Drawing Essays

Drumming and Drawing

I remember going to see a band, a really good one. As is typical of this sort of thing, before the headliner came out to play we first had to sit through a handful of songs by a warm up band. The warm up band was young and enthusiastic and perfectly adequate. When they finished we applauded politely. And then we forgot all about them. For a half hour or so we chatted while bald guys with ponytails and black shirts moved equipment around the stage.

What happened next has stuck in my noggin more than the very good music we later heard: During the sound check the drummer for the headliner sauntered out on stage. With no preamble he sat down at his kit, took a quick breath and ripped loose with a torrent of sound: rich, dense, complex, and completely fulfilling. And I instantly knew that what I heard in that few seconds totally surpassed the entire opening act.

Among Michelangelo’s drawings are a few limbering up exercises: random bits of this and that, likely made so that he could get the feel for his chalk or ink pen. Maybe they were created in an effort to limber up his brain in anticipation of the day’s work. The doodles are sometimes playful, sometimes nonsensical.  By and large they are also superior to full-blown drawings by the average artist today; Michelangelo’s mark making had that much presence, and that much authority.

For the artist this is a worthy goal: this place where every mark smacks of clout. So how does one get to the point where each blot and stain soars? Well, practice plays a role. The experienced artist has an image in his/her mind’s eye before making the first scratch, and he/she will not fritter around making tentative marks. The marks will ring with vibrancy and self-assurance.

Attitude is also essential. Starting a drawing with an attitude, any attitude is imperative. Maybe your approach will be all bravado (Richard Serra), maybe it will be curious and probing (Paul Klee), or maybe it will be calm and meditative (Agnes Martin). The important thing is that your approach has some character. Indifference is the only sin, and it will be conspicuous. Our will power plays a greater role than we realize.

Marks must have life for a drawing to have life. In the works of accomplished artists, even drawings that are not successful have abundant visual interest. When they fail, they do so in spectacular fashion. And that is always preferable to failing halfheartedly.

Hold Your Nose and Wait

Every artist makes bad work from time to time. Student artists are no exception. A stroll through any undergraduate studio requires a strong stomach and girded loins. Amidst the little visual gems you will likely see lots of clunky, half-baked, unresolved drawings/paintings/sculptures, etc. This might make the uninitiated viewer think that art schools are crap factories. Not necessarily so. Most students are going to
make a lot of bad art before they start making good art (Ever see Louise Nevelson’s early work? Franz Kline’s?). There are a few rare, graceful exceptions, but almost no one is immune to the learning curve.

There are two major problem categories that can befall student drawings: technical and conceptual. Technical problems are easy to
distinguish, and they should always be pointed out. Little glitches such as bad proportions or unconvincing volumes can be readily spotted, dissected, and sent back to the student for repairs. Conceptual issues are a bit thornier. I think it is important to resist the urge to fix every badly conceived drawing that comes your way. Conceptual ideas are, after all highly personal, and the peculiar, impulsive ideas of a college sophomore might, with time evolve into a very sophisticated body of work. Of course this is where good judgment comes into play. If the student is making inane, grotesque teen-boy imagery of eviscerated ghouls, then by all means tell them to change directions. Kitties in flower pots?  Stop it immediately! But it is entirely too easy to overcompensate and become a stage mother, dictating content and attitude. I have seen entire classes making cool, sophisticated, hip work- every student in lock-step with the others. In many cases these students cannot clearly articulate the meaning of their work. This is a clear example of an instructor who is meddling too much and supplanting the students' visions with their own.

Here is where I make a strong distinction between a full-blown intervention and a wait-and-see approach: Is the student invested in the work? Is the student producing lots of work? If the answer to both questions is yes, then it might be time to withhold judgment for a while. Those weird little drawings of navels, or garage floor oil stains might just one day turn into something remarkable.

Let your students make bad work in anticipation of the day when they learn to make good work. In this age of pluralism, it is important to realize that an obscure, wacky idea might one day blossom into a visual opus. As the old saw goes, “every mighty oak was once a nut that stood its ground”.

Whine, Cheese, Art

This essay comes in the form of a very long-winded question. It has something to do with taste, both the bud kind and the cultural kind. It has something to do with wine, cheese and art: three things that have more in common than their proximity at gallery openings.

Let’s start with cheese. I am looking at a wad of gooey pus-colored cheese. I am told that it is exquisite.  It smells remarkably like dead fish. The part of me that wishes to please and wishes to be sophisticated is willing to take a (tiny) bite…Yup, tastes like dead fish too, and I’m not talking sushi-grade salmon; more like homely, sun-baked, Ohio River Carp.

