Sun-drenched.

During bright daylight I always wear sunglasses. Outside, indoors as well. Bright sun light really bothers my eyes for extended periods and I am uncomfortable without them. The other day, I was going to my car to retrieve some drawing materials and I took a chance and went "unprotected". The sun was shining fully in the garden: the flowers, leaves, all surfaces were bright and painfully vivid. I had forgotten how the highlights bleached white at their brightest point, almost to a flare, and everything was awash in color. My mind instantly went to Van Gogh and his time in the sun-drenched town of Arles, in Southern France. Bright yellows, pinks, greens and blues: a world of high contrast, wonderful color.

The image I had chosen for my next drawing was far from the bright sunlight of southern France, or where I live for that matter. But the form let itself well to the diptych format I am currently exploring and I wanted to capture that moment I had glimpsed in my sunny garden. So I purposely shifted the palette to the vivid end of the spectrum for my next Odalisque.

The left panel was drawn twice. The first version was clumsy and didn't fit the space correctly. I don't want my drawings to be pinpoint accurate, detailed renderings (that would drive me insane) but they need to be plausible.

The whole point of my work is how shapes and colors fit together on the page. The figure is my starting point. I like monumentality in shapes. Subject (or gender, in answer to those who have asked) is irrelevant, simply how light and shadow jig saw together with the edges of the page.

Fresh Eyes

Sometimes, time away from a work in progress can be really helpful, allowing me to come back with a fresh set of eyes. As I mentioned in my post below, I was pleased with this image, the drawing, and its progress, but it was lacking a finishing touch. Taking a week off to look at the drawing and consider my next steps allowed me to identify the spots that needed strengthening and finish the drawing.

Warm and Cool.

I have been playing around with the idea of images that, when combined together, form a separate unique image: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For some time I have been struck by the dynamics of this particular pose, thinking it well suited for splitting in two. The initial underdrawing was done on both sheets simultaneously, to maintain the flow of the figure. But as I worked up the color, I let the left hand drawing stay on the warm side, while the right took on a cool tone.

I also purposely avoided too much blending and smoothing of the pastel. My previous drawing suffered from too "refined" a surface, and lacked vigor. This pose certainly deserves vigor! While this drawing is not fininshed (the chin at the top when the clamp fell, and general clean-up), I am hesitant to mess with it too much for fear of ruining a good thing.

Also, after doing the initial drawing from the photo manquette, I purposely set the photo aside and worked on the drawing in front of me. This helped me avoid being too fussy and tight.

The title, Torso Diptych with Claw, derives from a comment Francine made upon first view: "this is cool but the hand on the right looks like claw". I like the sketchy roughness, and if it reads as a hand, OK by me.

Cardboard and Mint

A friend and I were having coffee a few weeks ago and while standing in line I happened to notice a particular color combination on the in-store video monitor. We walked over and, pointing to the monitor, I asked Kate "cardboard and mint?" This is very often how I start off a drawing. After I have selected an image (in the final below, a black and white) I then think about a color scheme, usually based on a swatch, or sample, or brief glimpse in the oddest of places.

As much as I like the dynamics of this pose, the final result has some noticeable problems. While the underdrawing is solid, the proportions where I want them, the final lacks "punch". I track much of this to the fact that it was completed over an extended period of several weekends (long for me), a length of time where I was not immersed in the drawing: not engaged in the act of looking, drawing, reacting, and redrawing that help pull together the final. This drawing, more than others recently, remind me that I need to be physically involved in drawings to have consistent results. I need to be around them daily, regularly looking, making marks often, scrubing, erasing, reworking continually or the final result is "flat".

I also failed to achieve a heavily worked surface that, though light in palette, retains enough stroke variety and intensity to be interesting. And after much fiddling with the "cardboard" color the original scheme of "cardboard and mint " was not fully realized. I'll redraw this image; I think it has strong possibilities for a good result.


A postscript: I happened to open the studio shot on my laptop the other night and the screen cropped the large image in an interesting way that strengthened the drawing by eliminating excess and emphasizing the dynamics. The lighter sections at the top and bottom reflect the parts accidentally "cropped" by the monitor, parts that will be cut away from at least this version of the final.

