Head Games

Sketch, Head

Copied from a book

@ 9" x 7"

Charcoal and Chalk

Casey Klahn

This image was one of four 10-minute sketches of heads that I did the other evening to celebrate cleaning my studio. I was reading Drawing magazine, which is one of my guilty pleasures.  The idea here was the head as a cube in perspective.  I am also guilty of taking this from Ned Mueller, as I saw his great drawing in one of my coffee table art books.  Consequently, it will never be for sale.

Just Thinking with a Charcoal and a Pastel in My Hand

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Study and color study thumbs

Raphael Drawing Passion.

Claudia Hajian, who blogs as Museworthy, is one of my favorite blog reads.  Go here to see her post on Raphael's drawings.  Exquisite.


Claudia wrote one of the Top Ten Posts of 2009.

Drawing

This post was originally published 9-08.

Ponte Vecchio - Old City
@7" x 6"
Graphite on 70gr. Sketch Paper
Casey Klahn

Under Riva Ridge, Italy
@8" x 5"
Charcoal
Casey Klahn

View my complete body of drawings at Pastel.

At The Colorist, I also have a collection of drawings.

The Portal

4.75" x 4.5"
Graphite
Scene at "Riva Ridge," Italy
Casey Klahn



Lake Garda Alley
@4" x 3.75"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

See all of my drawings at The Colorist.

Back Profile - Ballerina

Back Profile, Ballerina - After Degas
@12" x 9"
Charcoal & Pastel
Casey Klahn

Draw Five

Olive Trees & Paint

May 2008
Pigment Wash, Charcoal & Pastel
On Diane Townsend Paper
21.5" x 14"
Casey Klahn

Drawing has absorbed much of my attention lately. Many of my recent artworks are drawing-based, as opposed to images that I begin with pastel sticks in large masses of color. I'm using charcoal and pencils again.

At The Colorist, my drawings are gathered under one label here. See the My Drawings label here at Pastel.

Let's explore drawing theories in this Five for Friday post.

1. I don't seek so much to draw things as I do to make a drawing.
2. Gather a collection of your own drawings that are framed or cropped somehow. How much negative space did you use?
3. My best advice for laying out a drawing is to just begin it, and work outward. For this, you need a big sheet of paper.
4. Don't erase anything, unless it's to add to the drawing.
   
5. Proportions are for draftsmen. You are an artist. Think: "will following the rules of proportion enhance my drawing, or sidetrack me instead?"
   

Compositions Advanced

The Abandoned Barn Study has been a goldmine for me in the analysis of composition. I thank Brian McGurgan for giving me that opportunity. The study has led us to look at things like lines that lead us around, into and out of our picture plane, the weight of masses, and the plastic element called "push-pull" by Modernists. See Hans Hoffman.

Hoffman declared the reign of "one point" perspective (linear composition) to be over. He proposed color, light and shape as elements that not only lead into a picture, but also push back out of the plane. Ready for some interactive fun? Go here for a color puzzle illustrating Hoffman's Push-Pull Spatial Theories.

Add Hoffman's theory to your linear perspective rules. Now, understand the application of lines, intervals, colors, values and other elements in the picture plane to lead the viewer's eye where you want it to go. If the sky is "heavy" with darker values, the eye will feel it's "weight" pushing the picture elements down.

Let's have a look at some examples from my own drawings. Do you think in color when you draw with pencil or charcoal? If you are a painter, you should. It will effect the outcome of your gray scale drawing. Maybe this will become evident as you look at this combination of both colored and black & white drawings. Again, we're using a definition of a drawing as a picture leaving some ground/paper showing.

Forest Study, 6" x 5", Charcoal
Casey Klahn

Bell Tower, 4.75" x 4.5", Original Pastel
Casey Klahn

Behind the Garage, 7" x 8.5", Graphite on Sketch Paper
Casey Klahn

After Wolf Kahn#1, @ 8" x 6, Pastel on Sketch Paper
Casey Klahn

Lead Climber, 11" x 6.75", Graphite on Paper
Casey Klahn

The Portal, 4.75" x 4.5", Graphite
Casey Klahn

Now, look at my analysis of how sometimes linear, and sometimes values or colors push the viewer's eye around the picture plane.

Dark foliage pushes down; light foreground pushes up.

Dark value sky colors push down; light foreground pushes up and various lines lead in.
Blue (cool) recedes; pinks, yellows, oranges and violets are warm and proceed to the front.

It was tempting to make the winter sky dark, and the shingle roof dark as well. Instead, I remebered the push-pull theory and helped the eye heavenward with lines, mass weights and open, light values in the sky. Part of the roof was left light. Diagonal lines lead in from the left, and various vertical and spiraling lines disrupt and stop you inside the picture plane. They help to lead your eye upward. Notice that the interval of sky need not be large, because so much help is offered by the push-pull methods - this allowed me to keep the garage big and prominent.

