Week 5: A break from ugly Romans

Week 5 and then a break.

Week 5 had us working on our ugly Roman (Plate 1,3). Sam brings us back to the essence of the Bargue, what we are drawing does not explore our creativity as an artist, it's aim is to teach us to observe and copy accurately. Developing this key underlying skill then lets our creativity produce what we wish to achieve. And so we spent a good part of the evening working on our Roman.  By the end the large block shapes where beginning to form a face.

Big blocks and little blocks

The approach, having established a plumb-line as reference, is to start with the largest dimensions in terms of height and width, so the top of the head, the chin, nose and outer most point at the back. Then mark the next most important reference and keep refining.
The big temptation is start with the eyes. The window the soul, eye contact is hugely important in human communication and so its tempting to start there. Well unless its a key reference it may be way down the order in this context.
The other temptation is to start putting in the curves, eh no, not in this case, that'll come. Many artists I've seen will start with quite blocky preparatory sketches, in order to mark the main dimensions and then refine the drawing or keep it as a reference for the main piece. Man, this is like Jedi training, patience young Padawan, agh, but I want to use The Force Master Yoda!

When negative is good

Each week there is usually a brief history of art lesson. This weeks artist of choice was Cezanne (yes, post-impressionists are a recurring theme!) Sam showed a series of paintings and sketches demonstrating balance in composition and the use of negative space. No, negative space is not a Stephen Hawking theory about black holes. Its about shapes created around the image. Here's an example by Cezanne. In this preparatory sketch for 'The Large Bathers' note the diamond shape formed by the bathers and the bow of the tree. This shape is not an accident, there's a clear, if invisible, line that runs from the tip of the branch to the third bather on the right. It gives the drawing a sense of balance, our eyes find that comfortable even if we're not consciously aware of the shapes presence. In the final painting note the triangle in negative space formed by the trees, the out stretched arms of the centre-most bathers and the triangular shapes of both groups.  In fact the whole painting is really a series of triangles.

Mid-term Homework

We had a break from class for a week, but there was no sitting on laurels we had homework! So on a sunny afternoon I set up my outdoor studio and got to work. 

This time I had my camera handy and produced a time lapse of the process, hopefully showing the progression from an outline of blocky images to a fully finished image.

Swatting up

Normal classes resume tomorrow evening but before the week was out I skipped ahead and did one of the sketches that can be found later in the Bargue. Actually this is part of a series of 'classic' poses, anyway it was good practice and didn't take long. The image may be a bit small but note the triangle that's formed between the mans legs and the floor. Its a good reference to check the accuracy of my copy.

Talking of copies

Now that I'm over my 'copying is bad' phobia I don't feel so bad showing the following painting.

My reproduction

Conan of the Fianna by Jim Fitzpatrick

Side by side

One of my favourite paintings is Jim Fitzpatrick's "Conan of the Fianna". Fitzpatrick's style is a blend of Alphonse Mucha's Art Nouveau and Celtic Art. Back in 1989 in my post-leaving cert summer I spent a lot of time drawing and painting - must have been some sort of post-traumatic-stress-syndrome therapy. The highlight of that summer, for me personally, was the reproduction I did of this painting. One of the reasons I'm doing this course was to get back to this level, and hopefully, beyond it. I recently liberated the painting from my parents house and took back home, where its hanging the wall behind me as I write this. It inspires me to keep going with the Ugly Roman.

Week 4: To the Barque at last

Learn by copying

I'd always thought that copying other peoples drawings was kind of cheating, after all it was their idea, their composition and so on. Copying it and then trying to sell it as an original is of course fraud, and wrong, but copying to practice and learn, that's ok.

"Keep good company - that is, go to the Louvre" - Paul Cezanne. 

Cezanne used to go to the Louvre to copy other works of art and even promoted the idea. So I didn't need to feel guilty about copying other artists work (are you reading this Jim Fitzpatrick - copied loads of your stuff in the past). In fact copying is the very heart of Barque Cours de Dessin.

Actually, Jim Fizpatrick's Che Guevara, is probaby one of the most iconic (and copied) pieces of art from the 20th century. But even this image is based on a photo; everyone copies someone it seems.

So this week we actually got to put a Bargue 'plate' on our easel and start copying. What's more we skipped to Plate 11. I felt like Neo in The Matrix when he skipped the 'intro' programs before being plugged back into the Matrix for the first time - too basic you don't need them, his operator stated! (What do you mean you haven't watched The Matrix!). Moving on; all the exercises from the previous weeks were being brought to bear as we began the process of making an exact copy using the observation and accuary techniques from the previous weeks. Sam wanted to give us something a little more interesting, but to be true to the course you should start at Plate 1, even if (like van Gough) you've done it several times before.

Plate 11 

So what's on Plate 11? I thought you'd never ask, its a profile of a rather ugly, but important, Roman person. Sam, did mention his name, but if you've read this far and haven't fallen asleep you probably don't care either. Our A2 sheet consisted of the top image (with the guidelines) located on the left side of the sheet. On the right of the sheet were 4 small pencil marks, 2 at the top and 2 at the bottom, Using these points we first to drew the guidelines with a ruler. Once guidelines were in place we had to then mark, by eye, the highest, lowest parts of the image. Everytime we marked a reference point we stepped back, assessed and verified. Then we moved to next most prominent point, like that mighty Roman nose, and so on until a rather blocky but accurate image started to emerge.

So where's my completed picture for this weeks blog? Well first this process took a long time and in truth there wasn't much to show at the end of the evening - and em - I forgot to take a photo.

"The Sterile Struggle"

Before

This all seems rather slow and uncreative! Van Gough called the Barque "The Sterile Struggle", he struggled with its dryness and yet did the entire course serveral times because he knew the value in its discipline.

So has it helped me? I think so. I was stuggling with getting the eye right on my Batman profile drawing from a few a weeks ago so I worked through one of the plates that focused on the eye, and applied what I learnt. I hope 'After' is better!

After