Brian Rutenberg, in his Studio Visit #18 , quotes a German artist, Walter Sickert, who said, “Drawing is about captivity. Painting is about freedom.” This one little quote has stuck with me and caused all kinds of back & forth in my brain as I consider what’s being said here. I don’t think Rutenberg is in any way pitting the one against the other to somehow say that one is better than another. He is merely putting forth a fundamental difference in the ACTION of or the RESULT of drawing & that of painting.
He says, “I’m really invested in that notion of capturing something and using that as a springboard into the process of abstraction.”
I love that. Brian calls himself a Painter. Every time I hear him say that, I find myself wanting to say…”And I am a Drawer.” Which doesn’t mean that I do not paint…I do and love to paint! But fundamentally I love to capture the Beauty of the world around me whether it be recognizable things, places, people, or events which are inherently lovely OR whether it is something I’ve had to hunt for in the midst of the mundane in life, or even in the painful places of life. I feel it is my job to look for and capture any hint of Beauty by drawing it in my sketchbook or on larger pieces of paper or canvases.
I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE Brian Rutenberg’s drawings of trees (you can see a few of them in the documentaries). They are exquisite. I have done a fair amount of drawing/painting trees and they are some of my favorite works. As I look at his “drawings” of trees, they seem very painterly to me. This distinction between what is considered “drawing” and what is considered “painting” is not a black and white issue to me. I believe one can paint with a pen, a pencil, and with charcoal…mediums that are typically associated with drawing. And I believe one can draw with watercolor, acrylics, and oils…definitely paint substances. Is it merely the presence of line which marks a drawing? Is it the evidence of brushstrokes which denotes a painting? Or is it a massed-in approach (blocking in the large shapes before the smaller ones) which deems a work a painting? Or…what? I’ve settled on it being a fuzzy area and which really doesn’t need to be defined.
But if I go with Sickert’s definition here, I have to say that I am definitely a DRAWER. My eyes are constantly on the lookout for things/people/events/places that I want to capture in my sketchbook or larger papers or canvases. Yet even Sickert’s definition may be fluid. As I capture these moments by drawing them, I experience a sense of freedom. As if, the simple act of drawing (or painting:) sets me free to say “yes” to the moment, to accept where I am, and to fully inhabit the gamut of life’s beauties.
So…was I drawing or painting the first image? How ’bout the tree…did I draw it or paint it? It really doesn’t matter. I was definitely capturing something, whether it was an idea about the tangle of creative thoughts or an assertion of the wisdom and experience of an old tree. In capturing these, I was also freeing them to exist somewhere other than in that space and time AND freeing me to embrace all the wonder that life has to offer. I do enjoy thinking about these things. It seems that Mr. Rutenberg does also.
Thank you, once again, Brian.
And here’s a quote by Edgar Degas I came across recently…good stuff to think about:
“Drawing is the artist’s most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.”
In Brian Rutenberg’s Studio Visit #16, he begins the talk recounting some casual banter between friends over dinner one evening. The subject was “limitations”, which he says “Every artist has” and that he is continually inventorying his. I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard him say this, wondering what, if any, limitations to being the artist he wants to be, he might have.
It was incredibly encouraging to hear an artist of his stature speak of limitations. Though his list of limitations has largely to do with ways in which he would like to expand artistically, I nevertheless found it amazing that he often goes through the ways in which he feels limited and yet finds a sense of “spaciousness and comfort” there.
What I find myself listing as limitations in my art is largely in the categories of station in life (ie. motherhood), resources, and opportunities (living in a small town as opposed to an art mecca such as NY). Nevertheless, I was encouraged and inspired by Brian to think of these boundaries or limitations as places where I actually can find freedom and “permission”.
He says, “Because perhaps it’s the intensification, the concentration of those limits, that give our work its truth and its humanity and its vigor…and content. It’s that continual longing to break from those inescapable things, those limits, to get better, that I’ll never be good enough, that it’s the longing to get better, the longing to speak more clearly, more directly, with less, that keeps me going. It’s very comforting, these notions.”
Wow.
To say that his words were encouraging would fall short of the affirmation I received on hearing that all artists struggle with, or are at least cognizant of, limitations. And then, to be inspired to think of these limitations as places of “spaciousness, comfort, and permission” is something I’m carrying with me every day as I go about all the motherly and household duties, as I go about teaching art to young children, and the myriad of other things that seem to come between me and being the artist I long to be. He goes on to say:
“So for me it’s not the question, “Are there limitations?” The question for me is, ‘Do I inhabit my limitations?’ And I think that’s the really important point: one must utterly inhabit their work.”