This was directly copied from Wolf Kahn when I did a study of the contemporary master. Interestingly, the light foreground, with open lines lead in, and the hatched tangle in the upper area serve to catch the eye - partly stopping and only pushing down gently.

The environment of vertical rock is hard for the flat lander to visually process, so understand that here we have a lead climber on a vertical cliff that begins to overhang above him. He is intently focused on the rock before him, scrutinizing his next options. Don't get dizzy!
Our climber has more interval overhead than below, and yet he still gives the impression of being high off the ground. The lines opening up, and the simplicity and lack of detail help this effect.

Here is the most complex drawing shown as far as perspective is concerned. Obvious lines lead one into the picture and downhill along the path, then through the portal in the tangle, and then across the void, or canyon, and up the rock cliff. Important roof lines also bring the eye in from the left.
The "bending" viewpoint is a curvilinear perspective. In this drawing, I have offered a type of curvilinear perspective. My brain hurts, now. Reference here.
There is an interesting story that goes with this image, referenced here.

Thumbnail Critique

Conté pierre noire pencil on Cartiera Magnani Velata paper (cream tone, 3″ x 4″, 3″ x 5″, and 6″ x 3″), August 2008.
Brian McGurgan

I won't be doing crits, except by request, and then gladly. Brian McGurgan, of Brian McGurgan's Drawings and Paintings, has asked for one as he follows along with my Abandoned Barn Workshop. What I do hope to do with this series is to post about the Abandoned Barn Project every week at least once a week. Since Friday is Tips, I'll choose another day of the week.

We'll be doing color sketches after the B&W thumbnails, and eventually I'll post my artist's demo as we finish this work in my studio. I started the painting on site, with all of the flavor of plein air work, but I'll be completing it in the studio for ease of teaching from a blog. This whole thing is an experiment for me in teaching, blogging and demonstrating a Work in Progress (WIP).

Brian:

There is no doubt you get the feel of the site, with its lonely and abandoned barn. Maybe you'll have to get me doing some NYC buildings, next, from photos and while I'm in my western studio. I hope to show some of these to the farmers who own the property some time. They'll be thrilled, I know. That distant mountain shows up in many of my own artworks, and I like to tell people it is "almost in Canada" .

You have a great understanding of your aspects, and how they effect the outcomes. I would do several sketches of each (or one) aspect, because the one-each system is too confusing.

I'm glad you're thinking in color at this stage, already. A true sign of a painter! Be willing to change your color ideas as you ruminate on the image over time. I like the brown and neutral idea, but it will dictate certain things down the road, and we'll need to figure that out along the way.

The lower left image makes the barn the star of the show, but the negative space remaining is ambiguous - there is too much of it. And, be careful about getting the barn in the center of the drawing.

The upper left one is an interesting study of what happens when looking at photos (you don't get my advantage of being here to see it in reality). The photo (I call them "evil") flattens perspectives. I have to constantly be aware of this, and stretch the vertical view on my paper to counter this. So, when you lower the horizon line intentionally to include some sky, you fall into the photo-become-drawing trap of flattening the view too much. I have addressed the same issues in my Charcoal Thumbs, but I have kept the hill mass above the barn "fat" to avoid the evil camera perspective effect.

Also, my sky inclusions are for pictorial (linear) purposes, and not for color purposes. I am keeping these two aspects in compartments: first the linear composition, then the color composition. Don't let the color needs screw up the linear composition or failure lurks near.

On the subject of drawings from photo reference, see my post here.

The vertical format is nice because it keeps the loneliness of the barn intact, and yet crowds nothing. A bunch of issues develop here, though. Remember our friend, Wolf Kahn? He is all about Hans Hoffman's "Push-Pull" theories, and Kahn's drawings are a virtuoso performance in allowing lines to push the sky down (or up!) as the composition needs. Same story with his foregrounds.

So, in looking at your third drawing, I wonder which element will dominate. The sky, mid and foregrounds share thirds equally. My eye needs to be told which element to favor. In fact, you risk having four elements equally weighted, if I think of foreground, barn, mid ground and sky. I do like the "fat" field mass above the barn, though. I think #3 is my favorite over all (vertical).

Finally, I want to get into your drawing a bit. The barn drawing works great for it's value scale, and has perfect "weight" and is anchored well to the ground. It's a great drawing! I want you to analyze the perspective as a 3 point perspective, though. It looks like you have a 2 point perspective going, with almost a slight third point (the vanishing point below the dirt would wish for the vertical wall lines to be more acute). Does that make sense? My thumb#3 illustrates a 3 point perspective of this barn, where the viewer is slightly above and looking down on it. The vanishing point for the vertical lines is below the ground level.

Anyone else willing to follow along? I'll be out-of-pocket through Monday, and then we'll be resolving my compositions and moving on to the demo.