7
Mining Culture
Immersion / Abduction / More About Spin-Offs / Constraints / Flattening and Posterizing / Symmetry and Not-Quite-Symmetry
Perhaps our greatest challenge as creative people is getting outside our own box. As long as we stick to the world as we know it, we will produce work that is safe, comfortable and familiar. What lies beyond this world is pretty much invisible to us, but it also happens to be where the creative juice flows. It seems that we are at our most creative when we are in a state of not knowing.
The most committed artists understand this. They leap in with no certainty about the outcome. They improvise. They try things that they aren't already good at. They look closely at and experiment with strange and unfamiliar sources.
The Italian and the Egyptian
It is impossible to see the world through someone else's eyes. But when you look at the work of other cultures, you can get a sense not only of what they saw, but also how they saw. In his classic book, Art and Visual Perception, Rudolph Arnheim offered a useful thought experiment on how differently people from separate cultures might visualize the same things. I will paraphrase his idea here. Let's imagine that somehow we could bring together two artists, the first an Italian from the sixteenth century, and the second an Egyptian from several thousand years ago. Now suppose that we gave each this assignment: “Draw a rectangular pool. It should have equal-sized and equally spaced palm trees growing all around it.”
We can presume that the Italian would draw something like this:
The Egyptian would look at the Italian's drawing with a skeptical eye. “The instructions were to make a rectangular pool,” he would protest. “But this is a trapezoid. And weren't the trees supposed to grow around the pool? Some of these are inside the pool. The trees were also supposed to be the same size, but some are big while others are small. And they aren't equally spaced.”
The Egyptian's version would look something like this:
These examples represent two very different ways of seeing. The difference is all about perspective — one image has depth, while the other is flat. Either version offers rich possibilities for the creative artist. This holds true for many other stylistic opposites: realistic vs. symbolic, elaborate vs. minimalist, linear vs. tonal, romantic vs. classical.
For most of art history, these conventions remained sealed off from each other. The work of another culture may have been an amusing curiosity, but it had little to do with one's own understanding. Sometime in the late 19th century this attitude shifted. Work formerly regarded in Europe as primitive and strange began to be appreciated for its own intrinsic qualities. Paul Gauguin, for instance, went to Tahiti to get a fresh view of the world. His art thereafter was deepened by these influences. Around the same time, Japanese postcards became the rage among the impressionists and the post-impressionists of Europe. The linear style and radical cropping of great artists like Katsushika Hokusai jolted the Europeans into a radically new way of seeing. And in 1905 Pablo Picasso — deeply impressed by the expressive power of African art — put African masks on the faces of some female nudes in his cubist masterpiece Les Demoiselles d' Avignon.
This chapter is about seeing other ways of seeing and acknowledging the value this can have for your own work. When something catches you about the artwork of another culture, it may be strange, but it is also familiar. It reminds you of things in your own experience — but with a new twist. Perhaps it exhibits a verve and daring that inspires you to break out of your own timidity. Perhaps it treats a semi-taboo subject, like death, in a fresh and amusing way, one that gives you new permission to depict a subject in a fresh fashion. Maybe you will discover a celebration of the sacredness of the small and insignificant, as in representations of beetles, wasps or caterpillars.
The practice of stepping outside the world you know can be creatively transforming. It calls forth images you had never imagined. It brings up questions you never thought to ask. It takes you outside your box, offering new ways of seeing and interpreting the world.
To illustrate some ways of mining culture, I have chosen three distinct styles of art. They are the art of ancient America (or pre-Columbian art), Art Noveau, and oriental carpets. In each of these traditions, the things that inspire me, and the resulting spin-off drawings I make, are personal and idiosyncratic. They are offered here as examples of how one might abduct from historic art styles. Your own choices, inspirations and abductions will certainly be different from mine.
abductions and spin-offs
The term abduction has been used to describe the lifting of certain features from one context and then superimposing them on another. I call the resultant new drawing a spin-off. Spin-offs are not copies. They are drawings inspired by or suggested by an original source.
Here is how I go about this process. I go to a museum with my sketchbook in hand and look for work that interests me. Sometimes it's major work, like the Michelangelo sculptures on this page. More often it is obscure works I have never seen before. When I find something I like, I make a drawing or two of it, trying to imagine the experience of the artist. What was he or she thinking? What makes this work unique? What do I like about it?
