A Lovely Day at Art Class

Today I went to Vanda's for our art class with the girls.

Vanda made a profound remark about my drawings of objects.  I draw like a sculptor.  What interests me is the representation of form. I work in 2D, but I like to represent a 3D object.  This was a lightbulb moment.  Therefore, if my fine line drawings are how I represent form, this is what I need to continue doing.  This is how I represent form.  And if I get anxious about how far to push building up the tonal value, do a few images and photograph them every 5 minutes to see when I usually wreck them.  Then in future I know when to stop!!  And don't worry about texture, just concentrate on form.  I am an under-graduate, so I just need to explore one thing thoroughly.

Vanda also recommended I seek out the Museum of Domestic Architecture - it used to be at Middlesex Uni and closed a couple of years ago, but has reopened somewhere.

I need to look at Helen Carnac ( whose work I saw at CAA Gallery) and Charlotte Brown (whose lead medal I liked at the Pinpoint exhibition.

We had a discussion about the difference between Applied and Fine Art.  Vanda's definition is:

- Applied Art is related to the body: worn; carried; held; used; interacted

- Fine Art is distanced from the body.

- Artist Textiles sit in the middle ground between the two (where I label the area "hard work")

We did some lovely exercises today.  The first was where Vanda described an image, which was unseen to us, and we had to draw according to the instructions.  It turned out to be a landscape of a heath, but was great fun to draw.  Then we each had to be the one describing the image, and discovered the difference of working hard to draw in line with the instructions, and working hard to give the instructions to draw the image!  Both are difficult.  And Fun!  It helped considerably if you described the energy of the marks that you could see.

Drawn from Karin's description of a landscape

Drawn from Vanda's description of a landscape

Drawn from Jane's  description of a Turner stormy skycap

After lunch we followed the energy theme.  We had to draw an object, first calmly, then vigorously.  Vanda gave me a sieve.  The calm version was a disaster.  I cannot draw good lines very slowly.  They go all trembly and indecisive. It needed a few little areas of cross hatching to suggest the mesh but I had run out of time.  However once I got onto the energetic drawing, it was a lot more confident.  A bit wonky as usual, and the mesh of the sieve gave me a few problems, but once I had built up layers of cross hatching I felt free and uninhibited, and not hidebound by needing to be accurate.  The mesh of the sieve still needs a few more versions to become fluent, but it no longer fazes me.  

Slightly scruffier than my usual style, but I quite like the free quality of it.

Unsurprisingly I concluded that my drawing style is more naturally energetic, than calm!