I finished my first full figure drawing on Friday.
What's absolutely insane about this whole process is that three months ago, I never could have accomplished anything remotely close to a work like this.
Like I told my classmate, this is the farthest I've ever taken a drawing, so I'm really happy with it. The most important thing I've learned is that creating a beautiful picture is not just about having an accurate representation, but it's about... well... honestly I'm not sure if I know yet. As a beginner they teach me to consider the whole. How does placing one line affect another line. Have I captured the natural rhythm of the figure that more likely than not is holding a contrapposto pose. Have I captured the impression--which what you see when you quickly glance at something. An image that can be reproduced by squinting way down, blurring out and simplifying the information. Because from there it's just a matter of expanding your values and defining shapes.
These are the fundamentals. That whole process is already second nature to the advanced students. My dad and I talked about how the greatest professional chess players, boxers, piano players work the fundamentals until they didn't even have to think about it. They normalize the trivial so they can focus on the subtleties. It's a long, painful, sometimes boring process. Think "Million Dollar Baby" where Clint Eastwood uses ropes to reteach Hillary Swank how to walk. The bargues that I do train my eye the way scales train a musician's ear.
The best compliment I received for my drawing was from Ryan, the director. The teachers NEVER give out sincere compliments, though I have received my share of sarcastic ones. A couple weeks ago, Ryan was critiquing my drawing and he said, "You have some promise, you just need more of us." Obviously it went straight to my head, which is probably why they never give out compliments in the first place, but I think that's a pretty good representation of where I stand at CAS. (To compare: about a month and a half into the program, I was working on a 2 hour figure drawing when Ryan came by to critique. After erasing pretty much everything on my paper, he tore my drawing to the ground.)
There is no end to the progress you can make. I look around and I see what I could achieve, but even those students are trying to push past their current skill level. One of my classmates the other day expressed concern about his drawing, contemplating the balance of classical and naturalistic representation in his art. I think about him, and I think about how all I want is to understand what he understands, but then what?
At the beginning of the summer, I thought that I could spend a trimester here and leave happy with my progress, but I actually think I'm less happy now with where I stand as an artist than before I came. Not because I haven't improved, but because I now understand. I see the kind of training that's available, and I know that I won't even touch it without proper guidance. I was ignorant to think professional art as anything less than a lifetime pursuit.
I leave Provo mid-August, and I leave for Geneva September 5th. I don't know if I'll come back to CAS though it's certainly something I'd like to do.
As a class we determined this bargue to be a cast drawing of Apollo. Only a greek god could have a butt like that. Amirite?
This bargue took me about four weeks to complete. I have never pushed a drawing this far before and I've never learned so much about creating a picture like I have over this last month. One really important thing I realized is that the fundamental reason why my copies look good is because these masters understood the conventions surrounding form, rhythm, and line that contribute to an excellent picture. I borrowed their decisions then, and I borrowed Charles Bargue's decisions this month.
Speaking of Apollo...
A few months ago one of my good friends Skye drew my attention to a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke called The Archaic Torso of Apollo. It reads as follows:
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
After surrendering to a paradigm shifting work you must allow yourself to change. True masterpieces evoke a feeling of awe and it is in your favor to surrender yourself to something greater, something transcendent. Yes religion can facilitate this idea, but internalizing powerful pieces by the greatest novelists, poets, and painters humanity has to offer, lends itself more greatly to changing and improving humans.
Love \\ Christelle
P.S. For those who read my last post, I'm doing really really well. I really love this academy and the people in it.
Bargue drawing. Look closely to see the three lines.
Last Monday I heard from the The Center of Academic Study and Naturalistic Painting (CAS) that I'd been selected as their summer scholarship second place winner. This is a huge honor because not only is CAS an incredible academy, but it's also the first time I've ever entered and won a prize by the merit of my art.
So I'd heard from CAS Monday morning, and Ryan, the head of the academy, invited me to stop by their Springville studio for a tour. I emailed him back pretty quickly and at 11:30 that same day, I made it to CAS' studio.
The interior was incredible. The walls were lined with beautiful works of art, it was absolutely breathtaking. He took me to the interior studio where the walls were lined with exquisite student work and studies. Within the hour I signed up and within two hours I was set up to start studying. It was all very cool and exciting until I realized that I can't draw.