Later, sometimes months later, I flip through my sketchbook with a playful eye. When I see the Captive drawings, below, they trigger a number of ideas and associations. For example, I wonder about the difference between finished and unfinished work, about what makes us feel trapped or imprisoned, about ways of depicting human struggle. I make my own spin-off drawings, some of which are shown at right, on these themes — sometimes incorporating my earlier figure drawings, sometimes working from photographs or memory. I usually start with simple, literal abductions and then begin stretching them, always seeking to draw a more radical version.
There are lots of things that one can borrow from any work of art, but to simplify, I focus on three categories:
1. Style: How is the work executed?
2. Content: What is the work about?
3. Spirit: What unique qualities reveal the imagination of the artist?
Playing with associations, imagining the artist's intentions, and pushing the boundaries of what you already know comprise the essence of mining culture.
I drew these Captives by Michelangelo at the Florence Academy. There has been some speculation about why he never finished them. I suspect that, in part, he liked the way they looked, partially emerging from the marble. The semi-smooth quality of the torsos contrasts expressively with the roughly gouged stone.
Whatever Michelangelo was thinking, he left us with something to stimulate our own thinking. The act of drawing these pieces was a form of immersion (see page 146) for me. I began to wonder how carefully he planned. For example, in the right-hand figure, he seemed to leave insufficient marble for the neck and head, unless he intended to tilt or twist it. Did he plan this all along? Or did he like to create tricky situations that he knew he would have to work around?
The sketches on the facing page show how spin-offs work. Start with some key feature of a work and then “push” that feature to a more extreme limit.
Spin-Offs
HIDDEN
Here I took the “imprisoned torso” idea a step further, using cloth instead of stone. I was also playing with the idea of leaving insufficient room for the head. The torso was drawn from a photograph.
BOUND
In Italy I once saw some marble sculptures being prepared for moving. They were partially covered with ropes, cloth and soft foam. They reminded me of the Captives. This figure grew out of that memory.
TRAPPED
Here's a straightforward spin-off, again pushing the “figures imprisoned in stone” idea, to “figures partly stone.” To get a craggy coral-like texture, I copied the rock pattern from page 124.
FALLING
The idea of a figure that turns into cloth grew out of my previous drawing, Hidden, so this is a spin-off of a spin-off. You can see how quickly spin-offs take you away from the source, and into some unpredictable direction.
I'm still intrigued with the ambiguity of whether or not there is room for a head.
IMAGINARY FOSSILS
The Captives remind me of the way some fossils look trapped and struggling. Dying, at near right, pushes and exaggerates that idea.
Archaeopteryx Bound, at far right, is drawn from one of the famous fossils found in the quarries of Bavaria, Germany. I drew it with added ropes just to see how it would look.
immersion
When I look for inspiration in the work of another culture, I first go through an “immersion” process. I study the work by reading or (when I can) by going to museums and drawing. You learn a lot from sketching: how other artists handled shape and form, how they simplified and stylized, and what subjects interested them.
I prefer to draw from sculpture and pottery rather than from other drawings because there is some translation involved in converting three dimensions into two. But anything that grabs your attention is worthy of a quick sketch. The sketches on these pages are based on original Mayan and other Meso-American art, drawn mostly in the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City. A few are from photographs.
HIDDEN IMAGES
Little human forms clamber and peek around a two-headed serpent, all standing on a Death's head.
A BOLD IMAGINATION
The Mayans and their antecedents were creatively fearless in combining elements. Here is a warrior god coming out of a serpent's mouth.
This was a very artistic form of hieroglyphic writing.
“SHAPE-CONSCIOUS” ART
Large major shapes get filled in with tightly fitting smaller shapes.
IMMERSION SKETCHES
These sketches were made in various museums. I chose artifacts that struck me as displaying the originality of the maker. As I drew, I imagined the artist working inside a tradition but also breaking free with small bursts of creativity. Sketches like these become source material for spin-off drawings.
This bowl is wildly and beautifully decorated. That's an alligator on top.
A jug holding a bowl.
Both his tongue and his bare feet stick out.
Round pot with man — or vice versa.
I like the clay sculpture that mixes three-dimensional with flat. The dimensional parts look so striking in the intense Mexican sun.
A two-bowl chihuahua.
I like the symmetry of this foot, with toes all the same length.
This three-headed ring may have been uncomfortable, but it sure is inventive.
Even though I no longer remember what this is, it still has spin-off possibilities.
Head inside a curled leaf.
Quetzalcoatl, god of the air and benefactor of humans, depicted as a coiled, feathered serpent.