Now we switch to wine. This wine, I am told cost upwards of three thousand dollars a bottle (I’m exaggerating, but you get the point). The grapes were gently picked from the vine by virgin white doves, and lovingly placed in an antique cistern that was commissioned by none other than Julius Caesar. The grapes may only be crushed during the twenty-four hours of the autumnal equinox, and blah blah blah. It tastes pretty darn good, but not much different from the $6.99 supermarket brand we buy along with our
toilet paper and bananas.

Tens of thousands of years of evolution tell my taste buds that this cheese tastes rotten, and the expensive wine isn’t that much better than the cheap stuff. Well shame, shame on my pedestrian palette.  The experts declare I cannot trust my nose and taste buds. I must be told what is good.   I wonder: does anyone else resent being told what tastes good?

The same sorry fate befalls art. People enjoy looking at certain things, say pictures of barns and kittens. And then someone (like me) tells them they are mistaken. After much verbal pummeling some viewers (art students mostly) acquiesce and accept the wisdom of the experts, while other viewers just turn away from Fine Art altogether (everyone else). Consequently, in the studio classroom I brandish the same sort of know-it-allness that drives me bonkers in the gastronomical world. Does that make me a hypocrite? After all, I know that a Cy Twombly drawing is first rate. How come my students cannot see that? They must be told what is good!  Cue the laughter.

I'm Awesome. I'm Dreadful

I've been teaching long enough to have seen quite a few students come and go. They evolve from naive freshmen into jaded seniors and then out the door they go... on to life as artists, waiters (too many of these to count), graduate students, teachers, etc. I was thinking the other day about some of these students, and the trajectory of their art making skills. Two students got stuck in my head. The first was a senior who could draw like nobody's business. Once, during a critique he was beating himself up over some little self-perceived flaw in his work. I was taken aback as his drawings were, quite honestly more mechanically sound than mine. And it occurred to me that there is often an inverse relationship between a student's level of self-criticism and the quality of their work.

The second student (bet you can see this coming) would cruise into class as if into a country club. He would tack up some paper and begin hacking away at a drawing. After fifteen minutes or so he would have an utterly mediocre piece to show for his efforts. He would stand back and coo contentedly as if viewing a Vermeer. Then he would take a long coffee break. There was no editing. No hard decisions were made that day, or any other for that matter. As I recall the rest of his undergraduate career unfolded in much the same way: acceptable but lazy drawings followed by little spurts of self-congratulating. I think he is a waiter now.

Instructors have the delicate task of providing both encouragement and criticism for their students. This, like parenting, is not a job for the faint of heart. Some students require much more propping up than others. Some students perceive any criticism as an attack on their person-hood, and they are quick to cry foul when their work is questioned. The academic world is not immune to the "trophy for every camper" mentality that pervades the rest of our culture.

In the end every student and every practicing artist must cultivate a lucid, intelligent inner critic. And if this critic is a bit of a s.o.b., well that is not such a bad thing. The difference between a good drawing and a great drawing can be a matter of a few thoughtful edits. What we must avoid is settling for a drawing that is merely "good enough". We might find that acceptable, but history will not.

Journals

Artists keep journals, and they are truly valuable tools. As visual diaries, journals hold quickly scrawled ideas for future works, or brief sketches of the many arrangements and rearrangements that that may transpire in a larger piece. Sometimes journals simply document the struggles or breakthroughs that any artist encounters. Sometimes they function as blueprints for complex assemblages and such. A peek into the journals of say, Edward Hopper, or Vincent Van Gogh reveals all sorts of minute, but important design decisions. Gaining some insight into the working process of great artists can benefit us all.

The spirit of a journal is one of discovery. Students are on the cusp of “freedom”, and they should welcome the opportunity to explore things that are important to them. A journal provides fertile ground for ideas, motivation, and focus. The best possible circumstance for a student to have and maintain a journal is if it just happens purely and of their own accord. The second best circumstance is if you force them to do so.
Sometimes second best is perfectly ok.

