The Swiss artist Paul Klee, who was also a musician, a teacher, a father, a writer, and a very witty guy, once pithily said, "A drawing is simply a line going for a walk." Well, it happened that most of the July artists in my on-line course are as famous for their drawings as for their paintings -- and in most cases, I chose to focus on drawing even though the course lessons usually opted for paint.
One exception for me, though, was Toulouse-Lautrec. His drawings are magnificent with oh, such sensitive use of line. But as I idled through my books, I lingered on his familiar painting "At the Moulin Rouge," thinking the upturned face would make an interesting exercise. And what was the good of that upturned face without the almost fluorescent green?
And as for the dance hall -- well, what about the flamenco dancers I sketched at the Dance Centre last November? Here's the outcome: "Flamenco Rosario at the Moulin Rouge."
Next up was Käthe Kollwitz, a lesser known artist greatly revered by those who love drawing -- and by people who are touched by her personal history and commitment to the disadvantaged and oppressed whose sorrows and struggles are reflected in her art. I discovered Kollwitz when I took my first life drawing courses in my late 20s. I was so struck then by the unflinching honesty of her self-portraits, made from her own 20s into her 70s -- and here I am now, toward the end of that range myself, with my admiration more than intact.
It was difficult for me to imagine trying to copy a Kollwitz drawing -- her themes sometimes are too terrible in their power -- so I sought out one of her early self-portraits:
-- and tried for a copy, in a slightly different medium:
The next week's artist was in quite a different vein -- Marc Chagall, whose paintings almost always seem to convey tenderness and love. I was momentarily tempted to try to copy "The Birthday", with my friends L and B floating through the air, two Schipperke dogs at their heels. But reason prevailed, and I chose an atypical Chagall as a better model for my continuing efforts to draw the face. His "Self-Portrait in Pencil" is odd but compelling:
My version is based on the memory of a long-ago college friend, "Sandra."
Someone who really knew how to let a line loose on a walk was the next week's artist, Egon Schiele. If you know drawing, you know Schiele. If you don't and plan to go browsing the internet, be prepared to blush -- he ran into censorship problems in his day, along with his mentor Gustav Klimt. Schiele's painting (or coloured drawing?) titled "Donna Seduta," is Essence-of-Schiele:
I recalled that I'd made a drawing at the drawing studio that comes rather close to his pose:
I then wandered a bit far from Schiele terrain as I saw the opportunity to do a study for a painting I've had in mind. I'm enthralled when I catch a glimpse of the young woman across the street coming or going in her fantastic costumes -- it turns out she's a children's entertainer.
Watch this spot. She'll be back some day in my repertoire.
July had five weeks, and the fifth artist-of-the-week was Giacometti. You've no doubt seen examples of the wiry, knobby sculptures for which he's famous. But again, I chose to search out an example that would keep my desired focus on the portrait. Here's his drawing "Bust of Annette."
-- and my spin-off, "Girl on the Bus." Maybe another day in another way, I'll try to capture her fantastic haircut -- absolutely shorn brush-cut style on one side of her head, with wild flowing hair on the other side.
It was a month focused on drawing and reminding me again of how much I love my pencils, and my pens, and my markers, and my charcoal, and my brush-cut brushes clipped short for making real lines, and the huge rush and intensity of making marks on paper.
Michelangelo, that dynamo, said it all:
"Let whoever may have attained to so much as to have the power of drawing know that he holds a great treasure."
Well, HE had "the power of drawing." And for us wannabes, there's encouragement in his words that reveal that even he felt there was so much farther to go.
"Lord, grant they I may always desire more than I accomplish."
No comments:
Post a Comment