilliputians.  With those images in my head, I drew my own version of the figure in Lilliput.

 Gulliver Park, Valencia, Spain
I first drew the figure in white conte on a dusty blue charcoal paper, and then using graphite I drew the Lilliputians tying her down, with a little cityscape in the distance.  (Click on drawing for detailed image.)
I drew the next pose as it was and incorporated some of the studio behind the model, including a silhouette of one of the artists.

All of the artists worked hard on the assignment, each making a drawing that was remarkably different from the others, and each with success.
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Making Stuff Up

This week at Studio b., we had a new model.  I get better at drawing any particular model after I have drawn him or her a few times.  The first session with a new model is difficult for me.  The week was no exception — I struggled.  And as if drawing a new model wasn’t hard enough, Heather also directed us to draw the background in our pictures, to give a sense of environment.

In my first drawings, I drew a hint of the studio room, and the drapes covering the model’s support boxes.  There was not enough time for me to draw the model with much accuracy, and also to draw the studio as well.  I grew increasingly frustrated.  So on my last drawing, I gave up with the studio background, and instead I put my figure on a porch near the ocean.  Heather is always telling us to draw what we see, not what we know.  But all I had was what I know, so my porch siding and shadows might be a little unconvincing.  It’s all part of the learning process.

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Line Quality and Lost Edges

Joan Vienot I was privileged to be the guest artist at the figure drawing session at Studio b. this week while our regular instructor was on vacation.  My focus was on line quality and lost edges. Joan Vienot
Sometimes  the edge between the two shadows becomes indistinct.  The same thing can happen with light areas, or for that matter, any two similar values.  The edge becomes “lost”.  The artist knows it is there, and the temptation is to draw it, but the piece generally ‘reads’ better and is more interesting if some edges remain lost.  Lost edges require the viewer to participate, to look longer, to figure out what’s going on in the picture.
I showed some examples by Andrew Wyeth, in which he used thicker lines, thinner lines, and darker and lighter lines, changing line quality  midway through a line.  I also pointed out how he sometimes left edges completely undrawn, implying a line by edges of other shadows, or by creating a different value behind, so that the “line” was the edge of two values.
I asked the artists to leave some edges undrawn, or “lost”, and I have posted here a few of the drawings that demonstrate the concept.
Nancy Nichols Williams Celia Rose Jameson
Nancy’s blue shadow covers the top of the right leg, the cast shadow, and the left side of the model.  The edges are lost in the shadow.  Celia’s shadows do the same.

Steve Wagner’s drawing also has some wonderful changes in line quality, some lines disappearing into nothingness, others obscured by light or shadow.

 Denis Wintersong
I also have included a couple of warm-up drawings by Denis Wintersong and Steve Dagg, which show line sensitivity before I gave my spiel, so I can’t take much credit — these all are accomplished artists, and all I did was give them something to think about, that they probably were already doing anyway! Steve Wagner

This being my first experience as the guest artist for the group at Studio b., I was honored to be in the middle of such talent and energy.

 Steve Dagg

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Continuous Line Figure Drawing

We practiced continuous line drawing at Studio b. this week.  As always with continuous line, because you just launch into the drawing without a preliminary underdrawing or gesture, there are a lot of distortions which may or may not be corrected by successive lines.

It interesting how even though I knew certain areas were distorted, when I redrew them with another color, I found myself repeating the distortion.

I warmed up with blue-green nupastel on white paper.  On subsequent drawings, I decided to use different colors throughout each drawing as it progressed.  Something came up and I left the session early but I love continuous line drawing and am promising myself I will do more of it.

Our instructor, Heather Clements, will be away on vacation and I will be filling in as guest instructor at Studio b. next week.   It’s been a while since I have taught art.  One of my degrees is in art education.  I taught the two-dimensional visual arts at a high school in Colorado for 3 years before moving to Florida.  I also taught a few workshops here in Florida in the 80’s and I taught an independent study student in the local high school, but after my “day job” developed into a business,  I let my teaching certificate expire.  In my business I also teach, twice or three times a year, so I am practiced at giving presentations.  I’ll need to prepare, but I’m looking forward to it.  My focus will be line quality and lost edges.

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Rae Broyles Returns to Studio b.

Richard Diebenkorn

Our guest instructor at Studio b. this week was Rae Broyles, here for an Encaustic Workshop that she will be teaching on Saturday.

Tonight Rae took us through some exercises to help us build space and volume in our drawings, in part by including shapes and values around the figure, which creates depth.  She showed us some of Richard Diebenkorn’s art, and talked to us about his method of drawing and rubbing out and erasing and redrawing, a process of finding lines and shapes he wanted to keep.  The results are interesting in that you can see a lot of the original lines, so the final product is witness to the process.  The drawing at left is his.  I certainly put more stuff in my drawings than I usually do, but I failed to achieve his simplicity, which in my opinion is the real beauty in his work.  But I was successful in creating more space by including some of the setting in my drawings.

We drew by the pool at “The b”.  Colleen had set up a swing for a prior event, so that added something different.  Rae asked us to use charcoal to draw the figure and to draw the background or surrounding shapes, and after we had worked on it for 10 minutes, she said, “OK, now rub it out and start again.”  As a result, each drawing was reworked a couple of times, taking on a layered effect.

The drawing on the left was one of my warm-up drawings, in conte on manilla paper.  For the drawing on the right, I was using very soft brick charcoal on gray paper, rubbing, erasing, and redrawing, and then following up with some white charcoal.  I was pretty far out of my comfort zone, so the result was very different from anything I usually do.  But that is the value of continuing to take instruction.  I have to stretch more and grow faster.

I also remembered why I hate brick charcoal — it is so messy — pretty soon it is all over your clothes, your face, the walls, and on clothing you weren’t even wearing.  In fact, brick charcoal shares top billing with cadmium red oil paint for messiest media on the planet.  Fortunately Colleen was ready with the handi-wipes at the end of the session.

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Figure Drawing: How Lucky Am I

Fourteen artists were at the figure drawing session at Studio b. this week.  Fourteen!  The gallery was overflowing with talent and enthusiasm.  What great energy!  Kathy practically danced while she drew;   Theresa was writing something;  and behind me I could hear Roy’s charcoal.

Colleen had some good music in the background, and some refreshments on the counter, and Heather was pointing out shapes and shadows.

The woman from Chicago sat on the floor, some artists were seated on chairs, some stood at easels.  I tell you, it doesn’t get much better than this!

Studio b.‘s tagline is  “Be creative, Be adventurous, Be inspired,” and  I feel all of those things when I am there and afterwards!  How lucky am I!