When I require journals for drawing class, I ask my students to purchase a new sketchbook, rather than piggybacking their journal onto a half-completed journal from another class. If they can find a good-looking, nicely bound journal it increases the object-ness of the experience, and I think that is a good thing. I give my students themes or topics for each entry. The topics are designed simply as starting points for a visual
dialogue. A student’s response to any given topic might be brief and guttural; it might be a five page essay with a little sketch. It might be an elaborate drawing with only one word of text. They have a lot of freedom, and that includes choice of mediums. Some of the topics I assign:

If I were an animal, this is what I would be.
When I die, this is what is going to happen to me.
My favorite place in the whole world is…

Last semester I assigned thirty topics for the course. If you want a copy of the topics I’ve used, write to me via my contact page, and I’ll send you my full list.

Think Outside the Frog Pond

Sometimes even wacky art students have difficulty coming up with ideas that are not clichéd to death or just plain ho-dee-dum boring. Working in a comfy groove they will rely on frumpy old solutions to drawing problems. This is quite common. It is not a terrible thing, but it does not promote a lot of personal growth, and it certainly will do nothing to distinguish the student from their peers.

When things are getting stale idea-wise, I tell my students to acquaint themselves with frogs.

Ask most people how frogs are born and they will tell you something like this: A male and female frog mate, and the female lays some eggs in a pond. In a few weeks the eggs hatch, and tadpoles emerge. Correct? Not necessarily so! In his book, “Life on Earth”, David Attenborough lovingly researches and describes many of the astonishing variations that exist in nature, including frogs and their myriad ways of reproducing.

This is how Attenborough describes the birthing technique of the Rhinoderma, a tiny Chilean frog: “When the females have laid their eggs, which they deposit on the moist ground, the males sit in groups around them on guard. As soon as the developing eggs begin to move within their globes of jelly, the males lean forward and appear to eat them. Instead of swallowing them, however, the eggs are taken into the vocal sac which is unusually large and extends right down the underside of the male’s body. There they develop until one day the male gulps once or twice, suddenly yawns and a fully-formed froglet leaps out of his mouth.” Now, how cool is that?

This is probably not what Matisse was speaking of when he referred to nature as the ultimate teacher. Nonetheless it is worth pondering if only to establish the notion that we mustn’t allow ourselves to think about things in the same way that everyone else does (by-the-way Attenborough describes several other frog births that will either make your skin crawl or blow your hair back). Sometimes when my students are quietly working on drawings I will read through Attenborough’s chapter on frogs. The point of this little nugget of contemplation is to give my students permission to think differently- You read that correctly: I give them PERMISSION to think differently. Now, there are lots of original thinkers out there (bless their pierced and tattooed hearts), but too many students have never been given consent to think in another way. After all, conformity leads to social acceptance. Art students too often take the very first idea that pops into their head and they run with it. Creative people (artists, writers, musicians, and architects) must learn to take an idea and scrutinize it from every possible angle, checking all the while for those little fissures known as mediocrity and unoriginality. There is a kind of internal brain-storming that can lead to all sorts of fantastic creative solutions. I think it is very important that we constantly encourage our students in this regard

Talent, or Why Bob Dylan Should be a Miserable Failure

Drawing students are keenly aware of who can draw well and who cannot. After all we spend a great deal of class time looking at and discussing one another’s work. Within a very short time it becomes apparent who has the best “eye”, or ability to render with the most accuracy. And a sort of class hierarchy is established, with the students who have the best drawing mechanics on top. On one level this is perfectly ok as it fosters healthy competition and gives some of the less talented students something to strive for. Certainly the ability to render and render well is a wonderful attribute for a student to have. But skill can be overrated. And those who do not have strong rendering abilities can easily become discouraged. To counter this inclination I have my class make a list of wildly successful singers…who have lousy voices: Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, Neil Young, and of course Bob Dylan spring immediately to mind. In fact the list is pretty long. So how did all of those rotten singers manage to find success? Simply put, they found other ways to compensate. Imagine if Bob Dylan had let his voice become an impediment; if at some point he’d said, “I don’t have a sweet voice like Paul McCartney, so why bother”? Instead he put his considerable skills as a lyricist to work. Other singers surround themselves with the very best musicians or backup singers. Many develop stylistic idiosyncrasies to compensate for their less-than-stellar pipes. And do not overlook the fact that all four aforementioned singers are very, very prolific. If one produces lots of songs the chances of producing a few gems increases dramatically.

So we jump back to drawing. The students with the best skills of representation do not always make the best pictures. So many other factors go into the success or failure of a drawing. Vincent Van Gogh was not a particularly strong draftsman-especially by the standards of his day. If you compare his drawings to those of Jean Dominique Ingres, an artist whose life overlapped Van Gogh’s, the contrast is startling. Ingres’ rendering abilities were breathtaking. Van Gogh’s drawings, by comparison were barbaric. But Van Gogh compensated beautifully. He infused his drawings with such feeling, tenacity, joy and vibrancy that they are nothing short of marvelous. If given the choice (and man, I wish I had the choice!) I’d rather have a Van Gogh.