These final words on this subject were incredibly centering for me. I now have this wonderful call to INHABIT my limitations each and every day. To embrace them, and to create works in my sketchbook that continue to grow out of those limitations. I may not be working on huge canvases and exhibiting them in galleries and shows, but I have the same call to create art and I must inhabit the life I have in order to create works which contain even a grain of “truth, humanity, vigor and content”.
I’ve recently discovered an artist whose work and words I’m eating up these days. To say that his paintings are delicious would be correct…the color, movement, and draw-you-in composings on canvas are breathtaking. His words are equally inspiring.
Brian Rutenberg lives and works in New York City. His work is about as far on the other end of my own artistic offerings as one might be. He has an art degree while I have a French degree. He was a Fulbright Scholar and has made his living from his art whereas I have raised kids and worked small odd part-time jobs while my art-making has been stashed in-between every-which-way. He works in oils on HUGE canvases and currently I work in a sketchbook. He works in abstraction, with his drawings in charcoal being representational; I draw representationally with forays into abstraction.
We do have a few things in common though: born in the same year, southern upbringing, family people (he is married with two children; my husband and I are raising three). But the largest common denominator is a love for articulating all-things-art. And this is what I want to share with you…my reactions and responses to a few of the ideas and thoughts he presents in his marvelous Documentaries.
There are 18 of these 10-minute videos of Brian speaking to us about his work. I’ve watched them all, eagerly absorbing and mulling over the concepts he espouses and describes so eloquently. You really must watch these. I suggest watching only one or two and then spend a few days thinking about them and letting the ideas seep into your way of creating.
ID #105
I have also been making more of these Improvisational Drawings (as I’m calling them:). I’ve started numbering them with ID (stands for Improvisational Drawing) and then a number. I’ve also taken to writing about each of them on the back, or on a sheet of paper placed in an envelope I glue on the back. I enjoy creating the words that speak to how the drawing evolved, any thoughts as to why, and specifics about approach, or underlying ideas. The drawings themselves are in no way an attempt to replicate Rutenberg. The thing I’m going for is to consider the elements surrounding the drawings, the making of them, the impetus behind them…like Rutenberg, as he so wonderfully communicates in his Documentaries.
My next post will be responding to one aspect of one of his talks. In the meantime, see if you can watch a few of his documentaries. It will be time well spent!
I often think my kids have selective hearing. They hear what they want to hear and somehow block out what seems unimportant to them…like when I ask them to clean up their rooms, do their chores, help with dinner. Hmmm.
But Selective Sight is actually highly desirable for Drawing Your Life in a sketchbook. An ability to pick and choose what one wants to draw from the very rich-in-detail Feast around us, serves you well when you go to draw or paint it. How does one arrive at the above drawing from the view I was looking at beside our driveway below:
The best way to sort through it all is to ask yourself a simple question:
“What am I captivated by?” or phrased another way: “What specifically about the view in front of me, makes me want to draw or paint?”
*What “drew” me (love that!) out to my driveway was the gorgeous spring day, the dappling light, the lovely greens, the fresh air. I brought out my sketchbook and two pens. When I sat down and took a moment to survey the feast before me, I began to be captivated by that tree… the little knots, the bark pattern, the shape of the branches. So THAT is what I drew. And I chose to merely hint at the rest of the trees’ surroundings, so that those things would not appear more important than my ONE desire of capturing that tree. I did think briefly about using my smaller fineliner (o1) pen to describe the neighbors driveways, cars, bushes, houses, etc. But decided not to, in favor of keeping the tree as the focus.
*Now, I could create numerous drawings and paintings from this one view!! I could state that I’m captivated by the play of light and dark and thus render these shapes to highlight that aspect of the view, as I did in the above drawing. Remember the “Sculpt Your World” Mini Lesson and how squinting will help you to see!! This will heighten the contrast between the light and dark shapes making it easier for you to draw/paint them on your paper.
*OR, I could decide that what captivates me is how the tree forms a frame around the neighbors homes and cars in the background. So I could choose lines or paint that allow me to highlight that aspect! See how very different these three drawings are!! I just needed to take a moment to ask myself what captivated me and to consider how BEST to describe that on paper in lines/paint or whathaveyou.
I’m sure there are many more ways to draw this very scene…it all depends on what captivates you! It depends on your ability to select ONLY those things which will highlight YOUR VISION. And it depends on you deeming the rest to be UNIMPORTANT to your purpose. If you try to describe EVERYTHING, you’ll end up with a mess. Of course, it will probably be a glorious mess, but…you may feel that your drawing doesn’t capture the thing you were originally “drawn” to.
