My Blog List

Friday, March 6, 2015

A Mouth, A Chin, A Hairline

Dripping Wet; IN PROGRESS; graphite; TMDD Series  Winter, 2014-15
There used to be ivy all leafy green
against this wall. I miss it. Snow
patterns are a downer.
Russel Keeter is standing over my shoulder the more I've use my pencil.  You know how you remember certain teachers, but not others? I've been remembering everything Keeter said about drawing--move slow, don't go too fast, take it easy.  Draw lightly. Don't get dark too soon.  Find common points. Measure and measure again. The more I draw each morning, the more I think of him and the lighter the pressure placed on the lead.  I am amazed at how little pressure I have to apply to get a light value that's hardly there.  This morning, I  broke up the line of his  right cheek, the cheek on the light side of his face.  I let the slight shading suggest the form and eliminated  the line I had drawn previously--the viewer's eye will put it in. Bright sunlight washes out form; it's the background that defines those shapes, not the lighting. There will be no background here.

Going at a slower, more deliberate pace, it looks like Dripping Wet will be the last drawing of the Sun Torch Thirty Minute Daily Drawings as we set our clocks ahead an hour Saturday night and gain an hour of morning light, the stuff that keeps us cheery. I'll miss it.  It'll be hard sitting there drawing for no reason other than drawing.

I have to show you how my camera, Nikon L120, took this picture in the light from a North East window at ten to eight AM. Talk about the cold light of morning:  BLUE.  TOTALLY BLUE!  Amazing.  It could be the camera?  It could be me?  It could be me and the camera?  More investigation is needed.



NOTE:  I may have given you all the wrong impression with yesterdays's post?  Ellis isn't starting a new job; he's been a building contractor for twenty seven years.  He just broke off with his associate and activated his own  building company, which was in place for a few years.   I was happy for him (and me) and offered my planning and drafting services should he have a project that needed them. I was glad he hadn't decided to retire.  Retirement would have been a bummer for my workaholic honey.  It was not a bummer for me; I saved the best for last. Painting.   

10 comments:

  1. Bonjour,

    J'aime particulièrement ce moment où votre esquisse s'arrête momentanément... Elle prend son souffle pour mieux prendre vie.

    Je vous souhaite un excellent weekend.
    Gros bisous ❦

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Moi aussi! Je trouve fascinant travail inachevé. Il est plus vivant que d'une pièce finie où tous les problèmes ont été résolus et tout est ficelé avec un joli nœud.

      Me too! I find unfinished work fascinating. It is more alive than a finished piece where all the problems have been solved and everything is tied up with a pretty bow.

      Delete
  2. Love the commentary to this drawing, Linda, it certainly unpick's the logic and the technique and makes the whole post an enjoyment to the viewer/reader.

    I'm getting to like Ellis more and more... my sort of guy. For example the highlight of my year isn't the trip around the world, but the delivery of a truckload of timber, in May, from which I'm going to build a Chalet studio ... although it might turn into a workshop if I'm to build my boat next year!

    Life is fun, but the days are too short!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you need some help? Both of us love the smell of fresh timber. 😊 Drawing these last months has been most enjoyable; it satisfies my inner draughtsman so much so, my painting has fallen off. Food for thought.

      Delete
  3. A mouth, a chin and a hairline ... all you need! This is perfect, Linda. Keep good ol' Russell Keeter peeking over your shoulder. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I couldn't decide if there were one or two LS in his name. He's long gone, but his voice is still in my head. I had him for Anatomy and Lide Drawing for two years. Excellent artist and good looking too. My other cherished teacher was in HS. 'Miss West' in the classroom; Eva to her peers. She taught Compositional English and was very demanding. Both were. Do you have any teachers who actually contributed to your skills?

      Delete
    2. None in the arts. But I had a super math teacher in grade 11 & 12. I actually went to university, and started out the first 2 years as a math major. Mr. Rudolph was inspiring, and just such a good person. Towards the end of the school year, one day we all [the entire class] brought him an apple. His desk was buried under them. And oddly enough, I had him as a patient in one of the first practices in which I worked as a hygienist.

      Delete
    3. It's good for him that you liked him. :-)

      Delete
  4. Linda, I have been conspicuously absent for some time, but on coming here again I was thoroughly WOW'ed by your banner... Excellent! I do gain so much from studying your paintings and drawings, this one being no exception. I am trying to wrap my mind around negative spaces and how the light and shadow in those (rather than line) often seem to define form...this drawing is a great example of this concept.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm glad my experience could contribute to yours. As far as I'm concerned, there are no negative spaces in the sense that the air around a solid has no shape. You can do excellent drawings just by drawing the negative shapes. Draw them correctly, and you'll get the positive space occupied by the solid object. Seeing the negative as positive is a positive way to draw. 😀

      Delete