Is the outcome greater than the sum of the parts?

These are the five drawings from Extreme Poses on May 19th which I intrduced in my previous posting. They represent five different responses to drawing a pose and present a sort of summary of some of my current preoccupations. But there is a constant, which is that in each case I have been attracted to more than one aspect of each pose and have then drawn each 'attraction' in a way that differentiates it from the other(s). I have decided not to analyse and describe here each process I went through with each pose and how each drawing emerged, but I will record, at this moment in time in this diary, that I feel that the 'mechanism' (if I can call it that without being too mechanical) which helped to deconstruct then reconstruct the human form, may be found and has been addressed in one way or another in earlier postings.
So what am I attempting to say? Probably no more than: I am on a journey, I am interested in my art, I am a student of both my art and my journey, I want to keep moving/evolving/making-steps/not-standing-still/discovering.

A relaxed and diverse morning

Here are my drawings from the five 30 minute poses this morning by the model Robin up in the ropes at Extreme Poses run by Paul Fowler. I agreed with Paul's comments to me that some interesting developments had emerged but I want to take time to consider these. So I will not enter into my usual posting of instant description and analysis but take time to reflect on the steps being indicated by these drawings in my life-drawing journey.
However, it is clear to me that I have responded to each pose in a different way. There are not five 'similar' responses, which is more usual. So I ask myself why this is. I intend to give some thought to this question. But I do feel that I have shown to myself that I can maintain evolutionary change in my art, which you may recall I was having some doubts about a week or so ago. It may be that today I opened up, suggested, initiated, provoked, within myself a number of future paths. We shall see. 

I intend to post these drawings individually in a day or so, with my observations.

Fulfillment 2

Like my life-drawing experience described in the previous posting I feel a further sense of fulfillment with this drawing of Andrea.
She is in the same pose as two weeks ago. Then I followed my 'anagram' approach and focussed on selected parts of the pose which I brought together in my drawing in a different spatial organisation. Upon reflection I felt that I did not do justice to the beautiful way she held and presented her body. In fact I felt that I had violated something rather special.
This feeling, this understanding, this self-criticism, this concern, came back to me time and time again over the past week or so. My drawings lie all over the place in my house, and every time I looked at this particular one I felt remedial action was essential. Not only to show myself that I could do better, by being more sensitive to the qualitative aspects of the pose, but to announce that I am capable of delivering a drawing which matches the quality of the pose and hence celebrates the attributes of the model.
I wanted to attach the upper part of pose to the edge of the paper (something I have extracted from my love of the works of Egon Schiele) and then to take the figure into the space of the paper. I decided that I would not distract or violate this simple form by adding or overlapping with other body parts. This was going to be, right from the start, a straightforward response to the pose as presented to me (in fact, I had decided to do a drawing of this pose, from the same location, well ahead. This is quite fascinating: usually, if one has a plan, as soon as one starts, the plan goes out of the window. Something is different, there are so many variables which can change to upset a pre-determined plan of work). But, this time, I stuck to my plan! And it was successful.

This is a two-handed drawing, using three layers of graphite pencils, with a fourth mark-making of Derwent tinted charcoal. Here I am using three colours. To start with I use a tissue to caress the pigment which lifts the courseness off the paper, and leaves a gentle wash of tone. Later I push with my finger the colour into the texture of the paper resulting in a darker and more intense tone. A little grease from my finger helps this effect.

Again, I am using 220gsm A1 white cartridge paper. And drawing is exclusively by 'two-pencil-bob'.

Fulfillment 1

Every so often I experience a satisfying and (I must admit) a rewarding sense of achievement. Last evening with Penny the model was one such occasion.  I have drawn Penny, and so have come to know Penny as a real friend, over about eight years or so. Each time, I engage with her not just as a model. I have written, in previous postings, about this amazing relationship that can emerge between model and artist, when a shared and participative engagement produces something special.
This may not be a top quality work of art, but in its making I believe I have celebrated Penny's unique character. The shapes of her thighs, the fullness of her bum, which then engages with the twist of her spine, these are all parts of the theatre of her pose.
The composition was started with the legs and feet in a 'line drawing'. This is what attracted me to start with. I then realised that I could not leave this drawing without bringing in, acknowledging,  and celebrating her buttocks and the body twist. This focus then became a preoccupation, to which I introduced my tinted charcoal tonal mark-making.

Skeleton to the rescue!

