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Left Brain – Right Brain – in Figure Drawing

The left side of the brain is the analytical side, the side that deals with facts, logic, and communication.  The right side is the playful, emotional, and intuitive side, the home of creativity.  When I take the “Left Brain Right Brain” quiz, my score is 70% right-brain, which is to say that the right hemisphere of my brain dominates the way I process information. I suspect many artists are 100% right-brain.  Certainly a disproportionate number are left-handed, more than the 10% found in a standard population group.  I am right-handed, but can do many things left-handed, especially if I practice.

Some people can carry on a complete rational conversation while drawing or painting.  Being right-brain dominant, I can’t.  Sometimes I can’t get a single word to come out of my mouth.  Once in a while the studio owner will come around to the artists and ask if they would like something to drink, and many times I have not been able to answer even though I wanted to, until I stopped drawing for the moment.

So I found myself extremely challenged this week when one of the artists and the model talked all the way through one of the poses at our Wednesday evening figure drawing session.  Ordinarily, the subject would have fascinated me, but it interfered with my efforts to draw.  At first I tried to ignore their conversation and put it out of my mind, and then when I found that impossible, I found myself getting angry because I couldn’t draw very well while listening to the conversation — I kept making mistakes.  So then I tried to not be angry, to be mature, to be non-emotional and unattached, but I just found myself getting madder and madder!  Finally, I gave up and just quit drawing that pose, and waited for the pose to change before mentioning my difficulty to the artist and the model.  I had always thought that artists stayed quiet for the most part during figure drawing sessions so that they could concentrate.  It never occurred to me that it would actually be impossible for me to draw while a conversation was going on.  Thanks to my recent practice of a meditation and learning a little yoga, I think I got further along than I would have a few years ago, but apparently I don’t have enough control over my mind to be able to ignore a complete logical conversation.  When I mentioned it to the talkative artist afterwards, I said that I was going to have to come to terms with it, but the artist graciously offered simply not to talk during the poses and I have to say, I was greatly relieved.  I think the only way I could have handled it was to wad up some paper and stick it in my ears!

So for those of you who live with an artist, cut them a break — if you say something to them while they are painting, it probably really does go in one ear and out the other!  Even if they say “Yes, Dear”!

Interestingly, I very much enjoy the single comments the artists make during the figure drawing sessions, comments which require no response, like telling the model they sure do have a lot of toes, or, halfway through a pose, asking where that other leg suddenly came from.  Once in a while there is a comment on the music, or a parody of the singer, always humorous and playful, and these sorts of comments are a delight.

The model this week was partially dressed, which creates a completely different effect than fully nude.  I have often thought that if a little is left to the imagination, whether in literature, or visual art, or theater, it can make it more interesting.  The viewer or the reader has to participate more than if everything is fully stated.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Figure Drawing on the Run

What have I been doing for a month?  Well…. first there was a Saturday figure drawing workshop by Heather Clements at Studio b., followed by the regular Wednesday night figure drawing session, a trip to Chattanooga with two friends to do a 6-mile stand-up paddle race, and then the opening of Studio b.’s “Figure It Out” figurative art show, and this week, helping receive the art for the upcoming figurative show presented by the A+Art Committee of the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County at the South Walton campus of Northwest Florida State College, then another regular Wednesday night figure drawing session, and today, the orientation meeting for my upcoming service on the CAA board, meanwhile trying to maintain my life routines and keep up with my “day job” (my businesses)…  it’s been a little hectic lately.  I’ve tried not to sacrifice anything, until this week when I absolutely had to give up my morning workouts to gain another couple of hours every day.  I managed to get in a little creekside hike with a couple of friends last Saturday, a yoga session at Balance Health Studio and a glass of juice at Raw and Juicy with another friend on Sunday.  I missed my Monday night meditation group meeting because I’m sitting the gallery at Studio b. every evening this week.  So, you see, it’s been crazy-busy lately.  I don’t like to be this busy.  Even during quiet moments at the gallery, I’m catching up on some business work, except tonight when I’m evaluating my life while I blog about it.  But I guess you can tell, figure drawing would be the last thing I would give up.  I think that’s how it is for figurative artists.  As I look at all the drawings and paintings here at Studio b. for this show, I am realizing that all of the artists represented are compelled to draw.  We draw for the sheer pleasure of it.  We pay a small fee to be here, and we pay the model with tips, and we collect our own art — mine is stacked high on a shelf in my house, with only a few pieces framed and hanging.  It actually was a pleasant surprise to me when pieces started selling out of the show.  Below are the drawings that sold on opening night.