So…
Be picky! Be selective! Block out all the extraneous stuff except for the ONE THING that captures you. And get that down in your sketchbook! If many things captivate you about a particular scene, then set out to make several drawings or paintings of that scene which highlight the different aspects that you love!
*Another way to be SELECTIVE as you draw is to pretend your eyes are a camera lens…either ZOOM IN or PAN AWAY.
I sat down on the sidewalk in front of a neighbor’s house to draw these gorgeous tulips. The man who owns this house is a true gardener and has created an enchanting garden all around his home. It takes my breath away every time I walk by. So when I drew up a chair to draw, I asked myself what inspired me, and the first thing in my head was, certainly the tulips, but also the awesome structure in the center of them. So I visually PANNED AWAY to be able to draw the central garden structure, surrounded by the tulips, with the home in the background.
After that, I really wanted to just concentrate on those gorgeous tulips. So I ZOOMED IN on JUST the tulips. As I drew, I could revel in their shapes and their swaying lines. You might like to use a viewfinder for the purpose of helping you zoom in or pan away or just to crop out unwanted areas of the scene in front of you. You can even use your hands placed just so, to create this viewfinder.
*I also applied this to adding COLOR to these drawings. Take a look at how I selectively chose the colors, AND where I placed the color in these drawings. I used the same question from above to guide me in adding color. Selective Sight helps you all around!!
*This can also be applied to your APPROACH. For instance, I decide up front which approach I’m going to use. If I’m going to be making a contour drawing. I stick to it. I try not to shift into a gesture drawing mid-stream. I don’t flip into making a value drawing half-way through. Select one approach, and stick with it for the entire drawing. After you’ve made a drawing with one approach, switch and draw the SAME THING using a different approach, if you’d like. I am now having loads of fun making expressive drawings of how it feels to be outside, how “green” feels, how I experience a breeze. It is so much fun!! Here’s a drawing of the above scene using the Improvisational approach to express the many beautiful “greens”…
*You can also apply your Selective Sight to which ART MATERIALS you use. You might decide to only use pen. Or only use watercolor. Or just a pen and some watercolor crayons. Or collage. Or just ink and a reed pen. Or…
Being selective about WHAT you want to draw and HOW you’re going to go about it FREES you up to concentrate more fully and not be pulled in a zillion directions. It also makes for clearer drawings, fewer jumbly messes.
My husband is fond of saying: “If you try to say everything, you end up saying nothing.” This is SO true in art!! In any given drawing, BE SELECTIVE, major on ONE THING, whether it be your approach, your viewpoint, your medium, and/or color choices.
A Blessing: May you be selectively choosy this week as you ask yourself what captivates you about the Feast in front of you. May your eyes wear artistic blinders to all the unnecessary stuff & fluff. May you hone your ability to focus, pick, select, choose what matters most to you as you capture your life in images and words.
***Something to think about:
Take a few minutes to consider how this applies to your life in general. We all deal with “overwhelm” in some fashion or form…remember this post? Developing selective sight is helpful to us as we navigate where our energies need to go, what next to put our hand to, and whether or not we need to bother with x, y, or z. Maybe my kids’ selective hearing isn’t such a bad thing after all…as long as they clean up their rooms once in a while.
“Limitations can actually be FREEING!” -moi.
***Access all Mini Lessons for Drawing Your Life at the top of the home page on my blog! (OR just click the highlighted words in blue!)
Ok. Not just 3, but FOUR different approaches to drawing. I know I had said there would be just 3 in these lessons, but I can’t resist! I must, must, MUST add this 4th one!! For our purposes, I’m going to call this very different approach…Improvisational Drawing. If you can get in your mind what’s happening when actors perform improvisational theater, when writers do stream-of-consciousness writing, or when musicians riff…then you’ll be farther along in understanding what I’m presenting to you today.
This approach to drawing is one I’ve played around with for many years in my sketchbooks, but really had no clear ideas about it, no firm teaching on it. I am a self-taught artist and much of what I’ve learned about drawing and painting has been through art BOOKS on technique, through VIEWING great artist’s works, through OBSERVATION, and through my own EXPLORATION. Through it all, I’ve discovered much about myself and my artistic preferences. The overarching thing I’ve come to know about myself is that I absolutely adore making marks on paper! Making marks of any kind on paper is, for me, IN AND OF ITSELF, a wonder-ous endeavor. Just moving a pen around on the page, watching the trail it leaves behind, is thrilling…whether that trail is “correct” or not.
