In lifedrawing, aka figure drawing, we normally start out doing gesture poses.  The traditional gesture pose is 1 minute, but I've done everything from a 5 second to a 5 minute.  Does 5 minutes count as a gesture?  It's hard to know where to draw the line between a gesture and a sketch.
Doing portrait gestures is an extremely valuable exercise.  Drawing the one-minute face, the three-minute, the five-minute.  The seven minute, which is definitely moving into being a sketch, not a gesture drawing.  Then moving on to a longer time.
Here are examples from yesterday.

First, the one minute face.  Done on my iPad, using the ArtRage app.  I routinely put about 75% of my gesture drawings in recycling, keeping the ones I like for reference.  Using the iPad instead  saves on paper.  Goodness  knows, just making the device left a big carbon footprint.  I need to do what I can to offset that.  Besides, how many pieces of paper can I have in my house before someone calls the fire marshall?

Here is the three minute face.  There's a little bit of a likeness beginning to form.  Again, done on iPad.

The five minute face.  Again on the iPad.  I managed to start bringing in some  lights and darks.  

The thirty minute face.  I returned to traditional media for the longer piece.  This is charcoal and pastel on Ampersand pastelboard.  I enjoy seeing the progression.  I had not drawn Jodie G. in a very long time.  The likeness is not quite there yet.  I need to draw her several more times before a true likeness emerges.

I can draw a recognizable image of my husband without him being anywhere nearby.  We've been married 33 years.  Remember the song from My Fair Lady?  "I've grown accustomed to her face...."  Or, in this case, to his face.

Doing artwork on the iPad has been both frustrating and rewarding.  Why frustrating?  I have been in a comfortable rut with charcoal and pastel on Kraft paper for awhile.  And doing charcoal gesture drawings on printer paper.  I've received a lot of positive feedback on those works.  So, I'm impatient with the learning curve of the iPad.  I want to be just as skilled with it as I am with more traditional media.  The tactile sensation is nothing like drawing with charcoal on paper.  The tools provided by the app simulate oil painting, watercolors, pen, pencil, crayon, etc.  But, it doesn't act exactly the same. 

But. learning new skills is inherently rewarding.  It's like solving a puzzle.  I'm convinced that what we call self-esteem comes, in part, from mastery.  The other component is unconditional love, but that's a different blog.

The iPad offers some interesting possibilities.  I took a picture of a drawing that I gave away to the model.  Taking a picture indoors with my iPhone camera produced a very blurry image.  So, in iPhoto, I straightened and cropped the image, then uploaded it to the iPad.  Brought up the ArtRage app, and started working on the image.  Here is the progression:

Here is the first blurry photo.














Then, straightened and cropped:

And, then, after some time playing around with ArtRage.  

Is it better?  Worse?  Or, just different.  The original drawing was a three-minute pose, if I recall correctly.  Gesture drawings have a great feeling of energy.  The ArtRage version looks more like an illustration, I think.  I hope some of the energy remains.

The model still has the original drawing.  The iPad offers the possibility of manipulating the original image many, many times over, without in any way altering the original piece.  So, if I liked the original charcoal on printer paper piece, the wonderful thing is: it is still there, unchanged.  Unless, of course, the model smeared the charcoal.  Pretty cool.

What is "field sketching"?  Well, sketching out in the field is an obvious answer.  Scientists do field sketches outdoors -- biologists, botanists, geologists, for example.  Even a drawing of cellular structures, done while looking thru a microscope,  could be considered a field sketch.  For the fine artist, field sketching is different from plein air painting (which I discussed in a previous blog).  When I am at a coffee shop and do a surreptitious drawing of a patron, who is hunched over a book or looking at email on a laptop, I call that field sketching.  Here is one from yesterday.  I was at Roasters in Cedar Park, my favorite coffee shop, with my iPad.  Seeing a young man studying, I did this drawing of him. 

I used the ArtRage app on my iPad.  The iPad is particularly suited for surreptitious sketching.  If I have a sketchbook and art supplies with me, it's pretty obvious what I'm doing.  With the iPad, I just look like I'm checking email or working on something.  Well, I am working on something.  This young man was still much longer than the average bear.  He seemed very intent.  He moved around a bit, but seemed to settle back in the same position.

Here is an etiquette question.  Should I ask permission before I sketch someone?  With photography, the answer is more obvious, I think.    If I ask permission, and the person agrees, he becomes, for that short time, a model.  He may be uncomfortable, wooden.  Professional models are used to the intense focus of the artist's eyes.  Other people find it unnerving.  Staring at someone is extremely confrontational. Even a loving gaze will become strange if it lingers too long in one spot.

Still, some artists do ask.  I don't, usually.

Great artists throughout history have done field sketches.  One famous example, by Leonardo da Vinci:

Public executions being a festive affair, da Vinci attended the hanging of murderer Bernardo di Bandino Baroncelli, who had been part of the conspiracy to overthrow the Medici family's rule of Florence.  I doubt Leonardo asked Bernardo's permission to do the sketch.

In his notes, da Vinci described the clothing: "A tan colored skull-cap, a doublet of black serge, a black jerkin, lined and the collar covered with a black and red stippled velvet. A blue coat lined with fur of fox's breasts.  Black hose.  Bernardo di Bandino Baroncelli."  If your kid plays the video game Assassin's Creek II, ask him about Bernardo.  