One of those, but glad to say infrequent, events when the model does not appear. A frantic phone call to another model, Paul the gardener, resulted in him putting his chainsaw away and legging it in to Stroud to arrive in the studio to give us two hours up in the ropes. In the meantime, the ever inventive Paul Fowler invited his skeleton to pose for us. This he did, then when Paul the model arrived he joined the skeleton to do a duet. After which we had Paul the model to ourselves.

John again.

Two postings ago I talked of John the model and his contribution to the doubts I was having about my life-drawing journey. Thanks to his insight and words of wisdom I am now fully recovered, and back travelling.
Here are my drawings of John from last Monday evening. Claudia obtained a tug-of-war rope which John did various things with.

Is it a myth? Is he a legend? Now, the revelation! Two-pencil-bob is a reality.

My postings since about October 2012 have revealed and discussed my two-handed-drawing. Yes I do use both hands, making marks simultaneously.  You will see here that currently this involves my graphite pencils being held at their ends so making them a true extension of my fingers at the extremities of my arms. I stand at my easel moving back and forth engaging my body and my mind in a kinetic process. In this very spatial and mobile activity I assume that both sides of my brain are called upon. If this is happening then from the left side I bring into play my 'logical, sequential, rational, analytical, objective , and looking at the parts' approach, and from the right side my 'random, intuitive, holistic, synthesizing, subjective, looking at wholes' approach.

Here she is again

Just come across a painting which has a figure who I am pleased to note gesturally resembles my middle drawing of Sally from April 26th 2016.  This is from Hermaphroditos and Salmacis by the Flemish artist Bartholomaus Spranger, 1880/82.

"Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, just remember how far you have come"

Last evening at life-drawing in Monmouth John the model gave me his update on my blog postings. He regularly takes a look, and commented on the doubts I had intimated by the heading in my latest posting. In fact I had written quite a full description of the 'period of doubt' I had been experiencing. Unfortunately, as I was completing the posting I inadvertently deleted the text. So I just left the heading with my latest drawings posted, and went to bed. What is the doubt in question? It has occurred before. Not very often. But when it does the essence of it is this: 'I've created something new, then I tend to repeat it, because I know it works, and next time it does work, but this inhibits my usual and continually evolving experimental process'. In fact, Paul Fowler my mentor at 'extreme poses' pointed this out to me last Thursday after he had observed a repetition (the two relevant drawings are included in my last posting and both started with a diagonal line being placed on the paper followed by me drawing the two parts of the pose which attracted me on either side of this line). Paul and I had a lengthy discussion around this recurring phenomena,  which both he and I had been conscious of before but had not shared a discussion about it.
Later that evening I became very upset, depressed and somewhat fell into a state of disillusion. How could I start up again? How was change to be initiated?
I looked back through my blog which is my life-drawing diary. Yes, this state had arisen before. And then in my note-book I came across the quote (sorry, I've misplaced the author's name) which I have used as the heading above. So the outcome of this refective moment is that 'I have come a long way, I have experienced significant change, I have been sensitive to the challenges set me by the ever changing set of variables at each life-drawing session and with each pose'. And consequently future change is almost inevitable. So that's OK then! So why have I Iincluded these two drawings below? 

The first I down loaded from the blog of my life-drawing friend John Meredith. He includes it in a section of works of famous artists and others which he values for various reasons. This is an early drawing of mine in charcoal on an A1 220gsm white cartridge paper. It is of a male model and I've always celebrated my ability to create a somewhat classical compostion and drawing style. I recall it was one of my very first encounters with expressing the anotomical geography of the human form. I also recall the battle with the proportion, value and definition of the right arm and with the relative scale and possible exaggeration of the feet. This drawing holds for ever where I was some six or so years ago.

The second is an early engagement with morphism, although I didn't address this form of drawing in this way at the time. A very different mark-making technique to the other drawing. This is an early two-handed two-pencil drawing, so from late 2012. I include this as the model is John whose comment on my blog opened this posting. Simultaneous drawing with both hands has now become my way of drawing, but no longer the fine lined squiggle marks of two wood-pencil HB's. This has been replaced by the 3-layered graphite pencil marks utiliding the light H&2H's through to the middle 2&3B's through to the 7&8B's. Again this is a significant drawing saying a lot about what I was thinking and how I was experimenting with my mark-making at that time.