Sentimentality

Once during a critique I criticized a student's drawing for veering dangerously into Hallmark card territory. I honestly don’t remember the subject matter; let’s say it was a woman holding an infant with hot air balloons, rainbows, and mimes in the background. The class immediately turned hostile. “Well what’s wrong with that?” another student demanded. “Well, it’s awfully sentimental,” I replied. “So what’s wrong with that?” someone else said… and on it went. I was outflanked and lost the battle that day. But I’ve seen the topic come up now and then and it bears some investigation into the meaning of sentimentality, if only to provide me and other instructors with a handy definition, a kind of yellow card to pull out when students whack us with schmaltz.

Not surprisingly, writers have the most to say about sentimentality… they have the most to say about everything. They treat the subject like a kind of creeping fungus that needs a shot of literary Roundup upon the earliest glimpse. The writer Kevin Prufer defines sentimentality as “reducing an emotionally complex situation into an emotionally simple one.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as, “Addicted to indulgence in superficial emotion.” But it is not just writers that have something to say on the subject. The list of those willing to chime in and unleash their vitriol on sentimentality is long and surprising. Leanne Payne objects to sentimentality on religious grounds. She writes that sentimentality ignores "the evil in a thing, by refusing to name and renounce it…In our fallen world, evil rarely, if ever, comes in its unmitigated state but always together with a good, and with much that seems good as well. Evil comes with ‘niceness’ attached." Heavy. And here I was just annoyed by mimes. But if I can extrapolate from the numerous definitions of sentimentality (both these and others that I’ve read), it is that it implies a kind of emotional laziness, an unwillingness to look beyond the surface of things for fear of glimpsing something unpleasant.

So we’ve determined that writers and theologians consider sentimentality a kind of hobgoblin. Certainly it afflicts art. We recoil at pictures of sad, jellybean-eyed kids with scruffy puppy dogs. Without a doubt, sentimentality has leeched into politics (family values anyone?). Music is by no means immune. The Christmas season recently passed. While I admit that I’m a sucker for some Christmas songs, I heard on the radio a country song about a cowboy shopping on Christmas Eve and spying a little urchin who wished only to buy some red shoes for his ailing mother so that she could wear them when she went home to see Jesus (I’m not making this up). Naturally the little boy had no money so the cowboy… oh never mind, hand me a barf bag.

However, we must be careful. Avoiding sentimentality at all costs is disingenuous. Emotions are real after all. We artists are notorious for slouching around, smoking cigarettes and being disdainful of absolutely everything, especially sentimentality. But is it really all that bad?  Consider the paintings of Rembrandt. His work could be extremely sentimental. But he always managed to mitigate sentimentality with true sorrow, dignity, and of course his magnificent handling of paint. The writer John Irving warns us that it is “cowardly” to avoid sentimentality at all costs: “A short story about a four-course meal from the point of view of a fork will never be sentimental; it may never matter very much to us either.”

Ultimately, sentimentality in art functions like any other issue that leans heavily on emotion: political art, propaganda, sex and gender issues, environmental art, etc. If we find ourselves in agreement with the artist’s position, we are perfectly ok with it, if not it is maddening.

Drawing and Memory

It is March of 1998. I am in Savannah, Georgia in complete gawking-tourist mode. Having fled my frosty northern home I am soaking in the sights, smells and sounds of a very Spring-like afternoon. Sitting on a bench at one of the ubiquitous park-like squares I reach into my tourist bag- not for a camera, but for my sketchbook. I spend a thoroughly enjoyable hour sketching away, then I wander off in search of soul food. So how did the drawing turn out? Ehh, I’ve seen better. But that’s not the point of this story. Fast forward fifteen years later. I am paging through that old sketchbook and I turn to my drawings of Savannah- bang! Zoom! I am rocketed back to that afternoon by means that no photograph could ever match.

We have many clichés in drawing and here’s one that we toss about with impunity: drawing is seeing. But what exactly does that mean? Apparently it means just that. Through drawing we retain much more sensory information about a place than if we just sat and took in the view. Additionally we retain a different set of experiences than we would from taking a photo. Photographs are very democratic in the way that they present information. They will lovingly dote on the discarded hamburger wrapper on the sidewalk as much as the adorable puppy sitting next to it. But when we draw, even if we are attempting to be non judgmental, we put things down on the page differently. In Fact, we see in hierarchical fashion, giving some forms more attention than others, and we do this- consciously or unconsciously- by drawing important forms larger than they really are, or by bearing down with the pencil as we draw them. Consequently we emphasize things in drawings that a photograph would gloss over.

