Same song, different verse. They are the same orange and lemon sitting on the same cloth, in the same relationships, portrayed a little differently from one painting to another.
The variations offer endless possibility.
I love painting the same things in slightly different ways. It’s like jazz. You learn the tune and then you discover something inside it that’s new each time.
Another teapot — this time it’s a swimming koi teapot rather than a frog teapot, but clearly I seem to have a thing about teapots. I’ve been making drawings of the teapot and of a frog figurine (Dr. Freud, please call your office). These items appear in a little fauvist oil painting that I started quickly and never finished several years ago. I found it in the bin and decided to do something with it. So I assembled the players. Unfortunately the creamer was missing. I turned the studio upside down, and I finally located it — eureka — and there it appears in the latest drawing above.
I’ve made three drawings of the set up so far. I’ll no doubt make other drawings since I’ll be painting from the drawings and not from the motif. It’s sort of “en plein air” still life and the light changes rapidly which is why I’ll be working from drawings. We had nearly a week of rain and cloudy weather in the Washington DC region which was perfect for my project. But regular July weather is returning and the light gets very bright in the studio quite early. So now it’s NASA launch-style windows of opportunity that I seek to get that light I want.
The other drawings for the painting follow:
I painted this still life in the first studio that I ever had outside my house. The room had very dim interior light and huge ceilings. The vault of air above my head was enchanting. The room was badly lit and people coming by to say hello often asked me why I was sitting in the dark. But my still life and the canvas were lit well enough. I loved the diffuse light of that quirky place.
The painting became the DNA for several pictures. Over the years I’ve made versions of the idea. They all bear some resemblance to their parent and yet each one has its own identity too.
So here’s a little rock quarry, part of which featured in a study posted earlier. Both the study and this little painting are still “in the works.” This painting measures 14 x 18 inches.
The block-in phase is really fun. I love the open forms.
The painting’s counterpart is posted here:
https://alethakuschan.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/cezannes-influence/
So when I painted the pond in oil the first time, I also made a drawing in oil pastel. I am really in Degas territory with this one: “il faut refaire la même chose dix fois, cent fois” – you must redo the same thing ten times, a hundred times.”
I must really like this motif.
I had painted the pond before. Not sure when this was — long enough ago that I had forgotten it. Turns out it’s the same size as the one I’m painting now: it also measures 20 x 24. The only difference is that it’s an oil painting.
When the acrylic paintings are finished, I’m going back to this one to do some more work.
I had rehearsed this motif more than I knew. And it’s pleasing to see how close together the two paintings are to each other in overall forms and textures.
There are many wonderful drawing challenges on the internet that give people ideas. Many drawing challenges serve to inspire. They may prompt you to draw things you never thought of drawing.
I have thought that — from time to time — I’d like to post some drawing challenges of my own. Some are kind of advanced challenges. But they are fun. They are tasks I give to myself to stretch my skill level. Yet I hope that artists working at all levels of drawing skill will consider giving them a try because … because you just never know what will happen. There’s always a potential for invention in trying new things. And in any case, drawing isn’t dangerous. How can you possibly go wrong?
The purpose of this particular advanced drawing challenge is not to produce a drawing to hang in a frame, though that outcome may arrive, but instead to devise ways to stretch your visual skills. It’s really more about process than product.
This challenge has two parts. Each can be fairly difficult, but for sure the difficulty of the second part depends upon the difficulty of the first part.
For the first part, you simply draw something. What do you usually draw, or often draw? Choose something familiar — or something that you can observe keenly, intensely. What you’ll do is to draw the thing or the scene very carefully and fastidiously, observing as much information as you can and recording it in whatever way you approve. You may find it helpful to use lots of contours, lots of linear elements to describe forms, but it isn’t strictly necessary. So just do whatever you do. And you might also want to redraw this motif you’ve selected a few times, two or three times perhaps. For this challenge repetitions are good.
For the second part, you go away from your motif and redraw it from memory. The goal is to capture as much information as you possibly can based on everything you know and remember about the subject. One way to help this along is to remember how you drew and remind yourself what you drew. Counting may help if there are a certain number of somethings that apply. Remembering a “seating arrangement” may help. What was here? What was over there? What was sitting next to the such-n-such?
Some artists say that memory drawing is really difficult for them. I met one very astonishingly skillful artist who said she only drew from the motif, never from memory, that she “didn’t know how to draw from memory.” I suspect she was being too modest. But memory drawing is a skill to possess like any other skill in art. One way to develop it is to remember your previous drawings which is very different from remembering the appearance of the things themselves. Sometimes the memory of the things is fugitive but the physical memory of your hands will often be much more sure.
This is a very generalized description of a potentially very amorphous, imaginative, flexible and possibly also very complicated task. The latter quality is good if you like complication (I do) but not essential. Tailor things to suit your own preferences. I offer it — such as it is — as a challenge to try. I’ve used it drawing seashells and a few other things. You can apply it to any subject. It can, for instance, be a good way to study old masters: first copy the image, once or twice (or more) and then draw the memory of the copying.
I got this far and stopped. For one thing, I had to get to bed. It was late. But I felt that something special had begun to happen. I have to get back to this drawing, but I stopped at the threshold of the moment when I first saw whatever magic it is that I long for.
Looking at it this morning, it looks familiar to me in a new way. When I first drew this motif large, I had stopped in a similar place.
I have drawn these guys before several times. And I am getting at something. I don’t know what it is. But big or small, it intrigues me.
I had done a large practice drawing (above). I had done a small practice drawing (below).
I had got this far with a large one.
Then there was another large version.
And now I revisit it again. I never get tired of repeating these same motifs. And just making the lines holds a fascination for me that I cannot describe.
Doing this motif now small again, nearly the same size as the reference photo, drawing all these little blues lines, and watching the fish emerge — it has such a quiet beguiling charm over me. The lines themselves are so mesmerizing.
Who invented the ballpoint pen? Oh, I would embrace you — whoever you are — that you have brought me such joy! God bless you …
Whenever the pond is crowded exciting things happen in between the fish. I wish I could capture the full impact of all that takes place, but there’s just so much going on. That’s why I have to make so many drawings because the amount of information to learn is staggering.
In between just two fish the color changes will shift like magic in the water from one fish to the other, or the water and light will hide part of a fin and reveal part of a fin like an exotic aquatic fan carried by the kabuki fish-dancer, or the reflections or the shadows will float upon the water and be strung like jewels in a necklace —
— or, that little razor sharp line of light that circles all the floating dark patches — that light alone is worth two thousand drawings, if I had only the stamina to make them.
I am making so many drawings of the koi. Sometimes I wonder if it makes sense to draw the same motifs so many times, and yet I am always encountering some aspect of the image that is new. And beyond the koi is the water. Even as I find that I have learned much about the koi, I know so little about the water. And it is always different, always moving and forming new shapes.
And what about the light? The light is there also — pouring over the things, scooting round the surfaces, reflecting from points, being absorbed in shadows.
And what about myself? What do I know about the gestures I make? Why do I begin here and not there? Why choose this color and not that one?
There’s just so much. And considered that way, how could you possibly make too many drawings?
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