More provocative anagrams at 'exreme poses'

I was interested to find out whether, after my reflective posting (I feel a philosophy coming on) I would shoot off in a completely new direction. Sometimes in the past when I have been through a similar reflective process or come to some sort of conclusion about what I was doing then this has happened. In other words I have sort of developed 'a plan of work', but then found that when I enter the next life-drawing session so many variables are different that I do shoot off in an unexpected direction. However, yesterday I found that my interest in pursuing my described 'philosophy' was intensified. I was fascinated by the processes that emerged. Looking at the drawings I feel they do take a further step into something different. More reflection on what this difference might be will be forthcoming when I have journeyed a bit further.

I feel a philosophy coming on

My art is 'life-drawing'.
My subject is the 'dialogue' between myself and the human form.
The human form is represented by the naked body of the professional model.
The dialogue (in its most effective and purest form) is the 'discussion' between my feelings and the human form, and which is explored and finds expression in the processes of making the drawing.
The discussion can be externalised for example during periods of reflection when I post my drawings on this blog, or when talking to fellow life-drawing artists.
The discussion (I would claim) is also a 'sub-conscious process' held within myself during the life-drawing activity (this is when it becomes a meditative act and consequently a therapeutic act).
It is probable that the depth and quality of the sub-conscious discussion is heightened by the way I draw........a whole body, whole mind activity.......two-hands mark-making simultaneously so bringing in both sides of the brain, and me standing at easel moving back and forth.

I am enthralled by what is happening in my art. It is as though a power is driving my journey, and I believe this power may be found within the journey itself.

Looks like I'm in a 'period of reflection'. And this one has been going on for a few weeks now. During this, I have been searching for a language to describe my (current) art. It's beginning to feel like the emergence of a philosophy, and there is even the danger of a 'set of rules' being generated. Yet it may be a good thing to define a set of rules because I actually try to follow Helen Frankenthaler who said "There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs hapen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about". I believe this includes going against your own rules, or being able to ignore that which you have planed to do.

So what, at this moment in time in my life-drawing journey, do I reckon to be the attributes of the philosophy?
     My art is an act of 'provocation'.........it prokes in me a journey of discovery.........it provokes in the beholder a need to look twice, to participate , to interpret.
     The 'anagram' is a principle vehicle to start the process off..........the human form is viewed as a sentence whose words can be deconstructed and rearranged to create a new meaning. The reconstituted form reflects the artist. "Painting is self discovery. Every artist paints who he is" (Jackson Pollock).
     Ambiguity and illusion, requiring interpretation, are outcomes of the process.
     At its best there is movement within the newly constructed spatial organisation

Now, here are four drawings from the past few days which I feel encapsulate the essential attributes of 'my current philosophy'.

Three different responses to the quick pose

Three different responses, three different models, three different sessions. Here are Liv, Sally and Kate (in that order below) who may each have had a part to play in how I responded to them, but there are many other variables. For example, with the second drawing, of Sally, I particularly felt that my anagram approach was what I wanted to follow, and in each of her three poses there was a specific aspect which attracted me and which I had a feeling for and which I just had to start exploring on the paper. Issues of overall composition also play a part. Then there is another of my current recurring pre-occupations which is juxtaposing a tonal mark-making technique with a linear mark-making technique.

Drawing Nos 5 from the previous posting

This is the fifth and the last of the drawings of Natalie from Extreme Poses in Stroud April 21st (previous posting) which I failed to call up for some reason. Or perhaps my tablet was telling me that this fifth drawing does not measure up to the qualities of the other four, and is not worth publishing. I tend to agree. It is less clear what is hapening. The legs and bottom have got lost behind the overpowering upper part of the body. However, a click on the image will access a closer inspection of the mark-making, which I think is worth a look at.

Unmistakably Natalie at 'Extreme Poses'

One remembers each model for their individual and special anotomical characteristics and their particular way of posing which is not repeated by other models. The tilt of  Natalie's head, her dangling hands, long fingers, suspended legs leading to dipping feet, are just a few of her own virtues. So, this morning, no need to think about 'what' and 'how' to draw. And everything seemed to fall into place: composition, strength of line when appropriate, certain parts of the pose demanding to be selected. With each pose no hesitation.
This is the order I did them in. All are 30 minute poses. Two-handed graphite pencil on A1 220gsm cartridge paper, with some tinted charcoal tonal additions. I am at Paul Fowler's 'Extreme Poses' at Pegasus Arts in Stroud.

My life-drawing journey is characterised by constant evolutionary steps.