According to the ASCD website (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, for those of you who love unwieldy titles), what we are engaged with when we draw a thing is experiential learning. This is learning that involves all of the senses. Experiential learning is compared to the incidence of smelling the “perfume a friend or loved one wore, and you remembered other details about that person. Perhaps upon hearing an old song, you've recalled dancing to it years before.”

Cool stuff. So how do artists and would-be artists use this nugget of information? I think there are lots of ways, obvious and not-so-obvious. I can think of one clear example: Years ago I was a landscape painter. As previously stated, I live in the chilly North. So due to frostbite, winds, imminent sunset, encroaching tides, flocks of black flies etc., I found that I couldn’t always make a painting onsite. I often had to rely on photographs as source material. But before retreating to the studio with camera in tow, I would always try to draw or dash off a quick oil study onsite. That additional source of information was invaluable, and it added layers of texture and feeling that photographs could not provide. I usually found myself relying on sketches for the mood of the place, and photos for the minute details.

Draw Tippy the Turtle. Then Click Send

I just returned from New York where I was attending a conference organized by a group called the College Art Association. For three days I sat through-or played hooky to avoid- numerous lectures related to teaching art at the college level.

One particular talk stands out; this session was aimed at issues related to teaching online art courses.  I admit I attended the session with my feet dragging. On the one hand the topic seemed highly relevant, as lots of colleges are moving towards teaching online. And yet for that very reason I wanted to avoid it like the plague (I love teaching in person). For me the subject has the feeling of inevitable desolation: something akin to meeting with your lawyer to discuss your living will. No one wants to face up to the great hereafter, just as no one wants to face up to the certain onslaught of the online university (save a few greedy online universities). But they are both out there, licking their chops and cackling.

At this session there were four speakers, three of whom did absolutely nothing to diminish my concerns about teaching art online. As they described their grim teaching strategies (with copious use of PowerPoint zzzzz) I could only envision myself slotted into an online teaching gig: sitting at my computer cut off from all of my funny students, confined to a little room, bored shitless. I envisioned my imaginary students, each sitting alone at their respective bedroom computers, with Justin Bieber posters on the wall, and Mom in the background yelling, “Jasmine, time for dinner!” Somehow I saw it all in lurid, off-kilter Seventies sitcom color … but I digress. My miserable reverie was broken by a speaker’s proclamation that “the online experience is superior to teaching in person.” Taking notes in the back of the room, I wrote “WTF?” next to that whopper.

Online courses (especially art courses) meet with mixed reviews at best. A New York Times article (February 18, 2013) states: “Lacking confidence as well as competence, these students (community college students in this case) need engagement with their teachers to feel comfortable and to succeed. What they often get online is estrangement from the instructor who rarely can get to know them directly.”  Roger that. Online courses may be the wave of the future, but in their current incarnation they lack the warmth and probity of even the most banal human interaction.

There was, however one notable exception to the depressing tenor of the day: a sparkplug of a teacher by the name of Valerie Powell. Ms. Powell is a visiting assistant professor of Art at Sam Houston State University, and she teaches a course that works on a hybrid model: students spend considerable time working together in the studio, followed by a good chunk of time working independently. The online coursework is an adjunct to the in-class coursework. In a sense she has struck a happy balance. Physically working together allows for the kind of intense give-and-take that is required of any valid student-teacher relationship, whereas the online component allows timid students to provide input that they might hesitate to contribute in a typical classroom setting. Somehow it all seems to fuse together nicely.

Most likely I am making all of this sound much easier to pull off than it really is. Teaching a course of this nature is a delicate balancing act. What impressed me about Ms. Powell was her apparent ability to juggle dramatically different pedagogical approaches. The very characteristics that make Ms. Powell a good online instructor- high energy, an innovative approach, attention to detail- are the very qualities that make for a successful bricks-and-mortar teacher.

So we have to ask: for the art student, does any of this make for a valid experience? I’m not so sure. I’m convinced that full online courses work only for a small percentage of the students who enroll in them. The hybrid model seems to make a bit more sense. Again the NYT: “…students in hybrid classes performed as well academically as those in traditional classes. But hybrid courses are rare, and teaching professors how to manage them is costly and time-consuming.” So kudos to Valerie Powell for coming up with a solution that appears to be working.