Another famous field sketcher was sculptor Henry Moore, whose "Shelter" series of drawings documents the experience of hiding in the "Tube" (the subway) during bombing of the London in World War II.    Moore is best known for his huge sculptures.  See a fine example of one of his sketches below:

I could give lots of examples, but will stop here.  

Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote: "O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us."  Which, being translated, means: "O would some power give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us."  An unsettling thought, isn't it?

Here are drawings by several artists using me as the subject.  Sometimes a model doesn't show up for one of the lifedrawing sessions that I run.  I start frantically texting models, and then I pose.  In deference to my husband, who would pop an artery if he learned I modeled nude, I pose in at least bike tights and a sports bra.  

This drawing is by John Shepherd.  I consider him an exceptionally skilled draughtsman. Here he shows me in profile, wearing a vintage fox fur jacket and fur hat on a cold winter day. 

Theresa Bayer drew this piece the same day.  I enjoy her work for its whimsy, as well as for its expressiveness and composition.  Her drawings are always lovely.

Last November we lost one of the dearest members of our group.  Elizabeth (Betty) Reifsnyder was in her early 80's.  On this day, I was indeed wearing the bike tights and sports bra.  Which, she freely ignored.  This drawing has a nice mid-century feeling.  I had the privilege of putting together a small exhibit of her work for her memorial service.  What a revelation to see many, many years of work.  Such an immense talent.  And, she was a pip, as they used to say, back in the day.  An amazing life.

Betty did this drawing at least a year later than the one above.  Alas, she didn't realize it yet, but she was ill with cancer.  I believe she did this drawing in late summer.  She was gone before Thanksgiving.  I miss her.














Below, see a drawing by Terence Greider, Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas. Terry is an expert in pre-Columbian art and has written several books.  I have drawn with him for several years, now.  One day, when I was posing, he said, "You look like a teenager!"  

Revi Micler painted this expressive portrait of me on one of those no-show model days.  I love the lively energy of her line.  The feeling of spontaneity with the human form. This image had a sense of poignancy for me.  I seem uncertain as I gaze to the side.  What is over there?

Heather Joy Thomas attends my group regularly.  Here, a gesture drawing.  I always think the gestures are the best part of the day.

Okay, don't be too impressed.  I did this on animoto.com,  a "plug and chug" site.  They provide the canned format.  I used the free version.  But, you can upgrade, if you want to spend some money.  I am still pondering the idea.

So, here is the video:
http://animoto.com/play/CydiMBcesJdK0dZexBfpQw


And, here is my latest iPad drawing, using the ArtRage app:

Ever looked at an Old Master portrait painting and thought the sitter looked jaundiced?  There is a reason.  It's called varnish.  Over time, the varnish yellows.  A Lot.  Removing the varnish is a highly skilled procedure, with risks to the art work.  Is the risk worth it?  Possible irreparable damage vs. seeing the painting as it was meant to be?

Giorgio Vasari, in his book Lives of the, Sculptors, Architects (Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori),   Most Eminent Painters, published in 1550, describes the Mona Lisa:

In this head, whoever wished to see how closely art could imitate nature, was able to comprehend it with ease; for in it were counterfeited all the minutenesses that with subtlety are able to be painted, seeing that the eyes had that lustre and watery sheen which are always seen in life, and around them were all those rosy and pearly tints, as well as the lashes, which cannot be represented without the greatest subtlety. The eyebrows, through his having shown the manner in which the hairs spring from the flesh, here more close and here more scanty, and curve according to the pores of the skin, could not be more natural. The nose, with its beautiful nostrils, rosy and tender, appeared to be alive. The mouth, with its opening, and with its ends united by the red of the lips to the flesh-tints of the face, seemed, in truth, to be not colours but flesh. In the pit of the throat, if one gazed upon it intently, could be seen the beating of the pulse. And, indeed, it may be said that it was painted in such a manner as to make every valiant craftsman, be he who he may, tremble and lose heart. He made use, also, of this device: Mona Lisa being very beautiful, he always employed, while he was painting her portrait, persons to play or sing, and jesters, who might make her remain merry, in order to take away that melancholy which painters are often wont to give to the portraits that they paint. And in this work of Leonardo's there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold; and it was held to be something marvellous, since the reality was not more alive.

So, let's look at the always enigmatic Mona Lisa, as she is today.  At least, as close as the computer monitor can reproduce the color.

Rosy?  Pearly?  The red of the lips?  The yellowed varnish has muddied the colors, hasn't it?
Now, lets look at one possible version of how she would look with the varnish removed and the color restored.

Quite a difference.  


So, would it be worth it to strip off the varnish? Do a complete cleaning, as was done with the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (and, boy, what an uproar that caused!)?  The painting has already been thru a lot, besides the toll of 500 years.  There have been past cleanings, revarnishings, touch ups (in 1809, 1913).  In 1956, a vandal threw acid on the lower half of the painting, which required years of restoration.  Later that year, another vandal threw a rock at it!  This chipped off a speck of pigment, which was painted over during the restoration.  Now, Mona Lisa is behind bullet-proof glass.  

The Louvre absolutely refuses to consider any kind of restoration work, now or in the future.  Would you dare try to work on a painting valued at more than half a billion dollars?  My hands start shaking at the very thought.