18 x 24 14 x 24 14 x 20 18 x 24

Here are a couple of photos from opening night.  The atmosphere was casual and friendly.  In one gallery Colleen Duffley, owner of Studio b., had hired a model and set up easels and supplies for the guests to try their hand at figure drawing, and several did try!

You might notice that I draw in many different styles.  Supposedly an accomplished artist becomes recognizable by their style.  If that is the case, my work might never be recognizably mine, because I like to approach the figure differently almost every time I draw.  Of  course, the usual challenges remain, due to the time constraints of any given pose, so there may be proportional problems, like the drawing at left that I made a couple of weeks ago, where I think I made the head a good bit larger than it really was, in proportion to the rest of the figure.  This week I focused on what may become my style, because I like the quality of the expression — it feels comfortable, it feels like “me”.  The drawings below are from last night’s session, and my favorite is the last drawing.  Click on any of the drawings for a larger view.

“Sitting with One Foot Tucked” is available for purchase! Click the painting for more info.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Changing Perspective in Figure Drawing

Our model this week at Studio b.‘s regular weekly figure drawing session stood on a ladder during the warm-up drawings and the shorter warm-up poses, and she also posed up on a table.  Usually our model is on a short platform or even on the floor, so this change in perspective was a rare treat.  I enjoyed the challenge of drawing from a lower vantage point.  Every shape was different from how we normally see our model.  To add to the challenge, we positioned a floodlight to light her from below.

The model brought a hat, a mask, and a necklace to give us some accents.

I used some different media to loosen up from the intense figure drawing workshop Heather Clements taught last Saturday at Studio b.  I had not sketched since Saturday, and I felt like I had really tightened up, hence my decision to use less familiar media, to force myself to “let go”.  Interesztingly, I think my most successful piece of the evening was one of these looser pieces, using water-soluble Aquarelle pencil on hot press watercolor paper, the study of the model wearing the mask, above left.  It is small, only 4½” x 6″.

I throw away almost all of my warm-up drawings.  Colleen Duffley, owner of Studio b., suggested saving more gestures, explaining to me that some people have more appreciation for anonymous gestures than for finished drawings of a model they don’t know.  This poses a dilemma.  I do so many warm-up drawings, or gestures, that I always use an inferior grade of paper, for the sake of economy.  Newsprint and manilla paper costs just pennies, as opposed to good paper which can run from $1.65 to $3.50 per sheet, and upwards.  So the few times that a warm-up drawing turns out to be a keeper, its value is compromised because of the poor quality of paper.  It can be redrawn on archival paper, but that is a challenging task because the immediacy of expression, the passion, will be difficult to recreate.  So I decided to bring a tablet of 18 x 24 Canson Cream that I had bought a good 6 months ago, and I did all of my warm-up drawings on good paper.  I missed the rough texture, or “tooth” of the manilla and gray bogus papers I usually warm up on — the tablet of good paper is very smooth.

Below left is one of my warm-up drawings, a 5 minute pose, and the other two are longer poses on Stonehenge and Rives.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Drawing a Clothed Model

Figure drawing artists usually work exclusively from nude models.  But this week at Studio b., I had the good fortune of being the only artist.  So I had my choice.  Interestingly, the model had brought tennis gear, and was planning to use it in during the warm-up drawings — he thought we might like the added purposeful action.  So I asked him to wear the tennis clothes and keep the racket nearby for the entire session.

It’s so much easier drawing a clothed model.  I can draw the clothing with an extra wrinkle here or there and no one is the wiser.  You can’t do that with a nude figure without it becoming grotesque.

The model sat for me for 30 minutes for the drawing at left, and we took a short break, and then he sat for me for another 15 minutes.  I like this drawing.  I drew the white with Nupastel and the dark values with graphite, on gray Stonehenge.

The drawings below are two of the warm-up gestures, the second one obviously a longer pose than the first, and the third is the top part of the last drawing of the evening.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Two Steps Forward in Figure Drawing

Click to see much larger image.

