"Even today, making a drawing appear on a blank sheet of paper is a bit like magic to me." - Isabelle Aresnault
My pencil drawing of Norway Maple samaras (#2) above.
I have recently been doing a sort of folk dance of movement between pencil sketching gathered seeds, nuts and calyxes and reading the excellent book, Drawing for Illustration by Martine Salibsbury.
I returned to the sub-section, Isabelle Arsenault - Drawing and me, towards the beginning of the book, several times to re-read segments of her essay. "Drawings are often perceived as incomplete, a process step before going to a final piece. This aspect touches me. Its vulnerability makes it even more precious. Even today, making a drawing appear on a blank sheet of paper is a bit like magic to me," writes Arsenault, an award-winning artist.
The sentence, "Drawings are often perceived as incomplete, a process step before going to a final piece," followed by the statement, "Its vulnerability makes it more precious," resonates deeply with me and my sentiments regarding my pencil drawings. They are vulnerable and transitory. I have often felt I lose work to discover other works as once the paint is applied over the pencil marks there is no going back. That original image is changed. This is one reason I have a large portfolio of photographic images of my work; a means of returning to what has been altered or moved towards "a final piece."
Above: Four of my recent pencil drawings.
The four pencil sketches above are in addition to those earlier samaras sketches and paintings I posted and wrote about. From the upper left corner to the right are: 1.) Norway Maple tree samaras, 2.) Monkey Tree nuts, 3.) Silver Money seeds from the Lunaria plant, 4.) Persimmon calyxes.
The Norway Maple samaras will be watercolor painted as my previous sketches of them were.
The Monkey Tree nuts (which are edible and also the tree's seeds) are a dark/light brown with a hint of deep burgundy. I have not pencil sketched them before nor the following two subjects. Each of these will also be painted.
The Silver Money seeds will be painted mostly with white gauche to create an upper layer which will conceal much of the seeds below.
The Persimmon calyxes were quite challenging to draw as they are irregular in shape and size. There is this initial mental inclination to make everything somewhat similar. Martin Salisbury writes, "Learning to think visually is the key to learning to draw. This is one of the reasons why we sometimes hear teachers of drawing suggest that drawing from observation is less about learning and more about unlearning," (pg. 14 for those of you who may wish to read the book).
Under the subsection. Learning to see, (pg. 46-47), he writes:
"First, it is necessary to understand what "seeing" actually means. A useful way of demonstrating this is through what has long been a standard project in the first weeks of study on an undergraduate illustration course, and which can be undertaken by anyone in their own time. Take a list of ten things that you are bound to have "seen" within the previous twenty-four hours. Some of these will depend on the locale in which the project takes place, but they might include, for example, a bicycle, the main entrance to an institution, a bank note or coin, a prominent monument in the city centre. Then, make a drawing from memory of each of these on a single large sheet of paper, with plenty of space between each. Once this is completed, go out and draw each of the items directly from observation alongside your memory drawings.
The results are always revelatory - invariably demonstrating how little of our visible world we genuinely see. Once one has drawn from observation a bicycle, its workings and construction are forever ingrained in memory. We know a bicycle in a completely different way. This project provides an important lesson in how to begin to distrust those insistent messages from the brain, trying to tell us what we know, as it does battle with our eyes which are trying to lead us to a different kind of knowing - visual knowing."
Over and over again, when I pencil sketch, I remind myself to trust what I see and to duplicate it on the page; to manifest the "magic" Isabelle Arsenault writes about.
There is one more section of the book (one more for now) that I want to briefly refer to and that is Tone. I have this great love for a frequently sharpened pencil and an excellent, white eraser. These are my prized tools for drawing and for what Martin Salisbury refers to as the "tonal treatment" of my work. He writes on page 58:
"Learning to see and describe form and volume through the fall of light on three-dimensional shapes can be facilitated by abandoning the idea of making dark marks on a light surface.
An excellent way to start is by covering a sheet of paper with soft graphite or charcoal and rubbing it in to make a mid-tone. Then, instead of drawing with a pencil or charcoal, "draw" with an eraser. Plot the areas of light against dark until the shape of the subject begins to emerge from the gloom ... It helps to disentangle 'local' colour (i.e. the actual colour of surfaces - a dark blue wall or a brown desk) from the relative strength of tones. A white-painted wall in deep shadow can be darker than a blue wall in strong sunlight."
His written statements, and those of the other illustrators included in the book, echo my own work and methods. When I was working on sketching the Monkey Tree nuts, I drew them with both my pencil and my eraser to create definition and tone.
I know that these are nuts and visually recognized that when I drew them, but the tone and definition also evoke the torso of the human form. It's this duality that I find provocative; what I "saw" and what I "see." View the detail below:
I am not yet finished reading Drawing for Illustration and am sure my folk dance of movement as noted in the first paragraph will continue. I have a newly commissioned work to segue towards, as well as a large work of the sea to complete. Yet, I will continue to engage in this mental "conversation" with Salibsbury and the others in this good book. You might, too. Here are the details and a link:
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