Conclusion: all upset, depression and disillusion vanished until the next time. But I believe it must be possible to sense when this psychological state is approaching and take action. The doubt is that because so much of life-drawing is about being immersed in 'process' and that so much of this process takes place with me as 'participant' it is not advised to be 'the participant' and 'the participant observer' at the same time. As participant I am the performer, so I take comfort in my understanding that the essence of 'performance art' is in challenging conventions of traditional forms of visual art such as painting and drawing. So 'process art' and 'performance art' will be the subjects of my next round of enquiry, and quite possibly my upcoming agent of change. Watch this space! 

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Do I keep going? OR Time for a change?

A reflective response

This morning's drawing with a new model at Angela Palmer's class at Brockweir in the Wye Valley is the first following my period of analysis and reflection which I have been recording in recent posts and which terminated yesterday with the five postings of deconstructive artists which I entitled 'Searching Deconstruction 1-5'. How would I react? More of the same, or a noticeable step, or something radically different. Accepting that a main difference is that most of my drawings are of 30 minute poses with me standing at my easel, here I spent about 90 minutes and sat. It was also a slower drawing in that I recall myself thinking about what I was doing........I did not enter (as far as I was aware) a sub-conscious meditative depth of engagement with the pose. I maintained what I might describe as an 'academic interest' in the process of making the drawing as it evolved. This was not an ongoing objective critique (I have always insisted that analysis and criticism should be kept quite separate from intuitive response and the act of creativity). What I am trying to say is that I was interested in discovering what my response would be this morning, I wanted to continue with my deconstructive anagram approach, but once I selected my starting point (the central part of the pose placed across the central part of the paper) then the composition which emerged seemed to have a life of its own. There are references back to the five postings 'Searching Deconstruction', but there is something new in the overall composition and in the more considered mark-making.

The case for not deconstructing

I missed including this drawing from the relevant posting about a week ago. But having just put together the series of postings "searching deconstruction" including it at this time makes a significant point. Whilst I am loving my deconstruction/reconstruction process and feel it is something most personal in that it has emerged, almost unnoticed to start with,  from my experimental approach to life-drawing, I feel that there are a number of approaches and processes taking place simultaneously which can be illustrated with other drawings. Here is one such example: a beautiful reclining pose, which I wanted to draw at a largish scale. So to fit it on the paper I started with the length of the legs, but this took up the full diagonal. The leg seemed to increase its elongation as I explored it on the paper. The leg was the first attraction. When my feeling for this attraction was satisfied by the drawing of it, my attention became focussed on the delightful rested head and the arm. So in it went. I considered a greater degree of overlap of the two parts, but the outcome is just about right. A lovely model, a lovely pose, for which a further deconstruction would probably appear as a violation.

Searching deconstruction 5

This is the first of the deconstructivist artists I have been looking at to use two different scales in their work. Meltem Isik places a big picture of a body part from the model before the model's body, in the series "Twice into the stream". As with the others I have been looking at her aim is probing perceptions and to challenge us to ask questions of how we perceive the human body.

Searching deconstruction 4

Here is the work of Patricia Voulgaris who combines sheets of paper and card to aid in the deconstruction of the body. Not what I do but again it provokes the beholder to look more than once and challenges our perceptual processes.

Searching deconstruction 3

This is the challenging symmetrical deconstruction of William Farges. Or better described as symmetrical reconstruction. He uses a white line down the middle of the sheet in his "White Line" series. Then in the fourth example of his work he uses a black line and the composition has a far greater affinity with my recent work in that it is fully assymetrical. I have a feeling I may find symmetry in my own work soon.

Searching deconstruction 2

Although I am including the work of James Bullough within the scope of deconstruction I do not have the same affinity with it as I do with the other artists I am including in this search into deconstruction as he does not then enter the process of transformation into the area of reconstruction. These are paintings which remain as fractured imagery rather than new compositions. However, they still challenge, and are compelling works which require close study to work them out.

Searching deconstruction 1

I began to use the term 'deconstruction' to describe what was happening in my life-drawing in early February of this year. I was deconstructing the pose and reconstructing it in a new spatial organisation. I was including in the drawing those parts of the human body which I had a feeling for at that moment. The concept of the human body as an anagram which could be rearranged to express the significance I was feeling about the pose at the time, but also saying something about myself.
Recently I have been researching 'deconstruction', and I will be posting my findings of artists and their work who appear to echo my approach. All talk of placing an emphasis on 'challenging our perception of the human body'. Some are more relevant to me than others.

In this posting I introduce Flora Borsi who abstracts her anatomy to form "Siamese" self-portraits. She morphs and meddles with the human body with a surrealist slant. This is photography and I enjoy her creations which I can closely associate with my recent pieces.