I am a better artist.  I drew more like I want to draw, at the weekly figure drawing session at Studio b. last night.  It’s nice to have a night when drawing comes easily.  Well, it’s still work, I have to remember to breathe.  One of the other artists commented that she could hear me taking big breaths — I hope I am not too distracting to the others!

I am powerful.  I attended I Can Do It – Toronto 2011, last weekend.  The conference featured a number of authors published by HayHouse, including Louise Hay herself, Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, and many others.  As is typical for me when I am going away even if for just a few days, I felt compelled to complete all the tasks I had been putting off for months.  So the morning I flew to Toronto, I had gotten only a couple of hours of sleep the night before, which probably made me particularly susceptible to suggestion.  That, in combination with the charismatic, perhaps even hypnotic speakers, left me supremely empowered upon my return.  I am drawing better, and I am guessing the conference is a factor.

We had uninstructed open studio at Studio b. this week, warming up with a number of 1-minute and 2-minute poses, and then some that were a little longer.  We finished with two 25-minute poses and then our last pose was 15 minutes.  My drawing of the last pose is at lower left.  Click on it to see much larger detail.

My drawings were successful not necessarily because of anatomical correctness or portraiture, but because they are believable, effectively communicating what I feel was the essence of the model in her pose at the time that I was drawing her.  In particular, the pose seated on a folding chair caught the complete relaxation of the figure, especially the slight paunch of relaxed stomach muscles.

In the drawing of the clothed model, the portraiture is not a likeness, but I like the textures of pencil strokes and I also like the play of the darks and lights leading the eye through the picture.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Carving the Void: Negative Shapes

The model who posed for our figure drawing session at Studio b. last week returned this week.  For the past four months, we’ve had a different model nearly every session.  That has added to the challenge in that every week we have to become familiar with a different body type or different proportions.  Having the same model two weeks in a row was a luxury.

Our instructor, Heather Clements, provided a focus for us, suggesting that we run the drawing off the page, effectively cropping it in order to create negative shapes out of the negative space.  Often in the rush of trying to get the figure drawn as quickly as possible before the timed pose ends, the background, if treated at all, is merely an afterthought.  By drawing the figure so that parts of it intersect with the edge of the page, it no longer floats on the page, but instead becomes anchored.  The negative space, the space surrounding the figure, is then broken up so that it becomes negative shapes instead of just open space.  Negative shapes help the piece to read as a composition.  Art imitating life, carving the larger voids into smaller pieces makes it more manageable.

A good mat and frame can help with cropping, but it is better for the artist to have made those decisions instead of leaving it up to the framer.

The sketches included here are from this week’s session.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Working With Other Artists

It is different when working in a studio setting with other artists, as opposed to working by myself in my own home studio.  There is no doubt that sometimes being alone is the best way to get work done.  But the comaraderie of being with other artists, all working under the same conditions, provides an energy and inspiration that helps me to go farther and do more in a shorter period of time than I ever would working alone.

That certainly was the case at the figure drawing session at Studio b. this week.  I was struggling, and would have quit halfway through the session if I was drawing alone.  Each pose presented new challenges for me, mostly because the model was standing or sitting on a swing by the pool, requiring each pose to fit within a geometric space bordered by the swing and the ropes.

I think that all of the drawings that I did have potential, but I don’t feel that I did justice to the model’s beauty and fitness.  Yet there is an expressive quality to each that I recognize as true.

I have decided that even though I love the texture, I don’t like charcoal paper because it wrinkles and dents very easily.  So I intend to use my stock of charcoal paper for warm-up drawings and gestures.  The first drawing is on black charcoal paper.  The rest are on Stonehenge paper, which is heavy enough that it can take quite a bit of handling without wrinkling.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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The Joy of Drawing

When I am figure drawing, I am an artist without a message.  I’m not trying to tell you anything.  I just draw because I enjoy drawing.  Well, maybe it’s a compulsion, because sometimes I have to admit, it’s a little uncomfortable, frustrating, and at times perhaps even painful.  But for the most part, the challenge of figure drawing is in the mastery, being able to portray what I see, or what I think I see.  By practicing every week, I am becoming more confident.