I still believe that in a perfect world all art students would have access to hands on, personal studio instruction. Of course much of that is my personal bias.  So says the guy who is communicating to you via the internet.

Empathy

The painter Martin Beck tells a funny story about drawing a model in class. In this case the model was an old woman with a stoop and a Popeye-the-Sailorman grimace. During a drawing session she broke her pose and began to laugh at him. Martin, it appears had unwittingly developed a stoop and a grimace while drawing her. It is no coincidence that Beck is a very talented artist; in his desire to empathize with his subject he had temporarily taken on her mannerisms, and likely made a drawing that went somewhere beyond a generic description of his subject.

The chef Jamie Oliver has been known to take his students to a farm to visit lambs that are destined for the table. This is not an exercise designed to elicit sympathy (he has every intention of serving that lamb for dinner). Respect might be a better word for it, but even that falls short. I think that he is trying to instill in his students something ineffable; an understanding of what makes that lamb so precious and delicate…and yes, so tasty. I imagine that he hopes that something of the charm and sweetness of that little critter will shape the way that his students prepare it for dining. Sounds corny I know, but count me as a believer.

In Nick Lyons’ short story “Mecca”, Hawkes, a wily old fisherman, spends the day vastly out-catching his fishing companions. On the car trip home they relentlessly press him for details. What was his strategy? How did he catch so many fish? Finally, reluctantly he answers, “…did you see the innocence, the absolute simplicity of that farmgirl holding her child this afternoon? The Madonna-no less.”

This is not a satisfactory response, and his companions persist. He responds, “Ah, but did you see the colors of the sun settling below the tree line, the ochers, the magentas…”

Exasperated one cohort finally says,“You won’t tell us what you took them on?” Hawkes replies, “You’ve missed the point, Nick.”

Great artists possess great empathy. Velazquez, Isabel Bishop, Courbet, Lucian Freud…. look at their drawings and paintings and see if perhaps you are not getting a singular glimpse into the interior lives of their sitters. What you are viewing is not simply a display of technical skill (though you are seeing that in abundance); it is something greater.

I wonder sometimes if in this age where so many students live shielded lives, they have lost some measure of empathy; if when they walk around with ear buds in, not communicating with others they are experiencing some sort of sensory deprivation. I have worked with a million students. Those who come to class, unplugged from media, alert to other people and the greater world tend to be very good students. Those who slump in disengaged, with hoodies up and headphones on tend to be pretty lousy students. Certainly wanting to connect with humanity is a positive step towards obtaining empathy.

Here is a good exercise: Sometimes when I want my students to experience some of the feelings of the model- the pull of certain muscles, the minor fatigue of a pose, I ask them to adopt the stance and attitude of the model, to imitate her pose, if only for a minute.   We talk about where we feel weight and where we feel a stretch. Then when they start to draw I tell them to somehow acknowledge those places through their marks- the beginning I hope, of empathy.

It Always Comes Back to Design

The more I teach, the more I realize how much the discipline of drawing relies on design. In a funny way it is unfortunate that art students are required to take two-dimensional design as first semester freshmen. At least it was for me; when I was eighteen my brain was a slippery thing, and there wasn’t much that would stick to it. A few years later, when I began to get serious about drawing and painting I had to reverse my tracks and reacquaint myself with some of the basic rules of design.

Thoughtful design is essential to the success of good drawing. Put another way, an otherwise well-drawn picture can easily fail because of poor design choices. Perhaps the most common design infringement is bad placement of the form on the page, or in design jargon: a bad positive and negative relationship. I can’t guess the number of times I’ve seen student figure drawings where the model is rendered beautifully, yet cut off gracelessly at the ankles, while four inches of empty, ominous, unused page looms over the head.

Granted, as students draw they are simultaneously making dozens of visual decisions.  While focusing on volume-building, surface texture, expression, etc., it is all too easy to overlook the arrangement of the figure on the page. Positive/negative shape problems even affect the greats. I once saw a Renoir sketch where an extra section of paper had been tacked on to the drawing so that the artist could add some feet- feet that had been unceremoniously cut off in the original drawing (by-the-way, I always tell my students that scabbing another page onto a drawing is perfectly acceptable; if it was ok with Renoir...). But there is a greater point: with a bit of planning- some well placed gestures or construction lines, the problem of poor placement can be avoided from the onset.

