End of Term!

Well, that went by awfully fast! It seems like I just started school and here it is the end of the first term and 15 more to go. Above is another five tone charcoal drawing. The idea behind five tones is that every shape of light, dark, and mid-tone has to match one of five. That means there is the lightest light, the darkest shadow, a light-dark shadow, a dark mid-tone, and a light mid-tone. Unfortunately it isn't as easy as just matching each color shape to a tone. As usual, you have to work it in relationship to the whole. I have a feeling that looking at the details in relationship to the whole is one of those primary concepts or universal rules.
At the moment, the drawings look rather blocky or pixelated. We have been told that next term we will be moving on the the total tonal gradations and also using a full sheet of paper. The charcoal drawings are done on half sheets of roughly 18" X 24" sheets of paper. That is a lot of paper to cover with a rather messy medium. We have small mirrors to use to "see" our drawing in another way. That helps to get the drawings right. I also find I use my little mirror to check my face for charcoal smudges! We are all forever telling each other that "you have a bit of paint/charcoal/graphite" on some area of the face. It can be quite comical.
One thing you will notice in the drawing is the basket sits on top of a book. I remember how much of a struggle drawing books was in the beginning. You would be surprised how challenging it is to get those innocent looking books accurate. It is totally counter-intuitive. They are much easier to draw now. I have realized that my mind no longer labels the things I am drawing. It is all just a collection of shapes and their relationship to one another to draw.
The purpose of the charcoal drawings, or paintings, is to get us used to the techniques that we will be using in painting without the added complication of color. It is a different way of working than drawing is. I am still getting used to the shift in thinking. It is getting easier and faster to work with. I still need a lot more practice though.
We will be taking part of the two week break to spend a bit of time on the Oregon coast. I love the ocean and we have a cozy little room with our own kitchen and a view looking over the ocean awaiting us. I will be drawing. Drawing is like playing music, it must be practiced daily. I also will be bringing along charcoal and a cheap water color set. We shall see what happens. I will try to post the results if I am able to.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Winter Holiday and a Happy New Year!
-Renee

Five Tones

This week we did a four session (12 hour) charcoal study. That meant we got to use two more tones. Eventually we will be using the whole range but starting out simple is the way to go not only in drawing but in just about every other endeavor.
I always think charcoal drawing is like a developing Polaroid picture. You start to see random shapes and shades and then as it develops further, the image begins to resolve. However, you don't just draw one object and then move to another. You have to work the whole picture. It is a constant battle to keep things true and it always amazes me when I have something working nicely and come back only to find that now it is too big/small or off kilter. I would love to have a time lapse video of the whole process. Perhaps one of these days I will have the space and proper tech to do that. Actually, I do have the technology needed just not the space to set it up. A time lapse video would show the cone, for example, morphing from cone shape, to something that looks like it was underwater, to smaller, and finally to bigger. The angles would change, the planes would change. the shape of light would be all over the place. Well, you get the idea.
The abstract pile of stuff on the left is actually a wad of fabric. The instructor deliberately left that as an abstract shape. The composition isn't too bad even though it is really for the purpose of the lesson, not to look pretty.
We have one more week of this term. Whoo Hoo! Time sure flies. At this rate four years will go by awfully fast. I do have a sense of the hard work that has been put in and hard it has been, for everyone no matter what their skill level coming into the program.
Now, for the final week...

Charcoal!

We finally started charcoal this week. Even so, we didn't just jump in with full out charcoal techniques. The first day we got to produce a picture with just two tones, lights and darks. I didn't post it because it looks quite abstract. Thursday they allowed us another tone. With a light, medium, and dark tone, the picture begins to take on more of a realistic shape. We have been promised an increase in tone allowance as we get better. The master teacher commented that we all had made his day at the end of this one. Drawing with charcoal is much different than graphite. Composing and rendering in charcoal is much closer to painting than drawing. They have also removed some of our scaffolding as good teachers will. We no longer set up a "box" to use as a guideline to draw our pictures. I was surprised to find that I did fine without the training wheels.
Two more weeks before the end of this term and we break for the winter holiday. My, time flies when you are learning a lot!
It is dark and cold and my dog suddenly needs to go out. I best put on my 10 layers of clothing and give her a respite. Until next week, -Renee