A rattle — dry seeds inside the belly.
inventing
If I were to use one word to describe pre-Columbian art it would have to be inventive. Two-headed snakes, pots that look like people, headdresses that are actually heads, grinning skeletons, sneering weasels, and men being devoured by jaguars — these were all grist for the artists of ancient Mexico. We don't need to know the symbolic meaning of these works to appreciate the pure creative impulse at play and to incorporate that spirit into our own drawings.
Skeletons, Masks and Headdresses
These artists were comfortable with the macabre and the strange. Ugliness was not a quality they avoided. Rather, they invented freely with it. The same with Death. We find frequent and imaginative appearences by skeletons. Some seem terrifying, others almost comic. One of my favorites is the one at right, who looks like he's on a cell phone.
The drawings on this page are immersion drawings. Those on the facing page are spin-off drawings. Notice that the spin-offs often veer wildly from the source. Spin-offs should be like that — free associations, rather than imitative versions of the original.
SKELETONS
In ancient America, death could come suddenly. And judging by their art, the people seemed to accept that.
I've seen several of these half-alive/half dead pieces. Reminders of mortality? Man's divided nature? Peeling back layers?
OVERSIZE HEADDRESS
This fierce vampire bat goddess wears a headdress that is also a menacing face.
SPINAL POT
Here's a fascinating idea for a container. Looks like you could play a tune on it.
FIERCE AND SINISTER FACES
This is a combination sketch of a Mayan jade bat god and an Aztec plumed serpent. The bat god looks like he is thinking. The serpent looks aroused and hungry.
Spin-Offs
Sometimes you need only the smallest fragment of an idea to give you a fresh idea. Some of these sketches are far removed from the source — but the original pointed the way.
BACKWARD
Spin-off drawings don't need to make sense. Some merely play with ideas.
SWITCHED
This reversal plays with the notion that masks give identity.
ANIMAL MASKS
In some tribal cultures, putting on the mask of an animal imbues the wearer with that animal's power. In these two sketches, I was thinking of that moment of transformation.
HEADS UP ON HEADS
The Meso-Americans were fond of multi-tiered headdresses.
TOP DRAWER
This shows how one idea leads to another.
FACE-OFF
The face behind the mask can be just as scary.
THE KISS
I like drawings that incorporate some kind of blend between realism and symbolism. This idea is partly based on a still from the film Viva Mexico.
PUZZLE MASK
Here I was thinking of a mask with some missing pieces here and there.
LONE STRANGER
Dancing skeletons were a common theme in the movies and cartoons of the 1930s. This one is doing the Texas Two-Step.
PELVIC MASK
Bone shapes have an abstract quality — with just a hint of the macabre.
stylizing and symbolizing
Symbolizing seems to involve several types of skills — careful observation, understanding the constraints of the materials, and a sense of the essence, to name a few. The ancient Mexicans had a genius for this, especially in their depictions of animals. The lowly creatures of the rainforests and deserts — toads, lizards, tarantulas and, especially, snakes — are all elevated to respected status in this art. The remarkable rattlesnake column, below, right, from Chichén Itzá in Mexico, is an inspiring case in point. One normally thinks of snakes as curving forms: undulating, rounded and/or coiled. How can these qualities be conveyed in a stack of rectangular blocks? The Mayans solved this by placing the head on the ground and stacking the blocks directly behind it. Then they balanced an overhanging lintel (the rattle) on top. My sketch, from a photograph, inspired the fanciful spin-off drawings on the facing page.
Constraints
This work reminds us of the important role that constraints play on creativity. Constraints often dictate structure. They set boundaries for creative play. The Mayans had to work within the size and shapes of the stones they used. In your case, it might be the drawing tool, the time available, or certain choices you make regarding what your drawing is about. For example, as I made the spin-off drawings on the facing page, I tried to imagine everything as made of carved stone.
When an animal is incorporated into an everyday pot, or a waterspout, it is squished, stretched or bloated to fit its function, as you can see in these museum sketches of various stylized creatures.
COYOTE
MONKEY JUG
COILED SNAKE
BAT
This beautiful rattlesnake column has caught the spirit of the creature, even though it makes no attempt at realism. I love the rhythmic designs incised in the blocks.
Somewhere I read of an early Mayan myth about the origins of the world on an alligator's back. It inspired this symbolic Adam and Eve drawing.
Spin-Offs
I retraced, with modifications, this Alligator Arch upside down and ended up with the drawing below, Two Crocodiles Dancing.
EQUUS
The pre-Columbians had no knowledge of horses, but this is how I imagine they might have represented them. This drawing is a spin-off of my elongated horse on page 61.