Yes! 'Paths are made by walking'.
I have experimented with, and added to my current palette, tinted charcoal. Ages ago I used tinted charcoal pencils but didn't find them exciting enough. They come in a range of 'quiet' colours and you can move the marks around with a tissue or a finger. Chunky blocks of tinted charcoal are different. They allow you to apply across the paper a swathe of pigment which can be caressed with a tissue or the finger. A tissue tends to pick up the charcoal granuals and leave a lighter deposit whereas the finger seems to press the granuals into the texture of the paper and results in a darker outcome. Both are appropriate.  Whichever one uses the result has something of an appearance of a water colour wash. I find the greatest value to be in the transparency of this material. Earlier pencil marks can still be seen. And another advantage is that one can draw in pencil/graphite on the surface. As a material and a techique I find tinted charcoal amazingly liberating.
Below are two drawings in which I have utilised tinted charcoal blocks. The first, posted earlier, is from Paul Fowler's 'extreme poses' in Stroud on April 14th with the model Natalie. The second is from Angela Palmer's Tuesday class on April 19th with the model Liv. My reconstruction of the deconstructed pose has at times in the past resulted in a strange morphist result in which I have felt the parts need to have some help in giving them an identity. Using the colour to help differentiate each part is a new step. I like what is happening!

More on 'the anagram' process

The first drawing fulfills my 'anagram' criteria, however the second is more like a study of parts of a pose, and is not provocative in any way. I felt this as I compiled the drawing, I was not excited by what was happening during the construction of the drawing. In my judgement the first provokes: a) it should provoke in the beholder questions about what the original pose actually is, and b) it certainly provoked in me (during the making of the drawing) a closer examination of each part, and also stimulated thoughts of where this process might take me.

The quickie gesture poses: a new response.

The first drawing is representative of my usual response to the 3 or 4 quick poses which are set up at life-drawing classes in the belief that people need 'warming up' prior to a single or a number of longer poses in the remainder of the session. I have explored the potential of placing all poses on the same sheet and often a narrative will emerge to which the later poses will extend. Here, below, there is no narrative, and the fourth pose the seated one high on the sheet does not relate to the other three. This was on Monday evening, Aptil 18th.
Then at Brockweir at Angela Palmer's class I decided to do something different. Rather than attempting to hurriedly draw each whole pose in the 5 or so minutes available, I deliberately selected a part of each pose, I.e. the part that immediately attracted my attention, and slowly and minimally committed myself to extracting the essence of that part. Obviously,  the composition was considered as the process unfolded.
This process has strong parallels with my 'anagram' approach, which I have been describing in my recent postings.

I want to declare an interest in the art class

There is continual stimulation and shared support every week in the life-drawing class.

I want to declare my interest in the art of Nicholai Fechin

Such sensitivity.

I want to declare my interest in the art of Dino Valls

To begin with it looks normal.
Then you realise something strange is taking place.
Then you look again, and again, and again.
Then you work it out.

I want to declare my interest in the art of Hans Breder

He places mirrors to extend engagement with the human body.

The purpose of my art is to provoke............

................and currently the anagram is at the core of my provokation. 
In recently introducing into my blog the applicability and relevance of the anagram to the way I had been perceiving and drawing the human body I referred to Hans Bellmer's quote "The anagram is the key to all my work" (the body is like a sentence that invites dissection in order that its true meaning may be gleaned through the act of reconstruction). The reconstructed body then becomes a powerful reflection of the artist.
So for the time being I am going along with this idea that the purpose of my art is to provoke: (I) to provoke in me a continuation of my lfe-drawing journey of discovery, and (ii) to provoke in the beholder a requirement/desire to look twice, to interpretate, to participate.............
Last evening, I came across a paper by Phillippe Garner (2015) in L'Oeil de la Photographie about the work of Hans Breder, and here are a few phrases from the paper which I find helpful to describe the content of my provocation:
     ambiguity and interpretation
     teasing the viewers perceptions
     reality and illusion
     a two-dimensional riddle that challenges our eye and our reasoning.
I'd like you to relate these to this morning's five drawings posted below. I believe they apply.

The drawings are displayed in the order produced. 30 minute poses. Drawn on A1 220gsm cartridge paper. A graphite pencil in each hand mark-making simultaneously. Four layers of mark-making using hard, medium then soft graphite, the finally tonal mark-making using tinted charcoal caressed across the surface with a tissue or my finger. Towards the end I returned with an 8B graphite pencil to focus on a few points of emphasis.

What to call this next step?

The same pose as last Tuesday April 5th, and I decided to give some additional attention to the two drawings from that morning. I had an idea to pursue my recently emerged  'anagram' approach but this time I elected to add to each drawing not bits and pieces from the remainder of the body but the whole pose. I ended up in each drawing with the following three characteristics:
two perceptions of the pose,
two mark-making techniques, and
two scales.
There occurs a kind of morphism.
This can be created by my deliberate physical juxtaposing of the two perceptions as in the second drawing below. Here the second perception is placed on top of and overlaps the original perception: they fuse together, integrate.
Or, the morphism occurs more 'in the mind of the beholder' as in the first drawing. Here  the full body is placed behind the original tonal perception of the legs. Butt what was brought to my attention by colleagues this morning is that the figure at the back appears to have her right arm around the legs of the figure in front, or is she simply embracing her own legs.
What I am aiming for in this type of life-drawing process is to create a challenge for the beholder to understand the pose, but more significantly to ask if the outcome indicates or reveals something of the feelings and perceptions of the artist. However, at the end of the day the bottom line is 'I am enjoying myself' and my personal objective is to make my life-drawing journey worth travelling. To take the 'journey' metaphor further, I keep finding myself in new territories, and I believe they are principally of my own making.