Change

There were a lot of changes this week that I am still assimilating. One very welcomed change is in how I am seeing the things I am drawing. Something fell into place for me and I am beginning to make more sense of the act of drawing. It is difficult to explain. The challenging part of that is that now there is more to correct and get right! The picture above is the still life we did on Tuesday before Thanksgiving vacation. As always, the drawing is never really finished. I would want to work several more hours on it to get it to a satisfactory point. I would make the darks a lot darker for one and smooth out the shading. The star box was particularly challenging.
The biggest change came right before lunch. All of us students were asked to gather around and take a seat. Now anytime someone tells a room full of focused art students to put down their pencils and brushes and take a seat you know that something big is in the air. We all got seated and looked at each other a bit nervously as the director stood up in front of us to make an announcement. He started out his announcement by talking about change. That made us even more nervous and now all attention was riveted on him. I was almost holding my breath thinking that they were going to close the school and all move to Italy or something. Well, the school is not closing but it is moving....to Portland Oregon! We will be finishing the academic year here and then I will be starting my second year in Portland.
I called my husband during lunch break to let him know that we will be moving in a year instead of staying in Ashland as we had thought. Notice, there is no question that I will continue my studies with the Academy. Fortunately my husband is at a highly flexible stage in his life. Both of us will have some regrets at leaving Ashland. It is beautiful here, my husband is in a few bands and we are just getting to know the area and the local people. Portland does have a lot to offer in exchange. For the first time since we were married, we will be living in the same city as a few family members. They are recent arrivals to the Pacific Northwest and we will be happy to be able to get to know them better. Portland has a lot to offer an artist and is a vegan mecca to boot. I have never lived in a large city so it will be different. Portland has always been my favorite city too. I might have had to re-evaluate my school plans if they were intending to move to Detroit or some such city. Not all students will be continuing with the school when it moves but they will be able to grow their program much bigger than if they stayed here.
What a roller coaster of a ride these past few years have been. I am curious to see what will happen next. I am excited about the change in spite of the daunting logistics it will bring.
We have the rest of the year to enjoy Ashland and prepare for another move. Next Thanksgiving will be celebrated in Portland...
Back to work! -Renee

Adding More...

Notice a difference? We are finally transitioning to charcoal drawing and have added tone, or value, to the list of challenges we need to tackle. With the introduction of tone, we also added two more tools to our drawing kit, a black mirror and a white mirror. The white mirror is a plain old mirror. The black one allows us to see the tone easier and flattens the image a bit although everything is reflected backward. Alas, using them does not provide any shortcuts, just more information (and sometimes more confusion).
There are only two pictures this week because each of these pictures took six to seven hours to draw. They really aren't finished pictures either. One begins to see the scale of work involved.
It doesn't really bother me that much. Weavers are used to delayed gratification. Right? As Virginia Harvey used to say when asked how long it took to weave/create that, it takes "many pleasurable hours."
Ok, sometimes the hours aren't pleasurable but if they were, everyone would draw or weave. I must admit though, weaving isn't nearly as painful for me as drawing is at times. I do miss it but will be able to return to it when my schooling is done. That is a great comfort to me. I do still bring my drop spindle to use during lunch break and I hope to haul Jane out for the holidays.
I had to order warmer clothes to wear here in Ashland. Looking around I see we are ringed with snowy mountains and the snowline is about 200 ft. above us. When the wind blows, even a little, it is colder than I am used to. Thankfully the warm clothes came in time for the weekend weather. Our little trailer was rocking in the wind and we had to put our awning away for fear it would be torn off (that happened to us once!).
Due to the holidays, we only have one full day of class next week. I will still go in on Monday on my own as there is a certain child's bike we drew for construction drawing on Friday that made me want to kick it across the room. I will be drawing it again, not kicking it, on Monday. I also just received a portable easel that I can take on a hike with me if I wish to use in our trailer. Like the Jane loom, it folds up and stows away so now I will be able to draw here with comfort if I don't feel like going to the school on the off days.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone here in the U.S. and a toast to all around the world.
-Renee

Repetition, Repetition....