I like to draw something and then see if I can rotate it in a new drawing. This practice helps me think in three dimensions.
LIZARD KING
Commemorated in stone on an imaginary wall somewhere.
BUG RODEO
A monument to those hardy bugs of summer.
STONE SCORPION
I copied the pre Columbian idea of incising decorations on the stone. I imagined this to be about thirty feet high.
graceful linearity
Artists have always been interested in the graceful curving forms of nature. The artists of the Art Nouveau style in the late 19th century took this interest to new heights. Influenced by Japanese wood block prints, they translated the world around them into flat patterns with fluid, undulating lines and radical cropping. Art Nouveau was a short-lived but richly creative movement that influenced painting, posters, jewelry design, architecture, furniture and typography.
Here I have focused mainly on the linear qualities of the style. When you draw objects in pure line — especially objects that have soft, blurry edges, like clouds, mist, water or fabric — they are transformed into almost abstract designs. This opens up new opportunities for playful invention.
As before, I start with simple immersion sketches, shown below. As I begin to get a feeling for the style, ideas emerge.
“Posterizing”
The Nouveau artists found that poster art was a perfect medium for expressing their interest in flat design, arresting composition and experimental typography. from a poster by Toulouse-Lautrec
ROMANTIC IMAGES
Art Nouveau focused on the female. Its themes were romantic, and its compositions were sensuous and graceful.
from a poster by Louis Rhead St ylized Line Almost every element is drawn in a controlled, graceful line. Here we see decorative possibilities even in steam.
from an advertisment for coffee by Alphonse Mucha
FROZEN ACTION
The careful, linear qualities of this style tend to make the subjects appear “frozen” in mid-action.
from a drawing for a cigar box by Carl Otto Czeschka
NOT -QUITE-SYMMETRY
The Nouveau artists liked to play with symmetry, often approaching and then veering away from it.
from a dressing table by Antonio Gaudi
Tangles and Outlines One linear trick employed in this style is drawing the outer lines while eliminating the overlapping lines. This emphasizes the design qualities.
from a calendar illustration by Alphonse Mucha
Spin-Offs
LINEAR MOVEMENT
These fabric sketches began to look like human figures, and I began to play with that, ending up with the Louis XIV character at right.
NOT-QUITE-SYMMETRY
The previous sequence led me to the idea of making a decorative border. I simply re-drew the shapes, connecting them all as if they were a single piece of cloth. Symmetry has a way of making otherwise chaotic elements look orderly. I used the light table method on pages 8–9 to duplicate the halves, but as you can see, I made the second half slightly different.
EXTREME NOUVEAU
I drew this Art Nouveau doorway, at left, from a photograph. (Once again, I drew only half of it and then flopped the drawing for the other half.) Then I decided to make a not quite symmetrical version, at right. Here I introduced differences between the two sides, exaggerating and distorting as I drew. For me, this version captures the runaway extremism sometimes found in the Nouveau style.
flattening and posterizing
Many of the Nouveau artists liked to adapt their decorative style to drawing flowers and insects. Even though they executed these subjects in sinuous lines and flat patterns, they prided themselves on careful and accurate observation. This is fertile ground for abduction: Draw things in the natural world accurately, but at the same time, emphasize the abstract design. Draw your flowers and insects as if they were posters. Eliminate or subdue the modeling and shading, keeping your forms within well-defined outlines, then try cropping radically — that is, zoom in close, boldly clipping off important objects in your picture.
When you adopt certain features of a style, you can stretch these features over different kinds of subject matter. Try drawing people and animals with these constraints in mind. Then make spin-offs of these drawings. Your results may look nothing like Art Nouveau — which is just as it should be. The style is just a starting point. Creativity then feeds on itself. Ideas generate ideas.
In the photograph, the background grate is nearly invisible. In the drawing it almost becomes part of the flowers. This has a flattening effect set against the simple black background.
Here's an example of radical cropping. We see only the center of the flower. And the butterfly is partially out of the picture. Everything looks suspended in time and space.
Strong black outlines create a “cut-out” effect, as if the flowers were two-dimensional. This makes us as aware of the background (the “in-between” shapes) as well as the flower shapes.
FROZEN ACTION
The lines of Art Nouveau tend to curve and flow. This creates movement by directing the eye around the picture. But this movement is often countered by a precise, almost mechanical line that tends to flatten and freeze the image, as you can see at right in the drawing Fur Tree. Compared with the livelier preliminary sketch, above, these cats seem almost glued to the tree. This is partly due to the way the cat and branch shapes are fused together within a single outline (see detail). The effect is like a piece of handcrafted jewelry, as if cats and tree were all made of the same stuff.