Too much emphasis is placed on “accurate” drawing. If you watch young children draw, they have very few inhibitions (if any at all) about dashing off a drawing, regardless of its realistic accuracy. As the child gets older, however, outside forces begin to bare down on the child making him/her feel that drawing IS ONLY what happens when the drawing is a “correct” one. By “correct”, most folks typically mean, how well the drawing accurately describes the actual object, person, or place being drawn. It is a total shame that this emphasis and definition of drawing has become the preeminent and default definition most people subscribe to. I’d like to UNDO, EXPAND, and perhaps REDEFINE ways you have typically defined drawing that may be far too limiting and restricting.
It is a lovely thing, when you have held for years, certain gut feelings and opinions you did not know others shared. And then to find, along the way, that others have held these same opinions, and have even formulated and articulated them long before you have. Such is my delight in a book I’ve recently reacquainted myself with. It’s been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years. Expressive Drawing by Steven Aimone is just such a book! I won’t take you through his book here, other than to quote him a few times, as I have Kimon Nicolaides book, The Natural Way to Draw, in the other lessons. You’ll have to buy, beg, borrow this book for all the rich information and exercises Aimone outlines. It is truly wonderful…here’s how he talks about this approach to drawing:
“Drawing is a powerful and wonderful language, capable of expressing things not easily conveyed any other way. As you know, drawings can be descriptive, by which I mean they can document the people, objects, or landscapes you encounter in the visible world. Perhaps this is the kind of drawing you’re best acquainted with but also most intimidated by!
Drawings can also be expressive: They can communicate things that are intangible or invisible–your memories, ideas, musings, emotions, even your spiritual world. And the good news is that everyone can draw like this, regardless of age, culture, education, or temperament.” (pg. 7)
What I’ve discovered through the years, is that many of my favorite artists, Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell, Richard Diebenkorn, Van Gogh, Milton Avery and Alberto Giacometti (among many, many others), have long-since paved the way for DRAWING to be defined in much broader terms other than rendering realistically. The history behind this approach to drawing is rich and exciting. Here’s how Steven Aimone defines DRAWING (and he uses many examples from the above list of artists to illustrate his definition):
“Drawing is the arrangement of line and mark in space, designed to serve a variety of expressive purposes… You, the artist, are a unique filter through which life’s experiences are processed. As a result, responses and expressions emerge that are completely your own. Your drawings reveal things that are not easily spoken of or experienced in any other way. No matter your style, temperament, or approach, drawings can function on three levels: representational, symbolic, and nonobjective…” (pg. 11)
In order to keep this a “Mini” Lesson, I won’t go into all three of these levels and their defining characteristics. Try to get your hands on the book if you’re interested in delving further. For our purposes today, I want you to set aside the three previous posts on CONTOUR, GESTURE, & MODELLED drawing. For today’s approach, you need to step outside of the desire to RECORD your life, and jump into EXPRESSING your life. To be sure, ALL drawings whether they be done in a contour, gesture, or a modelled approach can be expressive!! But for now, put aside attempts to record things, people, events per se, and try your hand at freely expressing your life through marks made on paper.
In classes I’ve taught on drawing, I have asked students to draw lines that, to them, express particular emotions. I was delighted to see that this exercise has been used by others, like Mr. Aimone in his book, to get people to see how just a simple mark on a page can exhibit qualities of anger, agitation, calm, joy, contentment, etc. You can try it too…here’s a grid you can use to make marks in the boxes that seem to fit the emotion. You could even designate ONE PAGE of your sketchbook to expressing in line and marks, a particular thought or feeling. Use any and all drawing/painting/collage elements to express it visually. And here’s the most important part, and I’m quoting Steven Aimone here:
“Without thinking, planning, worrying, or analyzing, generate a linear movement or movements that feel _______ [angry, serene, worried, joyful, etc.]–Let’er rip!” (pg. 67)
And also… “Remember, don’t worry about making a perfect or correct drawing here. Simply trust your instincts until you arrive at an arrangement that is satisfying–or, at the very least, intriguing!” (pg. 69)
Mr. Aimone repeats this mantra many times throughout the different exercises he offers in his book. Though each exercise contains a few “try this” specifications, they are nonetheless to be carried out with complete freedom of expression, staying away from a representational form. I love how he emphasizes that you are not after an “accurate” drawing, but rather one that is “satisfying” to you, or “intriguing”.
I hope this gives you an overall underpinning to this approach to drawing your life. Now here are some of my own suggestions, ways I have enjoyed drawing in this manner:
*Draw with a Brush! You may find, as I do many times, that paint can feel more expressive than a pen or pencil in this approach. If so, by all means use it! Watercolor on paper, either transparent or opaquely applied has inestimable expressive qualities. Acrylics and oils on paper can also be used. Many, many times I sit at my drawing table and just move paint around on the page, responding quickly to each stroke without hesitation. They end up feeling like little prayers or haiku poems expressing so much and yet perhaps nothing at all.
