It's Arts Alive Summer School again!

Over in Crickhowell in Powys (July 14th to 18th) and Tony Tribe at each lunch-time in his critical analysis of the morning's endeavours takes our precious works and places them in an extensive and diverse art historical context, opening up for each of us analogies and comparisons which we would otherwise never have dreamt of, and in most cases never have come across in our previous lives.
As all good teachers he finds something to applaud in everyone's work. But, as always, there is something to applaud.
This year I attended for three days of the five, and the following three posts contain my output. Tony likes his students to include context in their drawing, and I did respond to his particular request with the charcoal study of the seated pose with the strong light from her left. I acknowledge and understand the important role of tonal contrast between the figure and its background. But I am not a painter! I have not painted. By this I mean I have little or no experience of exploring the relationship between a figure and its context. Quite the opposite........I seem to have discovered a joy in investigating and exploring, and then reconstructing in my own peculiar way, the human anatomy. So, this drawing below is representative of my process.
It is from the first day and the model is Penny. I have drawn Penny many times over the past ten years or so, and I believe that on numerous occasions I have engaged with her in my drawings in a way that goes beyond the model as object. However, in this drawing my anagrammatical approach has taken over and I have taken a step back from an emotional involvement and intuitive response and have engaged in and experienced a more analytical and 'conscious' approach.
I have searched my archive and found a drawing of Penny which says something more about this alternative response and added it to this posting. After placing these two drawings alongside each other I find it remarkable that my two responses to Penny are very similar particularly in the basic design and composition of the drawing.

 

 

A reflective thought:

Since creating this posting the act of juxtaposing these two images has suggested to me an insight into the evolution of the nature of change which has taken place in my perceptual, investigative and experimental processes of my life-drawing journey. This is not a new insight, but more of a confirmation of an issue which I have talked of before. It is about the move from 'the model as object' towards an engagement with a complex set of variables concerning the relationship and dialogue between the muse and the artist. The act of drawing now helps me to see, rather than being the vehicle whereby a representation of an image is committed to paper. I perhaps have moved from being an eidonomist to being an anatomist (although my knowledge of anatomy is rather limited). But I tend to take the pose apart (deconstruction) and put it back together influenced, sub-consciously, by my own interests and parameters. I get inside the form before me. My results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multi-faceted.

I recently came across a website of Philip Taylor whose words struck a chord with me. In essence he suggests that an individuals art can elevate to the realms of the creative intellect. Like him I believe my art has qualities of chance, spontaneity, lyrical and rebelliousness. Drawing for me is direct, romantic, unconventional and individualistic. Non-idiomatic improvisation and rhythmic motion of the unconscious are how I approach/attack the paper. The process of making art, for me, is emotionally charging and spiritual, and in the longer term is meditative and therapeutic.

Getting closer

These days I rarely do the whole pose, and my anagrammatic process focuses on parts of the body and brings those parts together in a new synthesis, often creating a completely new form.  But here are two close up studies. Why they emerged I really do not know. I just started to draw the aspect of the pose which attracted me. Why one mark-making process incorporates willow charcoal and the other tinted charcoal, again I do not know. Selection was simply how I felt at the time.

The black and white charcoal drawing is of Penny on day one of the Summer School and the coloured drawing is of Kate on my third day of attendance. It was not a conscious decision to focus on the hands or to perhaps exaggerate their size and length, this was simply a product of that which I found of immediate interest when presented with the pose.

 

Superimposing, transparency, spatial play........

..............plus some of my morphist, cubist, and deconstruction fascinations.

Firstly parts of two ten minute standing poses at different scales.

 

Then a cubist process in which I was able to move across the studio a number of times to view the pose from opposing viewpoints. Again I am playing with different scales but more significantly this time I am helping myself to differentiate and therefore keep a control of the four parts by utilising four mark-making materials, i.e. moving from left to right across the drawing (i) fine-liner pen, (ii) graphite pencil and tinted charcoal, and (iii) willow charcoal.

 

This third drawing started with a graphite pencil response to a ten minute pose in which I noted the left hand on her hip, and the right arm extended downwards. Superimposed on this are aspects of the main pose of the morning using tinted charcoal, which is also the subject of the willow charcoal study with light coming down on to her left side (see previous posting).

The exploratory joy of charcoal

You can push it and pull it. You can rub it back and draw again. You can gradually find the line you are looking for. Matisse, Jenny Saville and many others knew this characteristic. You just go for it in a very unhibited way. Charcoal draws one into the process.

At 'Extreme Poses' on July 12th 2018

The suspended straps and ropes and the plinth provide the model with opportunities for challenging poses. From the head and shoulders hanging into space in the first drawing thro' to St Sebastian ready to receive the arrows in the fifth drawing. All are 2-handed drawings using graphite pencils on 220gsm A1 cartridge paper.

Our model is Andrew who maintains a stillness for each 30 minutes despite the challenges he sets himself.

Images I enjoy

Many thanks to their authors.

When I introduce these as 'Images I enjoy' I am particularly emphasising the requirement that each needs to be studied to understand what is happening. The enjoyment is a product of the intellectual and perceptual challenges which I believe are also fundamental to my own life-drawing process particularly when I am pursuing my cubism, my morphism, my anagrammatic deconstruction and reconstruction, and my spatial engagement with overlap and transparency. The last drawing by Nicolai Fechin is a reminder of my enjoyment simply of mark-making, but this drawing also recalls the enjoyment of foreshortening and the advancing foot.

Why 'life-drawing'?

The 5th drawing from June 5th

Following the four poses from this morning's session at Extreme Poses (see previous posting) in which a fairly considered sequence of explorations followed on from each other, and were all completed sitting at my easel, I just felt like standing up to take advantage of looking down on to Paul's right thigh and to respond to his left hand, and I took up the chunky charcoal and searched and searched for the gesture in the pose. Refers back to my kinetic process in which my body moves back and forth and bold expressive mark-making results.

Drawing Paul on June 5th