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| 2/17/20 Sketch 1: graphite (class assignment) |
Beets are one of those love-‘em-or-hate-‘em vegetables –
I’ve never met anyone who said they were neutral about beets. I happen to love
‘em and eat them often, but I admit I had never taken the time to look at them
closely, really closely, until last Monday’s botanical drawing class.
The lesson was roots. Usually I’m quick to lop off that hairy
“tail” and toss it. This time, of course, it was important to leave it intact
so it could be studied as part of the whole root form. It was, in fact, the
most fun part to draw, and I came to appreciate its long, crooked taper seeking
nutrients from the soil.
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| 2/18/20 Sketch 2: colored pencil |
While I thoroughly enjoyed my close study of the beet with
graphite, I missed color. The next day, I picked a different beet from the
bunch – slightly plumper and with a nicely curved tail – to try with colored
pencils. Purple with green is my all-time favorite color combination, and I
don’t encounter it in nature nearly as much as I’d like to, so I relished
putting the veins in that leaf. But I have to say that the part I’m most proud
of is the fading shadow of the aloft root’s tip – I don’t get to practice that
often.
These beets were destined for dinner soon, but before I roasted
them, I wanted two more shots, each with less detail than the previous ones. No.
3 was with watercolor pencils. This one is probably closest to my general “urban
sketching style,” which is to draw the larger shapes, apply as much pigment as
possible in one shot, activate with water, and add details last, depending on
how much time I have.
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| 2/19/20 Sketch 3: watercolor pencil |
For the last one I chose the chunky Art Stix I
recently discovered, which are ideal for avoiding detail. My goal was to
capture mainly the form and values. In both No. 3 and No. 4, I realized that
the details I had observed in my first two drawings helped me choose what to
leave out. If I hadn’t done the “tight” versions first, I probably would
have been tempted to put all those details into the looser attempts. And the
previous close studies also gave me the information I needed to see the forms.
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| 2/19/20 Sketch 4: Prismacolor Art Stix |
Interestingly, this is the opposite approach of traditional
life-drawing practice. When drawing models, we always warm up with short poses
first to “loosen up,” and then move gradually to longer and longer poses so
that refinement and detail are possible. (Hmmm, this gives me an idea: another
series of beets, this time going from loose to tight.)
More thoughts on “looseness”:
When I had first started out as a sketcher, more experienced
artists sometimes encouraged me to “loosen up.” While I truly wanted to draw
with the apparent ease and “looseness” I perceived in certain sketchers I
admired, I had no idea how to achieve that. With beginning drawing skills, my
attempts at looseness simply looked sloppy and scribbly, which was not a style
I wanted to work toward.
I had been drawing for quite some time before I finally
understood: Artists who have a fluid, expressive style developed that style
after years of training and practice. My guess is that many started out with a
much “tighter” style that naturally evolved. Unlike dancing, “looseness” is not
something you simply shimmy into after you’ve had a few drinks. Ironically, you
must work very hard toward looseness if it’s something you aspire to – just
like everything else related to drawing. Advising an inexperienced sketcher to
“loosen up” is no more helpful than to advise them to “draw better.”
One artist I have admired since I first began sketching is
Suhita Shirodkar. She is a master of capturing life, activity and form with a
deceptively loose style that makes sketching look easy, yet it’s clear that years
of study and practice are behind that apparent ease. Her blog the other day included a video of herself sketching daffodils, and I was surprised by how
slowly she works. You can see how much thinking is going on behind each deliberate
paint and pencil stroke; she is not splashing around recklessly. I remember a
while back she showed some professional drawings she had done years ago before
she began urban sketching. They were lovely but very tight renderings – and unrecognizable
from the style I associate with Suhita.
Maybe it’s my training at Gage Academy and its
foundation in realism that influences my opinion. With that classical approach,
everyone starts out learning to draw as accurately and realistically as
possible, and the results usually look “tight.” Once that foundation is
learned, it’s up to the students to develop and grow in whatever direction they
want to. Some stay in the world of realism, some develop “looser” styles, and still
others move toward abstraction. With a solid background in realism, however, they
have a wider range of skills to use, regardless of the direction they choose.
I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m saying that looser is
somehow better or a style to eventually aspire to; I don’t believe any style is
better or worse than any other. I’m just saying that, for myself, I want to be
able to draw confidently in whatever style suits me at the moment. At my
current stage, I tend toward the tighter end of the scale. My “natural” range
is somewhere around sketches Nos. 2 and 3. No. 4 was a much bigger stretch for
me than was No. 1.
It takes a long time to grow into “looseness.”
Lake View Cemetery on Capitol Hill is well known because Bruce Lee is buried there. The last time I was there years ago, I wasn’t paying
respects; I was just looking for something to sketch. On Saturday I was
there to say good-bye to a friend’s father, and I found a sketch again as we
waited for the family to arrive.
