Life Studies



I thought I would post a new drawing today. This is a sketchbook page, from around October 2016, with two studies from a life drawing session at Indiana University here in Bloomington. Like the sketch from yesterday, it is drawn in pen. This drawing has clearer form description, and closer resemblance to the model, than the sketch from Copenhagen that I posted yesterday.

Some viewers may find it a better drawing, and others may not. And some may not care to assign this kind of relative worth. But if you do want to think about which you think is better, I think it depends on whether you prefer to see free expression of an artist’s feelings, or a more nuanced presentation of external factors.
 
My usual approach when I am working is to push from the former to the latter. I start with how I am feeling at the time, all the time, to some extent. Then I keep working to include more and more of the external information that I see. Or external information that I imagine, based on memories of things that I have seen. As a process this makes sense to me. You start with acknowledging where you are, and work toward where you want to go.

Working from direct observation of light on form, preferably natural light on living form, is fun and exciting for me. Looking at the world around me is a source of deep fascination. However far I manage to travel, in a day’s work, or in a particular painting, from my inner feelings at the moment, to expressing the wonderful world around me, tends to vary from time to time.

I am thinking about a fascination with the world that I see in that wonderful painting by P.S. KrΓΈyer, that I had revisited yesterday. For me, that is a work that rewards return visits, one of many paintings in museums that I have seen in person and would like to see again.

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