It has been an interesting week at school. We continue to do still life drawing day after day. It can get a tiny bit tiresome. I am always glad for Fridays, not because they are the end of the week, but because we get to draw gesture sketches from a live model and it isn't a still life! Friday afternoons we draw a single object and add the construction drawing, but I am getting ahead of myself.
Here is Tuesday's still life drawing:

I know, as usual, hard to see as they are in pencil and deliberately drawn lightly but there is a shoe in the foreground that was rather fun to draw. The two sticks are actually paint brushes greatly simplified. It took me a bit of adjusting of my scale and proportions but I am fairly satisfied with the shape of the vase which had a wonderful round fullness to it.
Here is a drawing from Thursday:

This was challenging because the birdhouse was so much smaller than the toy chair. You really had to turn your mind off, that is the left side, to just draw what you see.
We draw two still life drawings in a school day, each three hours long. And, when I go to the evening class, another three hour still life is drawn. I did go to Tuesday's evening class and skipped Thursday because it was cold with snow and rain mixed, I was tired, I needed a bit of down time to digest some rather deep learning experiences, and I really just wanted a cozy evening with my guy and dog. None of those are good states to be in when concentrating on a drawing and when they hit all at once, it is time to retire for the evening.
Friday's construction drawing session was very satisfying. Here it is:
A simple little red sleigh. I should explain a bit here. With a construction drawing we start out drawing the object visually, which is how we usually draw still life. After we get it as close as we can visually, we add the perspective in to correct angles and lines. The corrections are usually very small, sometimes a line-width or up to 1/8th of an inch. Anything more and you know you need to correct it a bit more visually before moving onto construction.
In spite of all the repetition, I do notice a few things that change. The still life set-ups are getting more complex. They are also getting faster to draw and easier to process. Notice I didn't say easier to draw! We are all getting better. Most importantly, my understanding is getting deeper. That is very exciting to me. One other change is the sketchbook requirement. We are now required to keep a sketchbook. We have been asked to sketch people and animals in quick gesture sketches, never longer than 2 minutes a "pose." We have a minimum of 20 sketches a week. With the weather turning colder, it is a welcomed excuse to go sit in a cafe in the corner with something lovely and hot to drink and sketch, which is where I can be found tomorrow afternoon! Healthful, healing, and warm thoughts to all. -Renee

Week 5

First I wish to thank those who left such encouraging comments on my last post. I appreciate the comments! I am a day late posting because I went for a hike with my husband up Grizzly Peak instead of getting the pictures taken. The day and the views were breathtakingly beautiful.
The still life set-ups we are drawing are getting more and more complex. All of us are improving rapidly and are catching many of our own mistakes. The process goes faster and easier, well sort of!
I see that Sue at Life Looms Large got to see the documentary "Who Does She Think She Is?" I am envious as there is no screening within a few hundred miles of me. I have contacted the Ashland Independent Film Festival about the movie and I got a nice e-mail saying they will look into it. I would love to have it come here and I think there would be others interested as well. Theresa, any suggestions? I have been following the progress of the screenings online with updates and all.
So, here are two drawings from this week.

The second one is very light at hard to photograph and therefore see. I think all of us had fun drawing the second one. The teacher put that one up to force us into seeing abstract shapes.
The first drawing was interesting to draw too.
The gesture sketching on Friday went well and for the construction drawing we drew a watering can. It only took us an hour and a half so those of us who stayed until the bitter end got to construct another drawing.
I have a special treat this week. The Ashland Academy of Art was featured in a local TV program that is also online. They give a tour of the school and talk about what it takes to learn and be an artist. You can view that here by clicking on the link.
Finally, I have a request for Dana W. The e-mail I have for you is no longer working! Could you please send an email to me with your current address? Thanks Dana!
Tomorrow is a long day so I will end this here. Until the weekend, -Renee