So for the next 14 weeks I will be rebuilding my foundation. Mondays and Fridays I'll be at the studio from 9-7, and Tuesdays and Thursdays I'll be working from 9-9. I have Wednesdays and weekends off. Two weeks in I can feel myself getting better, more precise. They literally expect perfection, but this, of course, has its own consequences.
On Tuesday night I pulled off the side of the road and just ugly cried my eyes out. I was so tired and so frustrated. I had worked on a live-model portrait for about two sessions or six hours, before my teacher came around and told me to start over. My lines were off, my proportions were off, and it wasn't until she pointed them out that I saw my many many mistakes. This wasn't the first time I was told to start over. Part of my training includes "Bargue Drawings." My first task was to draw a plumb line or a center line that runs through the center of the model, and two perpendicular lines. Once I thought I had those set, I proceeded with my drawing. I had about three hours of work down on paper when my teacher came around and told me that my first three lines were off and that I had to start over. I erased my entire page and spent the next two hours perfecting three lines. Three. Lines. I just couldn't get them right. I was so frustrated.
This is the refiners fire, I'm rebuilding my foundation, whatever you want to call it, it's good for me. Also, I don't think I'm ever going to get time like this again to just work on my skills, unless I become a full time artist. I'm incredibly lucky, this is great training, but goodness it just throws you for a loop. It's made me question my capacity to even be an artist.
I want to tell myself to keep things in perspective. To stop comparing myself to my peers. To enjoy being amongst incredibly talented individuals and to enjoy being educated by extremely talented and well trained teachers.
Tuesday night, LinkedIn sent me an email about a series they're doing called "If I were 22" (I'm 22). Influencers on LinkedIn write up pieces of advice they'd give to their 22 year old selves. They talk about things they'd change and things they'd keep the same. I spent an hour reading through these essays trying to rebuild my own confidence and courage. One quote really resonated with me. Dr. Chopra talks about his experience and resilience through med school, and he says,
"My 22-year-old self needed to hear something important. Being on track is rarely workable. Setbacks, swerves, and curves await everyone. He needed to pay attention to something foreign to his nature: resilience in the face of difficulty. This means the ability to bound back emotionally, to take no obstacle as a sign of one's inferiority, to establish a strong sense of self that external circumstances and other people cannot undermine."
I guess what's haunted me the most is the fact that this is a five year program. After one week, I've witnessed all that I have yet to learn and all that I can learn, but I don't feel like I have five years to do it. And because of that I feel like I can't be an artist. That's the kicker for me.
I packed a bag and went for a hike. Last week Alex took me into the Provo canyons where we hiked into the most beautiful mountains. It had been dark, but it had also been peaceful and beautiful. I decided to go explore that same trail in pure seclusion and bright sunshine.
About halfway through my planned hike I found a less nicely paved trail and decided to go exploring. I later found a sign that named the trail I'd been hiking and distance to the nearest landmark, but at the time I was hiking blind. I was definitely nervous, I had no desire to get lost. There were times where I seriously considered turning around but I figured I'd come too far, and that I needed to at least find some kind of interesting landmark before quitting.
After about forty-five minutes of climbing I came to a fork in the road - It was the first fork I'd seen since leaving the main road. The left road was clearly the main road, but since I was at eye level with and could see the details of the nearby mountain ranges, I decided to see where the right road would take me. I knew I wasn't going to reach the top of the mountain which is where the left trail seemed to be headed because it still seemed a ways off.
A hundred meters in I was in a small clearing. Ahead of me were snow capped mountain ranges, and below was the valley I'd walked through on the main trail. There was a campfire setup made of rocks, with sticks and kindling already set up for use, and a seating arrangement made of stone. It was absolutely breathtaking .
What does any of this have to do with painting?
First, I noticed colors and shapes that I'd never noticed before I started painting. Like how shadows cast outdoors will typically have a blueish tint, and everywhere the sun shines will have a warm yellow tint. I noticed fractals on leaves, on flowers. I noticed how light objects grew darker in recession and dark objects grew lighter in recession.
Second, I thought about my obsession with leaving my mark. Plants and bees and birds certainly don't care about my paintings, nor do they care about how much money these works earn. It was quiet and secluded out in the mountains, and I just kind of fit like a piece of a puzzle. That's as uncheesy as I could get it. (Part of a larger picture - yeah?)