The lady in blue

Katie kept her robe on for the first of her four quick poses at the start of this morning's session.

Artist becomes model becomes exhibit

In my posting 'Who'd be a model' of March 15th I included portraits of me by members of Angela Palmer's Tuesday class. I explained how I became a model for an hour. Bryony Jordan has since done further work on her charcoal drawing and placed it in the exhibition at Taurus Crafts which I have just described in my previous posting. Also Kathy Lowe whose portraiture my be seen on her blog at  www.kathyloweartwork.blogspot.co.uk   is currently exploring my head from some selfies she recently requested. Here below is her first to go public and is in the exhibition.

It is a strange and bizarre, yet fulfilling experience to gain an insight into how others see you. I am enjoying both. To me they each say someting different about me (I could go on, and analyse my reactions, but I won't. I'll just enjoy, and thank them both).

Exhibition April 2016

'Life as we see it' is an exhibition of paintings and drawings of the human figure by artists who attend life classes run by Angela Palmer in Brockweir in the Wye Valley. It is held in the Taurus Crafts Function Room from April 12th to 24th, with a preview by invitation on Saturday April 16th 2.00pm to 4.00pm.
Difficult to select appropriate pieces for this particular venue and 'cultural' location as much of my recent work tends towards the 'abstract' with some considered as touching the 'erotic'. So I have been somewhat conservative in the two I finally chose.
The first is from 'extreme poses' at Stroud from the 3 day double-model session last year when Robin and Natalie rested for a short pose in between the more challenging and longer 30 minute poses up in the ropes. I am particularly pleased with this drawing as I recall there was no hesitation on my part, I just went for it with a series of minimilist and confident lines. No hesitation because it was obvious what to do, it was obvious what the attraction was, it was obvious to me how I was warmly reacting to what I was beholding. For the exhibition I titled this 'Intimacy'. To some this drawing may be touching the erotic (I find this whole issue of what becomes erotic for some but simply art for others to be an unnecessary imposition me and on my journey as a student of drawing the human figure, particularly  as I have derived intellectual and artistic stimulation from the drawings of the female nude by such people as Rodin, Schiele, Bellmer, to name only three).
The other drawing is also from last year and is also a real favourite of mine. Again, as with Robin and Natalie, with Liv over the years there has developed a friendly and professional relationship between regular artists and these regular models. I have referred on several occasions in this blog to the significance and the importance of this special dialogue between artist and model, one outcome of which is that the artist moves beyond 'drawing the model as object' into a state of mind which allows the drawing to become an 'expression of feeling'. I recall also my initial thoughts at the start of this drawing which principally focussed on the issue of 'composition' and how I felt I wanted to anchor the drawing to the left side of the paper. For the exhibition I titled this 'The space beyond'.

Model and artist: a joint venture

Our model Katie now knows how I like to compose a relationship on the paper between her quick, 5 minute poses at the start of the morning. This is what I now believe. Why else would she start sitting and looking to her left. Then turning about and sitting looking to her right. Then standing facing me, and finally turning her back on me. She clearly had in mind a spatial composition which she then enacted. Thanks Katie!

"And your very flesh shall be a great poem" Walt Whitman

A much slower drawing than is usual. Carefully held back, desperately needing to stop before I went too far. Four stages of two-handed mark-making. Firstly, two hardish pencils to explore the basic forms, then two medium pencils to focus in on the main elements, then two soft leads to emphasis key points along the journey of the composition. Fourthly some light tone from a block of tinted charcoal caressed across the paper with the tips of my fingers. Finally a return with the 8B/9B to bring out a little more those points of emphasis.

Are there boundaries to the anagram?

I have talked recently of the role of anagram in my life-drawing journey, I.e. reconstructing parts of a pose in a new spatial arrangement. This morning I selected the legs and then brought them closer together in the drawing. Also they are drawn at a slightly different scale. In using tonal mark-making they morphed together and became an organic whole.
I am reminded of a two-handed pencil drawing from a few years ago in which I deliberately fused the parts into an organic whole. This was quite a different approach. So I include this early drawing to help me reflect on this approach.
There is an immediate aspect which has arisen: more than one colleague this morning expressed a certain feeling of discomfort when viewing the leg drawing. This raises the issue of whether there is, or should be, a threshold of 'what is acceptable'. Could the model be upset by the distortion?  They also suggested that they needed to 'look twice' at the drawing in order to work out what the pose might be. I have said before that this is a benefit of my de-constructive approach.......one can't walk by and accept/dismiss the work with a fleeting glance.
Whilst I was drawing the legs I became increasingly aware that beyond the legs was a most beautiful poetry of forms which I became really anxious to explore. So this I did. A new A1 sheet of 220gsm virgin white cartridge paper recorded this exploration. See next posting headed with a quote from Walt Whitman.