Working Through It

There are days when I just don't feel like drawing. It seems as though I come up with things "to do" to avoid facing the paper. And it is not that I don't have anything "to draw", or any ideas: I keep several file folders with source images, color swatches, "starting points" for blocked periods (those happen too).

But I felt "obligated" to at least make the effort. It had been a week or so since I had drawn and I alternate between itching to get back to a drawing and irritated because the work week has kept me away. So I headed up to the studio, puttered around, straightening, cleaning, and working myself up to speed. Once I mounted the paper on the easel and began to rough in the figure, one thing led to another and I was on my way.

Four hours later, I had the basis for the finished drawing. My starting color palette was a salmon/cream highlights, sort of a pea green/khaki midtone, and shadows of deep aqua. When I finished the first session, the shadows were clearly punchless. I looked at the image for a day or so and came back the next morning to punch it up and, keeping with my preferred method, scrub out some highlights.

This is part of a series of extreme high- and low-angle drawings where I am moving away from the standard "horizon line" and viewer/subject relationship. Even if I come upon a pose that is "straight-on", I will always rotate and crop to increase the dynamics.

Loosening Up

From the moment I saw this pose, I liked it and wanted to do a drawing. The first thought that came to mind was a comic book action hero, with the dramatic, action-filled pose, and the interesting camera angle.


So, in keeping with the bold primary colors characteristic of comic books from the 50s and 60s, I jumped right in with red and green as the primary colors for the basic shapes, and blue, another primary, providing the shadows.

Also in keeping with the spirit of the pose, I made sure my strokes bold and free, with less of the blending characteristic or some of my other pastels. I was pleased with the speed and assurance which I worked, and have become better at putting the chalk away, before I think I am finished.

This image marks a bit of a departure, as I begin to explore more dramatic camera angles and foreshortening. I continue to have the figure shapes floating free from the background, yet tied to the edges of the page. The large areas of untouched paper actually is an idea that I picked up while looking at the work of Sam Francis, who I greatly admire. His affinity for strong colors "dancing" on white canvas is very striking.

CMYK, for starters.

Cyan. Magenta. Yellow. Black. The building blocks of commercial color printing, and the tools of my trade over the last 30 years in the graphic design business. To this day I am amazed that these four colors can combine to produce some remarkable color printing of astonishing fidelity given the limited source palette. For this drawing, as an exercise, I played with the idea of working with these limited colors and simulating what commercial printing does: produce a final that is perceived to be varied in spectrum, contrast, and intensity, despite a limited source palette. I followed my usual working method of blocking in color over a simple form sketch, with yellow for the highlights, magenta for the mid tones, and cyan for the shadows (see Step1 in photo).

Similar to color printing, I used black to provide contrast and definition. In theory (here), cyan, magenta, and yellow alone should be able to produce a credible simulation of the full spectrum. However, given the limitations of printing ink, paper whiteness, and viewing light, the black is necessary to “punch it up”. And so, I did the same, adding black over the color areas (Step 2 in photo), to darken where the combination of cyan and magenta were incapable of producing the necessary contrast. I worked the cyan and magenta together, one over the other to darken each in their respective areas. Ok, with a little orange to transition between the magenta and yellow, the combination of which in pastel anyway, produces a peculiar pink unwanted here.

For the final, I wanted to thin out the highlights a bit so that the yellow was not so intense. I buffed it down and then came over with some light beige and tans, working them into the background and then re-establishing the yellow where necessary. I wanted a high contrast, but I didn’t want the shadow areas to be too “black black”, but rather, a “colored black”. I scrubbed down the black chalk and worked deep blue and purple together, plus a little green to muddy things up. Not true CMYK, but less stark. I reserved the black for the final definition of forms, where absolutely necessary. “Punching it up”, in my own way.


A couple of production notes: I worked from a black and white image. Or at least the print-out is, I may have stripped out all color from the original at an earlier stage, I can’t remember. The paper is my standard, Rives BFK, but in a hard-to-find size: 30 x 42”, which leads me to believe the sheet may have been cut from their standard 42” wide roll.