And finally - taking the road less travelled by. Though their methods may seem archaic now, the old masters were some of the greatest innovators of their time. I recognize that I can't make reproductions forever (see here), but I also don't plan on throwing a shark in formaldehyde any time soon. So... innovation... taking the path less travelled by... making culturally significant art using adequate technique and perhaps a bit of abstraction to connect my viewer to my work. Nothing extraordinary comes from sticking to the main trail.
Of course there are far more variables to consider when considering success in the contemporary art market, but that's a rant post for another day.
My dad flew out from California and over the course of two and half days, I gave him a grand tour of Provo, Utah. My dad, in true parental fashion, listened as I talked his ear off, and snapped who knows how many pictures of me in Provo, and most importantly me in my cap and gown.
I could get really sappy but I don't think graduation will really feel real until I leave Provo for good. As anxious as I am to leave this town, it's still been my home for the last five years, and there are surely people and places that I'll miss.
Now that my undergraduate career is over, I'm looking forward to graduate school. I'm waiting to hear back from one more school before I make my final decision, but the one thing I do know is that I will studying for a Masters in Statistics in Europe this Fall. Crazy.
As for my art, some of you may know that I officially finished the underpainting phase of my Dream of St. Joseph, but this weekend, I also finished the underpainting portion of Bouguereau's "Little Girl."
The next step is color. I've spent a great deal of time mixing and tubing colors so I can have fresh paint every time I work. Every artist knows that there's nothing quite like painting with fresh paint.
It's the little things that will now make the difference between a good painting and a great painting. This summer I'll be working hard in the studio, but I'll also be doing some hardcore reading. Thanks to finals week, I have stacks of used books on the craft, on the history of the craft, on the art market, waiting to be read.
Years ago, an old friend asked me what I was passionate about. I told him about all the subjects I was interested in learning, and all the ideas I wish I knew. He told me, "that's not passion." He said that when you're passionate about something, you can't keep the information away from you. Everywhere you look there's more knowledge to get your hands on. I don't even think he remembers this conversation, but I've though a lot about it over this last year.
Anyway, I'm rambling a little. Happy summer everyone.
I watched a brilliant film in my French and Italian cinema class this week called Copie Conforme or Certified Copy. It follows a man and a woman through the Italian countryside and we watch as James, the celebrated author and the unnamed single mother develop a rather peculiar relationship.
What piqued my interest most, besides the heart wrenching storyline (my summary does the film no justice by the way), was James' initial lecture. James, an author, is on a book tour where he argues that there is value in the copy of a work in that it leads us to the original, therein certifying the value of the archetypal piece. He says that we associate the word "original" with the authentic, the genuine, the reliable in such a way that it possesses tangible intrinsic value, and that really what matters is what you believe about the piece. If you believe it's an original, that's what counts. Say the original piece was completely destroyed and the copy was all we knew of it. Would that work of art be any less valuable?
I was taken by the film (spoiler alert, kind of). Though our two protagonists began as strangers, they spent the second half of the film working out their relationship as an old unhappily married couple. I almost walked out because their heartbreaking portrayal of two people who just can't seem to make it work, cut me. When the movie ended I was left wondering whether they really were strangers or if they truly were that unhappily married. Now I ask myself if it matters.
Thanks to Google and a lovely blogger, I know that this is
what I can expect to see.
Prints of original masterpieces are marked up from the amount of money it takes to produce it. We don't typically mistake prints as originals and we are usually only moved to the point that it points us to the original.
So how much are my reproductions worth? Few outside the art community have heard of Anton Mengs, what is the value of my painting to them? What is it worth to those who can't make it to Vienna to see the original? Am I arrogant enough to propose that seeing my painting could elicit the same power as seeing the original in person?
I hadn't heard of this painting before I began working on it, but I have learned the most from reproducing this painting than any other work of art I've undertaken. I still know very little about its history, and I assume that the painting hanging in the Kunsthistorisches is the one painted by the hand of Anton Mengs. Even if it wasn't, I know what it would mean to me to see what I'd believed to be original in person.
