small. hard to draw small scale stuff without boggling up your little lines and overworking areas. things dont pop out as strongly when thin, so mistakenly you may try just piling more and more on top waiting for it to pop, then soon realize you’re doing it wrong. etching + drawing. outdated pop culture reference. might re-work, might leave as is. being left with pile of scraps and drawings to re-work or cut up and use elsewhere.
sometimes its easier to look at these works as “finished” when viewed on the computer. after making it last night and viewing it in my hands i keep thinking of what more marks to make or sections to wash over. on a computer you are taking it as is, you may want to rework stuff, but it has to wait and you are free to think of the work in a more holistic view. its kinda like putting it on the wall and stepping back from it.
There is a certain insinuation in critique. It is basically the assumption that I am conscious of something that I wish to impart on you. And I am supposed to feel as if it is my duty to impart this particular awareness into you. See, I’m even doing it right now.
It’s an interesting thing to consider what is projected, what notions come out while I critique…because they are all the things that I am thinking about when I create my own work. In short, a critique by me is trying to persuade you to make work like me. This is even true for non-artists. They will pull you into their realm of understanding, a certain kind of control in which they can perceive your work. And much of what they cannot perceive equates to nonsense.
It’s not an evil thing, but it can have a hugely stifling effect, as the artist doesn’t understand why all of his other effort is completely ignored.
What then is the value of a critique? Afterall, I haven’t even addressed your work yet.
Let’s look at light. I can see in this work right here, how you have designated light a certain form. The light bulb is the source of light. It hits certain plains of the figure and implies a certain area to be illuminated. However, there is no light value to confirm that the light hits the surface. The light form is a force cast in a direction. This points to painting.
I am only aware of this because I am now painting. My entire practice lately has revolved around drawing, and I am finding it a real challenge to bring my facility with paint up to a level in which i can convince myself of light and dark. not to mention placing color, whether saturated or subdued, into an arrangement that is convincing. i can draw an entire picture into planes, designate where light is cast, and still i find myself ignorant where to place color and value. it has occurred to me lately that i have never had this facility with color and paint, and that perhaps the lesson learned is patience, and the kind of forgiveness that is needed to allow oneself the time to actually develop some facility with the whole discipline of painting. that means taking it easy, making goofy shit, having fun, making it therapeutic, smooshing my hands through the gooey stuff, whatever. that also means toughing it through the whole discipline of observational painting, to adopt that certain naturalness that we got out of doing it with drawing.
that’s a fine plan, but in the mean time my paintings look like shit. i take much more pleasure out of drawing, which seems to be an apt skill set that we both have. this skill set somehow feels complete, as if we could satisfy what any drawing requires, if we are so inclined.
also it is within this skill set that we find certain refinements emerging, certain peculiarities and wonderous things coming out, things we werent aware that we were even capable of producing. it’s that whole flow thing that your buddy malcolm gladwell talks about. i am also looking for that in painting. it’s what creates that range of reality and bullshit that i quite like, and what feels honest.
if this critique seems to be more about me than about you, let me reiterate that they all work that way. however, there is a point i am trying to make that applies to both of us.
isn’t it those things which we create in “flow” that are our shining moments, the things that really amaze us for having produced? is it possible for another person to perceive that?
even in these confines that we have created for ourselves, in these various exterior and interior environments in which our figures reside, isn’t there a dynamic matrix going on? do i really need to point out what you are doing intuitively? how can i actually help you? what really are your goals? can i induce you into a state of flow? can that be achieved through a critique? wooooo!!!!!! go make some drawings.
By: jedtrucke on July 27, 2009
at 8:32 am
its interesting to me that’d you say value definined lighting would be drawing, and light as directional force is more of a painting technique.
i may be misunderstanding what ya mean there. but i always think of highly rendered value drawings as similar to paintings. linear based contour imagery seems more abstract[maybe the right word?] and separate from painting and value. I think its interesting that line can be defined as dark lines instead of just empty space surrounded by dark lines[shadows]. Sometimes i create light in a mix of these two ways, usually just cover a lack of mastery to do it solely one way.
when we worked by each other in school i always thought of you as much more advanced in dealing with paint. i knew basically nothing whereas you seemed well above the student level. i particularly recall your observational paintings.
i havent been painting in a while. I was doing stuff for Lotz, but that was mostly design based over observational. Not selecting life colors but simple variations for light-dark-reflected light on sculpture-esque forms. i’ll go back to painting pretty soon, maybe i’m looking at painting differently now since its been on the backburner for a while and i have forgotten some of the connections between it and drawing.
By: philjasen on August 4, 2009
at 1:34 pm
oh i meant that light can be delineated as a directional force. it occurs like that with the way that you draw it. it’s unique to depict light in that way, as contrasted from the most common method of distinguishing values and treating light as this thing that travels invisibly until it hits an object.
just out of curiosity, do you ever experience art burn out? this past week, as rent has become due and other finances have become pressed, i have noticed that my stress level goes way up. it causes such a strain that sitting before a piece of paper is almost impossible. it sucks ass.
however, something else is afoot. something in my behavior patterns has shifted and caused me to lose motivation. ever happen to you?
By: jedtrucke on August 5, 2009
at 5:44 pm