*Feel free to combine media. I love to use as many different things as I can on a nonobjective page. A little charcoal smeared around, then with some watercolor crayons and wax colored pencils with watercolor swooshed on top and then oil pastel drawn into that and some chinese white brushed into and over all of it except for bits here and there… Well, you get the picture. Really let yourself go with all the wonderful materials you have.
*Work quickly! This will shut down the “thinking” and “analyzing” side of your brain, and will allow your creative side to have free reign. The key then, once you’re “finished” is to keep yourself from judging the result!!!!! Your analytical brain may attempt to destroy what your creative brain has just expressed!
*Try the Assert/Obliterate method. This is totally fun, and Mr. Aimone describes this process more thoroughly. Basically what you’re to do is to make some marks, then erase/scrape/paint over/draw over/smear part of whatever you’ve drawn, then go at it again. Make assertions in line and marks. Then obliterate some of them in any way you choose. Repeat. Fun! The very first drawing in this post is an example of an Assert/Obliterate page.
*Think “Flux”. This is a cool term used to describe a drawing that has a sense of energy and movement in and through the marks on the page. It’s as if what’s happening in the drawing is actually occurring ON the page IN PROCESS, and not at it’s end result. The drawing is “in flux”. I like that. Very much.
*Try your best to stay away from any preconceived or pre-determined outcomes! Maybe you just want to make a page to express an emotion or a memory. But begin the page without determining what it will end up like. Just go for it. Just start. Put down a mark, a color, a swoosh of something and then react and respond to that! I think Mr. Aimone’s term for this is Automatic Drawing.
*Think Texture. Make marks on your paper that nod to textural marks from nature. Perhaps consider sitting outside NOT to draw what you see before you, but rather to make marks that mimic the textures all around you.
*Create a Day Page. Dedicate a page to describing the day you had, the feel of it, perhaps, or just stream-of-consciousness-mark-making as you think about your day. The very first drawing in this post started with a written account of a day. I wrote about what happened and my feelings about it. Then, through the process of Assert/Obliterate, I went about adding marks and colors that seemed to express the day.
*Draw/Paint Music! Play music of any kind and make marks on a page to express how you hear that music, what you feel, what it sounds like. Many famous artists, like Kandinsky, worked in this manner. Write the title of the music on the back of the page you create. Do this again, listening to the same music on another day! You’ll be surprised how different your mark-making is depending on when you listen to the music.
*Create an expressive “portrait” page…lines, marks, strokes, and colors, all while thinking of someone you know OR a self-portrait. Just let it flow freely and DO NOT JUDGE!!
*”Draw” with papers… I like to pull out papers and collage in a semi-random manner. Many times I’ll just start with a piece of “found” paper. This is a quirky piece that is perhaps leftover from a previous collage session where I cut something out. It’s an already cut/torn piece and I’ll just use it as a starting point to create shapes and colors around it. Sometimes I’ll just use ALL “found” papers without any tearing or cutting at all. Placing them in positions on the page that are pleasing to me.
*Create a page that has absolutely NO RHYME OR REASON to it at all!! Just marks on a page. Lines, colors, splotches, swooshes…make marks for marks’ sake. Any marks…painted, splattered, dark, light, long, thin, thick, dotted, sporadic, squiggly, strong, etc. Let go! Let’r rip! Let loose!
***Working with Improvisational Drawing pages will actually help your contour, gesture, and modelled drawings to be more expressive!!
(Note my little hand scrawl at the bottom of these pages. Click to enlarge image if you need to.)
A Blessing: May this week find you letting loose in the midst of your very structured, highly organized and planned life. May you find freedom in your sketchbook pages in such a way as to spill over into the rest of your life a sense of play and expression.
***Perhaps the allusions to our Life are evident here. But it really, really helps me to remember these things:
Life is like a box of chocolates a page of Improvisational Drawing:
–Life is always in Flux.
–Life is sometimes asserting new things, sometimes retracting old ones.
–Life is setting our pens to the paper (be purposeful to show up) and then going with the flow (allowing Life to lead us wherever it takes us).
–Life can feel very random at times, with no rhyme or reason to it. Perhaps more than we’d like.
–Life is best lived WITHOUT preconceived or predetermined outcomes.
–Life is more enjoyable WITHOUT trying to overanalyze every detail!
–Life is filled with color, textures, marks and lines…a plethora of beautiful things that may at first appear to be a mish-mosh, but in the end create a lovely whole.
***Access all Mini Lessons for Drawing Your Life at the top of the home page on my blog! (OR just click the highlighted words in blue!)