My professors were gracious enough to grant me the week off, which is good because we painted from 8:30 in the morning to 9:30 at night. We were in the Sons of the Utah Pioneers building in Salt Lake City, and since I had to drive up from Provo, I couldn't really do anything besides paint, eat, and sleep. That is, of course, until Sue, a new empty nester, invited me to come stay in her beautiful home up in Park City. My driving time went from 60 minutes (traffic ugh) to 20 minutes. She was my saving grace.
Frank Covino is my teacher's teacher and from the moment he stepped into the room, I began scribbling notes. I spent a good portion of this weekend transcribing my notes in what amounted to be about 32 pages. 32 pages! Click here to access the Google Doc.
We began the week with a lecture. Frank talked to us about the history of classical academic painting. He says that if you don't know your history, you won't be aware of what will confront you. He emphasized the importance of the Golden Ratio, particularly with regards to composition.
The Golden Ratio is, as he put it, the ratio from the Grand Designer, 1 part to 1.618. It's everywhere. It's in the heartbeat, it's all over your body, it's in the spiral of a hurricane, and so on.
Heather and I found it in our eyes.
I have three freckles below my eye whose spacing corresponds to the Golden Ratio. Heather has three dots in her eyes whose spacing corresponds to the Golden Ratio.
Monday was a lot of lecturing. After the general lecture, we went to every station where Frank offered each of us critiques. These critiques were often him pointing out universal rules or ideas that we could apply when thinking through our own paintings. Like the fact that the lower lip protrudes out a little so it has to be rendered a value lighter than the upper lip.
As the youngest in the group I was in charge of the selfies.
Just missing John.
I mentioned Sue above. Here she is working on a Bouguereau.
Sue!
She makes the most incredible caprese salad with homegrown basil.
Sue also had this piece going. Here Frank's highlighting the lower lip. But she doesn't have a color reference so she's basing the flesh off of value, which is cool. She was just starting to add red or blood to her painting. She'll have to logic her way through that. Cheeks, ears, lips, creases of skin typically receive more blood. Flesh depicted without blood will look sallow.
Sue's grandmother
I was hoping to get to color this week, but Frank found enough mistakes on my piece to keep me busy. He emphasized to me that it's not enough to be able to see value, particularly on a human figure, you have to know what's causing a change in value. Know your anatomy.
It's a dark, passionate piece, and as a dark, passionate person, he was really excited about my project.
My workstation
Not getting to color doesn't mean I didn't mix my color palette. We use what's called a controlled palette. Much like how musicians tune their ear to scales, we need to tune our eyes to values. The controlled palette, which is divided into nine values, with nine being the lightest, is a tool to help us reign in those values. Below is me mixing the grey of the flesh palette. I'll mix that grey row with the orange row below to make the flesh row. It's important to compare the flesh row to your reference, no two figures will have the flesh palette. Some people have grayer skin, some have hotter, more orangey skin.
Here I'm adding Zinc Yellow Hue to grey. It's like adding sun to your skin.
I used the flesh palette to clean up my angels. Apparently you're not supposed to add tinted medium to any values 6 and up which I did. The glaze got stuck in the divots and it you can see how dirty it looks.
See the dots? :(
So we sanded down the glossy areas, because you never add oil paint to glossy surfaces, added clear medium to act as glue, then touched up the paint! Note that the sky is darker and more intense at the top and lighter on the bottom. This particular hue of blue made brought out the angels' flesh and made them look more ethereal. Surrounding values will always affect your figures, so be careful.
John was our only other male at the workshop, things have drastically changed since the 15th century. He was the only one doing a landscape so a lot of learning happened at his table.
Like why shadows are blueish, and that the sky gets darker and more intense the higher you go, because fog collects in the valleys, graying and lessening the intensity. Notice the figure placed right at the Golden Mean. Never place a figure or a peak or a horizon in the middle of a painting. Ever.
Most artists just draw what they see, but we're actually creating an illusion of the third dimension on a 2D board! So sometimes you have to fill in the details. Highlights bring an object closer to the viewer, so you'll often see highlights on the nose, or the tips of your lips. If a person is looking at you at a 3/4 view, you're supposed to add a little grey to the back pupil. We do this because we perceive everything through a veil of grey atmosphere. It's not as obvious when you're standing close to somebody, but if you look off in the distance, you'll notice that the mountains that are farther away are grayer, less intense. Just because we don't necessarily see the gray in the receding pupil, doesn't mean we don't include it. This helps us create an illusion of the third dimension.
