January 2017: 'something different'

Something different, but what? I do not yet know!

But what I do know is that they do not easily fit into any of the categories I have defined in the following series of postings under the heading of 'January 2017:...............' 

All four are 'anagramatic' but they are far more 'abstract' than most of my previous work. By this, I mean that it is not possible to visualise or reconstruct (in one's own mind) the pose which I deconstructed in my mind and then transferred to paper. In fact, it is the case that I find it difficult to recall the form of these poses. What pleases me is that they illustrate my ability to continue my evolutionary path. I know this to be the case, as so many of my life-drawing colleagues regularly comment on this 'quality' of change in my work.

These are my most recent drawings. I believe they come from deep inside me, and to such an extent that I do not yet recognise what they are saying about me.

January 2017: 'two drawings not included in the other January 2017 postings'

As you know, this blog is my diary of my life-drawing activities. I place all my drawings on it. I make no judgement as to their 'quality'. This is a record of what I do. For some reason this early part of the New Year of 2017 has started off well. I feel I am still moving, still evolving, still breaking new ground. And because I didn't get around to photographing my work after each session, I took the opportunity to take a look at my output over this period and to group similar drawings together and to attempt a classification which would illustrate where I now am in my life-drawing journey.
So the postings under the heading 'January 2017:...............' are in place and contain all my work from the sessions I attended. However, there are two drawings which I did not use to illustrate the points I have been making. Here they are.

January 2017: 'tone or line'

I have talked before about the issue of how to respond to tonal variation in a line drawing. My answer has been to indicate the meet of two contrasting tonal areas with a heavyweight line. But every so often the urge arises to explore tonal variation in a more usual way. I regularly use Derwent tinted charcoal which has amazing properties, which I have described in a past posting. But here I am using my graphite pencils. I seem to love hands and feet, and frequently study the hand drawings of Leonardo, Durer and Oldrich Kulhanek, amongst others. This drawing was a sort of rest relief from responding to a series of 30 minute poses at Extreme Poses, and I just focused on the model' s clasped hands hanging down from her body high up in the ropes.

January 2017: 'weight of line'

I hold a pencil in each hand and start to draw with them both at the same time. One (the left one) can start making a mark in the bottom left of the paper and the other (the right one) will start at the top right hand of the paper, for example. These are hard leads, I.e. 2H, H or HB. Once the basics of the forms I want to include are outlined with lightweight lines, I pick up two other pencils, maybe 3B or 4B, to emphasise certain parts of the drawing. Then with an 7B or 8B in my right (my usual) hand I focus on certain aspects with the heavy and weighty marks. I did use a soft pencil in each hand for this third layer of mark-making for quite sometime. But after a time I realised I wanted to achieve an even greater range in weight of line, which I could only do by increasing the pressure. So, holding the board on the easel steady with my left hand to resist the pressure I apply to the paper with my 8B pencil I can produce a bold, heavy mark.

I use woodless Graphite Pencils.

January 2017: 'the sensuous'

Occasionally I sense in my drawings a violation. By this I mean that my anatomical reconstructions can sometimes be completely devoid of any reference to the beauty of the human body. I feel it is possible to violate the very thing that gives me inspiration and is the very basis of the creativity and enjoyment of my art. There is never any intention to distort. But it happens. However, when I am life drawing I believe, and I know, that in my mind I am celebrating the human body, and then every so often a drawing seems to say that here is something of extreme beauty.

January 2017: 'cubism ?'

Another example of my so-called 'morphism' approach, which  I could describe as one of my attempts to make life-drawing a bit more personally challenging than drawing or painting a representative 'picture' of the pose. Here, the two sides of the pose are brought together and are overlapped. There is a suggestion of a cubist approach, but I feel I have previously entered a cubist philosophy more fully when I have moved my easel around a model and included in the one drawing a number of views.

January 2017: 'figurative reconfiguration'

I'm beginning to enjoy these two drawings more and more. They epitomise much of where I feel I now am in my life-drawing journey. The underlying philosophy of 'anagram'; the emergence of 'morphism'; the qualitative use of 'weight of line'; the process of transformation from my response to the human body through to the drawing on the paper; and the final drawing as a product of a relatively sub-conscious and kinetic process in which a pencil in each hand facilitates simultaneous mark-making from both sides of my brain (perhaps?).

January 2017: 'route'

I have always been aware of the potential of taking the beholder on a path or route up through a composition. Here I am utilising a series of short heavier lines to do this. However, the origin of these bold lines is to show where planes of contrast appear in the pose. For example, one side of an arm may be in highlight and beyond it another part of the body is in shadow. This attempt to refer to tonal contrast by line only is an issue I have been battling with for some time. A delve into past postings will reveal exploration of tonal value using charcoal and an earlier use of pastel. But for about two years now I have been exploring the potential of the woodless graphite pencil, hence the issue of how to respond to tonal contrast with line only.

January 2017: 'Anagram and Counterbalance'

Not so long ago I came across the term 'figurative reconfiguring', and immediately saw that this very well described what I had been doing for quite some time. But I had been referring to this aspect of my life-drawing process as 'anagramatic', a term which I had adopted after reading an interview with Hans Bellmer. He talked of the body being comparable to a sentence that invites us to disarticulate it, so that, through a series of endless anagrams, its true contents may be recomposed. Following from this I then take the view that what then appears as a drawing is more of an expression of the feelings, the perceptions, the insights, the mind, and the emotions of the artist which are all part of the dialogue, and the symbiotic relationship the artist has with the human body, rather than a representational reproduction of the model as object.

My mentor, Paul Fowler, one day recognised that within my anagramic compositions there was often a space created. Yet this is a phenomena I was not initially conscious of creating, and certainly not recognising. The parts of the pose which I had selected, for various reasons, to explore and include in the drawing tended to surround and help focus upon a space which consequentially had depth. He addressed this space as a 'counterbalance', and it become an element of a drawing which is an essential counterbalance and an essential complement to the anatomical gymnastics and complexity surrounding it.  Paul frequently refers to these compositions of mine as 'being very 'spatial'. I agree with him and can now recognise both the space within, i.e. the counterbalance, and the space beyond I.e. the depth both within and beyond the edges of the paper which I enter into when engaging the human body. The third drawing contains a double counterbalance.

January 2017: 'morphism'

There may be a more appropriate term than 'morphism' to describe the process of creating these drawings but at the moment it will do. I have responded in a similar way in the past and have previously described how I have brought together the two sides, or two parts, of a pose and by overlapping them have morphed the two together and a transformation from an instantly recognisable human body has created a new, different organic form. This is the case with the first drawing, whereas the other two are more recognisable as the backs of a seated figure with her right hand placed upon her left shoulder. For the second of these two I repositioned my easel slightly to the right of the first location in order to include the outstretched leg, and to see if a different outcome would occur.

January 2017: 'warm-up' poses.

At some classes so called 'warm-up' poses are insisted upon at the start. I prefer to get straight into the longer drawing, but I acknowledge their intention. However, I do make the most of the opportunity and actually enjoy developing a narrative as each pose arrives and a relationship is sought with the placing and form of subsequent poses with the first pose. When presented with the first pose an anticipation is set up so it can be critical where the first pose is placed, and as it is usually the model who decides the poses it is very satisfying when the finished drawing has some unity. Each pose is for 5 or 10 minutes.