By now, my faithful readers know of my great interest in the human figure -- an interest that goes back decades (yikes!) to my days of taking life drawing classes in the early 1980s. By then, I'd already discovered my bible -- a book titled THE NATURAL WAY TO DRAW by Kimon Nicolaides, an instructor at New York City's revered Art Students' League through the late 1920s and 30s.
Nicolaides "invented" many of the drawing exercises that are still taught and practiced -- "gesture drawing," "contour drawing" and so on, but it is his whole approach that is amazing and demanding. He doesn't teach "techniques" and he certainly doesn't believe in "the right way" to do something. He counsels again and again....to look....to see...to feel....and, most of all, to work attentively every day.
He describes his exercises quite concisely and then assigns repeated practice sessions that take 15-20 hours. Over the years, I've returned to him again and again. And always, over the decades, I've tried to consistently practice "The Daily Composition." This is a small quick gestural study from memory of a place/people/activity seen during the day. His assignment: "Do not be concerned about 'doing it right.' There is no right or wrong. Just do it. Do it every day for a year. The serious student will do it every day for the rest of his or her life."
This Winter-Spring (that's a season, right?) some serendipitous events came along to jumpstart my interest again. First, a reprinted painting by Vancouver artist Thomas Anfield caught my eye, and as I pinned it to my bulletin board next to a Cezanne landscape I was blown away.
Then, a book I'd looked at several years ago became available again from the library.
As I flipped through it, I was struck by the resemblance of his frequent beach scenes...
...to my own old "Aquatic Sketchbooks." For almost 20 years, we swam three times a week -- summers at the outdoor Kits Pool; cool weather at the indoor Aquatic Centre. I'd take along a small sketchbook, and I filled dozens of these with quick gesture drawings of swimmers and beach loungers.
Already determined to weed out my old sketchbooks, I decided to weed and paint at the same time -- with a series of small studies a la "The Soma Suite". Combining small sketches from different pages, I produced six small painted panels. Here's the outcome:--
A sketch contributing to "Wait and See":
One of the sketches for "Too Cold to Swim":
The painted study:
The preliminary to "Sunspot":--
The painted study:
Sketch preliminary to "Low Tide."
The painted study:
...and where are my preliminary sketches for "Warm-Up"? I don't know, but here's the paint job:--
Finally, a contributing sketch to "Poolside with the Strata Council."
And the painted version. (Strata, get it?)
When I sketched long ago at the Aquatic Centre, an older guy (now I would call him a younger guy!) who worked at the pool came over and asked to see what I was doing. When I showed him my sketchbook he said, "Ahh...I thought so." He explained that years before, in his native Czechoslovakia, he had worked for a ballet company. Cameras and film were not readily available then, and he was employed to sketch the dancers in movement as they developed their program.
I remembered this as I read about artist Thomas Anfield, who also creates dance performances. And circling around this concept of dance and visual arts is a remarkable synchronicity that recently unfolded for me. Stay tuned for more on that next time.
Meanwhile, if you find gesture drawings intriguing, you can view more of them here. And who knows? You might even get a postcard in the mail with a swimmer, a lounger, a stretcher, a sketcher...or even a dog!