Here Frank is marking up my painting. Sometimes your reference isn't going to give you all the information you need, and surely if your reference is a photograph, you are going to have to take some liberties to render your figure accurately and with good compositional values.
Here he's using a charcoal pencil and an xacto knife to mark my mistakes.
This is Jerry Lee. She's Vicky's younger sister by 13 months. They've been doing this for decades now and they drive down from Idaho to take this class. From her piece we learned how to build up value. Rembrandt took pains to build up his paint because that texture will catch ambient light. We heard multiple times a day, the lighter the value the thicker the paint. The problem is if you add too much paint, that paint will crack. So we just build it with light coats of gesso. (Light coats, because if you add too much at once, it too will crack. It dries quickly though.) Notice the form/Rembrandt lighting. It wasn't as apparent in the reference, but she knew it was there.
You can also do it with beeswax: 1/3 parts beeswax to 2/3rds paint. Frank told a story about a woman who use this method but accidentally switched the proportions. She hung the painting, a portrait of her husband, over the fireplace and over time, his face began melting off. She said she hardly noticed it at first because she would see the slight droop her husband's painted face reflected in her husbands actual face!
Jerry Lee working on a Rembrandt.
Vicky is working on portraits of her grandchildren. That kid's hair's underpainting was blue. We call it azuredaccio, and we typically use it in landscapes.
Vicky
She makes the best trail mix bars. I asked her for the recipe but it's something that she just throws together. Grandmas...
Heather is our coordinator, meaning we wouldn't have a studio or Frank for that matter without her. It's her eye that you see at the beginning of the post. She's musically trained and at one point played us some complex classical pieces on the piano from memory. She's so talented. Anyway, below is a portrait of her mother. Frank helped her shift the eyes so that it looks like she's looking at us. Doing so helps engage the viewer.
She also had him demonstrate the Venetian form of underpainting. You only have 6 hours until the paint dries so you have to work quickly.
The background story is that the Venetians wanted to attract some of Florence's patrons. At the time, Florence was the place to get a portrait. They realized they needed to do something different so they came up with this method.
I still have some work to do on my painting and I'm nearly done, but this is how it looks so far. If you look through my notes you can get a taste for what I've fixed and what I still have to fix.
On Friday before he left, he signed my journal.
He told me, "you have an extraordinary gift, but if you don't practice you will be stuck exactly where you are. I know you're in a tough spot, pursuing your studies, you need to make sure you can make money, and art isn't the most lucrative profession. But to not pursue the gift would be to throw that gift back in the Creator's face. It's hard because you didn't earn that gift, you didn't ask for it, you were given it."
It took me some time to get back in touch with reality after it was all over. I am so grateful for this week. I've got work to do.
"Great paintings -- people flock to see them, they draw crowds, they're reproduced endlessly on coffee mugs and mouse pads and anything-you-like. And, I count myself in the following, you can have a lifetime to perfectly sincere museum-going where you traipse around enjoying everything and then go out and have some lunch.
But--" crossing back to the table to sit again '--if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don't think, 'oh, I love this picture because it's universal.' 'I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.' That's not the reason anyone loves a piece of art.
It's a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you... a really great painting is fluid enough to work its way into the mind and heart through all kinds of different angles, in ways that are unique and very particular.Yours, yours. I was painted for you." The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
I know the painting I'm working on isn't necessarily one that you'd connect with. Anton Mengs, the original artist was a court painter and for whatever reason, the King wanted a depiction of the Angel Gabriel and Joseph.
I chose to reproduce this painting because it's large and challenging and skillfully done. Mengs uses techniques that I can only hope to master. My job right now is not to create original work for the sake of original work, but to absorb traditional and technical knowledge so I can render whatever message, whatever emotion in a way that will reach and hopefully touch my audience.
I do love working on this piece, though. I've had help from my teacher, Darin, who critiques my painting and shows me how to make it better. He helps me see what I don't see.
It's nearly ready for color, but I still have a few adjustments to make.
Highlights in the hair.
Soften the edges of the drapery of both figures by bringing out the highlights and using three or four values to push back shapes that are in recession.
I need to fix Gabriel's neck, it's flat. His neck just needs a few more values.
It'll take some time, my plan is to finish it this week! As of last night, the verdaccio has taken 97.75 hours.