DETAIL
TANGLES
Here are some spin-off drawings in which I kept the line weight even and introduced as much confusing detail as possible. It's fun to draw — in pure line — all of the Nouveau-inspired elements, such as cloth, ribbons, manes, tails and reins. Drawings like these take patience — first to make an active, flowing sketch, at left, and then to patiently trace it onto a fresh sheet. Some of these took four tries.
pattern, movement, detail
Much of the Nouveau style is about keeping the eye busy. These artists gravitated to subjects that offered graceful, flowing lines and intricate, ornate shapes.
It's fascinating how a change in what you draw automatically shifts what you notice in the world. When I began thinking about Art Nouveau, I began noticing decorative railings and ornate architectural details. I paid attention to hair patterns and growing vines. I stopped to pick up dead insects. I've had a studio in an old school building for twenty-five years, and — for the first time — I really looked at the floor grate just inside the entrance, shown at right. I even photographed and then traced it in the small drawing at right, below.
FLOOR GRATE
DECORATIVE HEAD
SWIRLING
This is a phone doodle. I was thinking of shapes like water reflections, or possibly flames. It just happened to turn into a face.
CLEOPATRA
A critic once described Art Nouveau as “spaghetti hair.” I like to do this kind of intricate patterning. Another Nouveau feature is making a distinct contrast between the soft tonality of the face and the linearity of the hair and ornaments. (This face was drawn from the clay model on page 107.)
DRAGONFLY WING
FADING
This tattered dragonfly wing that I found seemed to fit well with a life drawing I had done years ago. This is another example of not-quite-symmetry.
SWIRLING SHAPES
A popular Nouveau device is to envelop figures with a cape or fabric to enhance the feeling of movement. I did this first drawing to evoke a feeling of intensity and passion. In the second spin-off drawing, I emphasized the abstract flowing quality of the shapes.
WAXEN FIGURES
I drew this melted candle, below, because I liked the strange blobby shapes and strong shadows. Only later did I notice the resemblance to human figures, and I made the metaphoric drawing on the right.
STYLIZING AND DECORATING
FIGURES THAT MOVE
These drawings by Lynn Sweat are about movement. The line is simple, fluid and direct; the figures curve, bend and stretch. While these were not consciously done in the Nouveau style, they embody its spirit.
simplifying and abstracting
It is not always clear what inspires us. Sometimes it's something entirely new. Sometimes it's seeing something that has been in the background for many years suddenly come forward, as if you are seeing it for the first time. This happened for me on a trip to Morocco when I happened to visit an oriental rug maker. Here are a few of the ideas I got from that visit:
1. Symmetry can be beautiful.
2. What appears to be purely decorative can also be spiritual.
3. Within a somewhat rigid format, a tremendous range of creative solutions can emerge.
4. Symbolic meaning can be hidden inside an abstract design.
5. Over time, designs tend to cross-pollinate. Indigenous motifs migrate from one region to another, like a story passed from one teller to another.
6. By simplifying and making objects geometric, the artist can make them disappear into a larger pattern.
On these pages I illustrate how naturalistic objects can evolve into pure decorative designs.
PERSIAN RUG, LATE 19TH CENTURY
Courtesy Peter Pap Oriental Rugs (Dublin, New Hampshire, and San Francisco, California)
REPEATING
MAKING GEOMETRIC
STACKING
PROGRESSIVE STYLIZATION
It's uncertain where this design — called a boteh — originated. Some claim it came from Kashmir, inspired by the windblown cypress tree. Today it's found in an endless variety of decorative interpretations, and in widely dispersed geographical regions.
REVERSING AND MIRROR-IMAGING
FRAGMENTING
Detaching elements and spreading them apart tends to flatten the design.
Here I've combined the various “pieces” shown on these pages into a single, integrated design. I recommend this sort of playing with pattern. And I especially recommend it for those who prefer working realistically. It's a good way to appreciate the role that shape plays in picture organization.
The design was first drawn with a fine-point marker and then filled in with colored pencils.
Rug designers typically introduce some kind of symmetry. Symmetry reinforces the abstract qualities of a design. Here we have symmetry in four directions. Notice how the man on horseback is nearly “lost” in this design.