From time to time a good instructor will find ways to fold design lessons into the drawing curriculum. More often than not, this kind of discussion will just happen organically. Egon Schiele liked to bludgeon his viewers with his use of positive and negative shape. It is impossible to avoid discussing the arrangement of shape/space when looking at a Schiele drawing. And as for the rest of the elements and principles of design: unity and variety, emphasis, rhythm, line quality, etc., from time to time instructors need to point out the obvious and bring students back to fundamentals. After all, even great piano players practice their scales regularly.

Good drawings are complex things and they succeed on many levels. A successful drawing might contain areas of precisely drawn forms inextricably meshed with a network of design principles and elements. The savvy and knowledgeable student learns that good design can enhance a picture, and in some cases make up for deficiencies in rendering.

Get to Know You

At a certain point we kick our drawing students out of the nest. Gone are the exercises in perspective, the still life, and the value charts. Students have the basic skills down pat (at least they should), and now they are expected to come up with their own subject matter. We hand them their freedom. And they stand before the drawing pad with a mandate to do their own thing; to create a body of personal work... and then what?

Some students have the emotional maturity and vision to plunge right in. But for many others those first sovereign steps can be tentative and wobbly. It is not uncommon for students to copy ideas from other artists. That is ok- to an extent: In their early years the Rolling Stones copied Chuck Berry and John Lee Hooker; they had to start somewhere. But eventually they realized that they had to find their own voice, write their own material, and develop their own sound. Likewise every student has to find his or her own way. It is very easy for students to succumb to pressure and make the art that they think they should be making, which too often means copying the look of the current hot artist- as opposed to what they really want to (and should) make.  This is especially true in high profile art schools where competition is fierce and students have a heightened awareness of what is presently fashionable in New York and L.A.

Years ago, during a critique one of my instructors put it bluntly: “What do you like?” he asked one of my dithering classmates. The student said he was really into UFOs. “Then draw UFOs!” the instructor exclaimed. How obvious. That little nugget of permission granted meant a great deal to me. Subject matter is extremely personal. And it should be unique and relevant to every student artist. It only makes sense that depicting things we care about will keep us fully engaged in the drawing process.

Students should be aware of who they are and what matters to them. Whether it is fishing, cats, baking, or biking; any subject matter can be mined for good drawings. Really, there is not much subject matter that is stupid (Ok, that is not true. I have seen lots of stupid subjects over the years. Maybe I should amend that to say there is not much honest subject matter that is stupid. Stupid comes when sentimentality and derivative solutions creep into the work. But that is a topic for another day). Wayne Thiebaud made paintings of slices of pie and cake, lipsticks and cans of house paint. What could be more banal? Yet the paintings are wonderful. These were things that he found interesting. He imbued them with tremendous dignity and transformed them into terrific works of art.

So take an honest inventory of the things that you really care about in life. Are you wrapped up in your family? Make portraits. Parrots? They could make great drawings. Do you like Elvis? Put him in a picture (it’s already been done, but what the heck). Nature? Go for it. Drawing things that you are emotionally invested in will keep you firmly tethered to your work, and will ultimately make for better pictures.

Running and Drawing

Suppose you decided to become a runner. How would you approach your new pastime? You could pick up a DVD that might provide inspiration. You could find books from the library with all sorts of running tips. You could purchase gear designed for rehydration and heart rate monitoring. You could load up your ipod with stimulating tunes. You could talk to the staff at the running store and get information on the next 5k race… Now, what am I leaving out? Oh yes, that part about putting on some sneakers and actually running. Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, you will suit up and hit the road. You might not be very good at first, but it is practically guaranteed that you will improve with time. All of those previously mentioned approaches take a back seat to the process of, well, running.

Maybe this seems like an exercise in obviousness, but I’m surprised at how many drawing students (sometimes aided and abetted by drawing instructors) will wrap themselves up in various nonessential activities all while avoiding the best thing they can do for themselves, which is simply drawing. Too often I see students trying to “think” their way through a drawing assignment. As I make my way around the studio during class, some students are working and producing like gangbusters. But others draw at a slow, painful, excruciating, glacial pace. When I ask why, they give me a veritable grocery list of reasons: they are afraid of messing up, they don’t have the right source, they don’t know what to do with “that corner of the drawing”, they are not feeling inspired right now, they wish they had some colored pastels today, etc. etc. It is all too easy for them to find fault with their current circumstances and to itemize the reasons why they cannot accomplish anything. Taken from a detached, calculated point of view it is clear how irrational this perspective is, yet most artists I know have occasionally been guilty of the crime of over-thinking and under-working (I know I have been).