The drawing I am posting here was difficult because the facial features look very different when a figure is reclining than they do when the figure is upright.  I think that the portrait class I finished taking last week helped me a lot.  I will need to continue to practice heads and faces in different positions and attitudes.  I still feel hesitant with faces, and I still spend a lot of time guessing, but my guesses seem more accurate now.

This drawing was made with a graphite pencil on Stonehenge paper.  I drew it at the regular Wednesday night session of Figure Drawing at Studio b., in Alys Beach, FL.  Heather Clements is the instructor.

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Figure Drawing: Tension vs. Relaxation

Sometimes I am bone tired when I get to my regular weekly figure drawing session after a full day of work.  Last night was like that.  But it never fails, after the first half hour of drawing, I am energized again.  Is it me?  Is it being in the good company of other like-minded artists, like Betty Cork and Steve Wagner and Heather Clements?  Is it the amazing creative atmosphere of Colleen Duffley‘s  Studio b.?  All of the above, I suppose, plus a model who is invested in the process, who works hard for us, as all of our models do.

After the usual series of warm-up gestures from 30-seconds to a few minutes, figure drawing instructor Heather Clements suggested that we focus on where the figure was showing tension, and where it was showing relaxation, and to draw the two aspects differently, perhaps exaggerating the contrast between the two.  She suggested that the parts of the figure under tension might be drawn with straighter, shorter lines and more angular shapes, with more abrupt changes in quality and direction, while the more relaxed parts would be smoother, with longer lines and less angular shapes.  I can’t say that my drawings actually show that intention, but I was trying to be conscious of it as I drew.  As always when I am learning something new, I will have to sit down and do some practice drawings, thinking about it non-stop, in order for it to become habit.

I have posted some of my gestures and drawings from throughout the evening.  Nupastel and graphite are still my favorite media.  A close floodlight, positioned low, put strong highlights and dark cast-shadows on the model.
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Figure Drawing with Props: Fear of Rejection

Sometimes a model will bring props, which can imbue something completely different in the drawing.  The model in my drawings shown here brought cuffs and a collar, which introduces a sexual component to the poses.  For me, the image in my mind’s eye changed from nude to naked, and the atmosphere felt a little dangerous, and I wondered whether I should be asking what the “safe” word was, just in case!

Then I got busy and started drawing.  I drew the seated pose on the left using Stabilo water-soluble pencils, putting just a touch of red in her hair and on her nipples to increase the sensationalism.  For the same reason, I chose to use red paper for the drawing on the right, which was made with white Nupastel and graphite.  The color red can heighten the viewer’s emotional or subconscious reaction.

These poses were made sexual by the props, and while drawing them I realized realized how very conservative I am with my art.  Art history was one of my areas of emphasis for my degree, so I have seen plenty of art.  I have seen outright obvious sexuality in art, both in classical work and contemporary.  I always considered myself to be fairly accepting and open-minded towards other artists’ work, but when it came to me myself drawing a subject a little bit outside the boundaries of my own vanilla experience, I had to face my fear of rejection.  After all, Victorian propriety is ingrained in our culture.

While some artists intend to offend, I mean no offense with my drawings.   But I know that figure drawing as a genre does not have universal appeal.   Some segments of our society are very sensitive about the human figure.  Some cultures are averse to making representational images of people, feeling that it steals the soul.  Others may view the human body as something shameful, instead of a thing of beauty.  I have worked around swimming pools my entire life, so I am fairly comfortable being around people with very little clothing on, or none.  The human form interests me as nothing else does.  I would never be able to spend this much time drawing tree after tree after tree, for example — I would die of boredom.  The figure remains ever interesting to me.

But I remember when I was a young adult, proudly showing off one of my drawings that was accepted into a juried art show at the university I was attending, and having a family member remark that it was “obscene, that I should be ashamed.”  I was first of all aghast at the bad manners, but secondly, I felt pity for my critic, because that particular drawing had no gender or sexuality at all, and the figure was neither clothed nor unclothed.  My teacher told me it was selected by the juror because of  the sheer force of expression, and not for any technical merit.   Nevertheless, for that family member, it evoked shame.

One of my friends often says “Observe and detach”, and I think that’s good advice when seeing something that is outside of our immediate construct, when our tendency is to judge it for being different, or to judge ourselves for paying any attention to it.