Much of this kind of work can be done with a computer, but doing it by hand (with the aid of a light table) is more in the spirit of the carpet weavers. And it's always good to develop those fine motor skills in your drawing hand.
making the familiar strange
Shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the tribal weavers of the region began turning out carpets with a new kind of imagery. In the place of floral patterns and abstract designs, they wove armored personnel carriers, tanks and helicopters. The first time I saw one of these, I was amazed. A timeless art form was suddenly converted into a current-events medium. Leaving aside the tragedy of this particular war, and of wars in general, the idea that a traditional form might be so freely separated from its roots took me completely out of my box.
The notion that content (the subject of a work of art) and context (in this case, the medium and method of execution) can be detached and remixed in unexpected combinations might challenge our sense of appropriateness. The artist wants to be respectful of venerable traditions. And we also want to create. The Afghan war rugs offer a kind of permission to use the carpet format in experimental ways.
I began making “carpet” drawings, abducted from some of my previous work. I redrew the subjects, but this time using an Oriental rug template. This usually meant creating a center element, called a medallion, adding corner elements, called spandrels, and finishing with a decorative border.
AFGHAN WAR RUG
Courtesy Oriental Rug Review, www.rugreview.com
CUTTING A RUG
A tribute to the music and dance of the 1930s. That's Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the medallion.
PANIC IN THE ABSTRACT
I made this design from my drawing Panic on page 135. I simply made the shapes geometric and filled them in with flat colors. Adding color is always interesting because you never know just how it will turn out.
decorating
Years ago I made a series of drawings illustrating the verses of The Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyám, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. While they do not directly use the carpet format, they are clearly inspired by oriental rugs and other Middle Eastern decorative elements, such as tiles, railings and fabrics. I wanted to retain the patient, ornate quality of carpets or tapestry but with a freer, more spontaneous line. To get the right quality, I found some turkey feathers which I turned into drawing quills. The ink line seems to almost draw itself. In a little more than a week, I made several dozen of these drawings. I still like to draw this way occasionally — first creating big, loose shapes, then patiently filling them with decoration.
I can't say that I fully understand The Rubáiyát, but I have always been attracted to its positive affirmation of life and its stoic acceptance of death. It seems a paradox that as we embrace either of these, the other becomes more available to us.
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend.
Before we too unto the Dust descend:
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and — sans End!
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
For in and out, above, about, below,
'tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays.
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd —
I came like Water, and like Wind I go.
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.
exercise 36
Mining Culture
This project has three stages.
1. Immersion: Choose a distinct art style or an art movement that interests you. Visit, if possible, a museum that has a collection of works in that style. Make a series of sketches of, and notes about certain pieces you like.
2. Spin-Off Sketches: Make a series of free-association sketches from your museum drawings. These should add something new and different, abducting parts and putting them in other contexts. Make them personal and playful — and increasingly radical.
3. Final Drawings: Take three or four of your spin-off sketches and transform them in a way that gives them a “family resemblance,” i.e., they should be visually related to each other in subject and style.
Allow yourself weeks or even months to complete this project. Put it aside from time to time and just think about it. Your final drawings need look nothing like the work that originally inspired them. In fact, the degree of difference is actually a good measure of the project's success.
SIMPLE THEMES ARE OFTEN THE BEST
Frank Bettendorf enjoys sketching everyday objects and architectural subjects. He organizes his efforts by inventing themes for himself. Each day for a month, for example, he drew a simple tool or utensil from his garage or kitchen. He made the drawings on index cards and mailed them as daily postcards to a friend. Each one has a title, such as “The Real Jaws” (pliers) or “Wash Day” (watercolor tubes), along with a note about the drawing medium used and sometimes a literary quotation.
DRAW WHAT INTERESTS YOU
John Joline indulges two of his central passions, drawing and rock climbing, in his fantasy landscapes. Meticulous and patient, these drawings are rooted in real places, but something about them seems otherworldly. The stones seem cut a little too square, the overhangs are a little too extreme, and the angles are too regular. For most of us rocks are rocks, but Joline is aware of the subtle differences between granite, schist, gneiss and quartzite conglomerate rock. And he is interested in details.
“I have long been intrigued by the fact that when we look out at a scene — if we use our eyes well — we see not [just] a set of broad, generalized shapes but rather the particulars of a scene with astonishing clarity and in all their overwhelming multiplicity. When we look out from a cliff-face at the forest below, we see thousands and thousands of individual trees — not just a few paint-like swatches of color. So in these cliff-fantasy drawings, that aspect of vision is also something I am trying to capture — in a sense going back to an earlier, more Renaissance-like awareness and pictorial approach.”