So what is the solution? Go back to that would-be runner. Improvement comes only through running. For the art student, improvement comes through making art. It is important that students not be tentative about their path to success. Real progress takes work. So draw with a sense of urgency. Draw often and draw a lot. Circumstances will never, ever be perfect. There will always be some annoying and distracting issue with your materials, your model, the lighting, or your personal life. You must put all of that aside and work. And like the dedicated runner, improvement will come. That in turn will lead to bigger and better things: more drawings, more ambitious drawings, more facility with drawings, better drawings.

We are often our own worst enemy when it comes to making art. Years ago I found a wonderful little book called Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It directly addresses many of the things that hold us back when it comes to artmaking. It is a great, quick read. Check it out!

Wonderful, Astonishing, Splendiferous, Adjectives

Ah the critique! It can be an entertaining and scintillating hour of discussion, or an endless morass of pure drudgery. Before Art School Confidential was a mediocre movie it was a wonderful little comic. Cartoonist Daniel Clowes brilliantly recreates a studio critique where the entire endeavor is reduced to a “series of vague pep talks designed to keep up enrollment”. Ouch! The truth hurts. Fortunately most critiques are very interesting, and I hope very helpful. But a few, I’m afraid are dominated by bland platitudes.

It is important to understand that both the instructor and students bear some responsibility for the success or failure of the critique. The instructor needs to be attuned to time management and must be willing to redirect the conversation or cut off the student who is verbally drifting off towards some formless tangent. The students should present work that is worth discussing (easier said than done) and should be willing to engage one another with comments and criticisms intended to illuminate the drawings or provide strategies for improving the drawings. None of this is simple, but it is important work.

Sometimes prior to the semester’s first critique I have a contest where each student is asked to list as many adjectives as possible in a five minute period (the winner gets something cool, like a fake eyeball). We then make a master list. This in turn gives the students some tools for talking about one another’s drawings. Consequently, what starts out as “I like that little figure. She seems to be thinking,” might morph into “That beautiful, wisp of a girl looks so intelligent and thoughtful. She appears to be completely engrossed in her daydream.” I understand that maybe that sounds artificial or pretentious, but it serves several important functions. Language is powerful, and the right words can illuminate a drawing and perhaps give the creator some personal insight that she was not previously aware of. The right words can crystallize the artist’s intent and provide food-for-thought for future drawings. The right words can inspire and bolster the artist’s sense of self. Finally, the right words will convince the student artist that she has an attentive audience- something she will always appreciate.

Breakthrough

Yesterday in my figure drawing class one of my students (we’ll call her Becky) made half a dozen drawings. Nothing unique about that, except for the fact that they were the best six drawings she’d made all semester. If you are a creative person; a writer, musician, artist- you know that what I am talking about is kind of a big deal. We all aspire to work at a level where we are consistently making great work. But all of us have to slog through a lot of “just adequate” work in hopes that now and then we’ll hit the jackpot and create a real zinger. So to create a string of six very good pieces is very unusual.

So what happened to uncork Becky’s inner creative genius? The answer is pretty simple: she worked on a larger scale than usual. I’m not sure if she just decided it was time to try something new, or if she got tired of me yacking incessantly about the benefits of working large. But the change in strategy proved to be massively beneficial. Becky had always liked to work small and intimate. Nothing wrong with that. But when dealing with the figure and all of its nooks and crannies, it is much easier to draw a four inch long hand than a Barbie doll-sized hand. That bit of logic however, frequently does not stick to the walls of our student’s brains. I think there are lots of reasons for this: If students are feeling unsure of their skills they will naturally gravitate towards working small- it is easier to conceal the work that way. If students are lazy, they will not want to expend the energy needed to make a large stroke; a little flick of the wrist is much easier to pull off. Students are also creatures of habit. Prior to college, they are rarely, if ever asked to work on a scale larger than a phone book page.

The drawing instructor has to constantly remind students, even advanced students, to do all sorts of little things to ensure their success: mind your posture, work from the shoulder, step back from the work from time to time, establish the big forms before you work on the details. And yes, work at a scale (large or small) that will benefit you. Along with good drawing habits, change in and of itself can provide some nice spice to the diet of the artist. A change of scale, mediums, subject matter, drawing grounds, or time allotment can shake things up just enough to provide for a breakthrough.

For Becky, a little tweak in her working process made a huge difference in the quality of her drawings. The cool thing is, now she knows how good her drawings can be. She has raised the bar.