Drawn to Creating: A Survey of Contemporary Drawing

That was one of the most profound experiences of my young artistic career so far; walking in to the exhibition I spent a year curating.  It was amazing to see the work of so many talented and hard-working artists from around the country.   As I expected, the work was far better in person, where you could see the scale, physical textures, and sense of their making.  Curating an exhibition is not unlike the making of a piece of art itslef, and I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment with this show!

Add to that, giving a talk to almost 200 people about the nature and importance of drawing in art, how crucial it is to see art in person, and the meditative, intuitive and intellectual nature of making this work, I was able to discuss my curatorial efforts.  For the scale of the show (11 artists, 44 works) it covered a wide path of the possible ways one could make a drawing.

To round it all out, giving interviews to three local news sources, rubbing elbows with the president of the college, and connecting with the incredibly inquisitive and kind students and faculty of Susquehanna University I think I made some important friends and connections.  And having one of the visitors tell me one of my drawings reminded her of the Bernini sculptures she had seen recently in Italy helped make my own artistic efforts more meaningful.

 

Winter '17 Semester-Ending Highlights!

Here are some of the highlights from the classes I taught in this winter semester!

In Drawing II we finished the semester with pastel still lifes.  We spent three weeks on them, studying composition, proportions, value structure, and of course- full chroma.  This followed work with colored pencil, seen below, and this Pastel Abstraction Project.

There were three still lifes around the room giving students choices of subject matter, and opportunities for the best views.  All are on Canson neutral-tone 19"X25" pastel paper, with a few students choosing to work on professional-level sanded papers.  Yes, that is a real deer skull I found for them to draw!

















Just before we went into pastel we spent three weeks on different homework and in-studio colored pencil projects.  I like to teach it on toned papers, so the students are not fighting white through the process.  I taught them the most important color theories as we went along.

This was a pinned-up still life they did at home.



I asked them to make thumbnail studies on the back of the paper they had chosen to layout the composition and the color scheme based on the color combination possibilities we studied.



Colored pencil, when used with proper techniques, can render very realistic textures and colors!







And in the studio we did natural and heightened color studies.
















Before we went into color we had our Figure Drawing section with live models.  Two weeks of gesture, proportions, foreshortening and value.  I just got them warmed up for my favorite class- Life Drawing in the fall!

Gestures!  2-5 minutes.









Sighting for proportions and angles, 30 mins.





Foreshortening studies, 40 mins.









And then a two-day pose for a full value drawing on neutral-toned paper.  They are more than ready for a full semester of Life Drawing in the fall!









Meanwhile, we were making prints in Intro to Studio Art...  Yes, that is the same deer skull!  He is a great model.









Earlier in Drawing II we had a few design-based projects that focused on composition among other more advanced drawing principles.

First up was our Tiny Drawing, Big Paper Project, where I gave students the challenge of composing a dynamic composition in a 4" square.  Rives paper for it's delicate surface and graphite for its strong rendering abilities were used, as we worked to make pieces that would draw the viewer in.  They certainly did once they were in the showcases!







Then these compositional diptychs.







And then these really neat collage drawings, where I asked them to collage dissimilar images and connect them through drawing!





But perhaps my favorite project exploring composition is this frottage project.  Here we studied texture through rubbing over different objects and textures, and them worked back into them to create a cohesive abstract image.  Often some student's first exploration of abstraction!  Really beautiful works in person.







But what Drawing II is complete without a little 3-point perspective?  In one of my classes we designed our own viaducts according to 3-point theory.





And in my other Drawing II we went to the Ann Arbor Natural History Museum to study 3-point from observation!  Staircases, a rotunda, and a bridge with views down on all the displays.  One student even braved the cold spring days to draw Albert Kahn's beautifully-designed triangular facade.   A hard subject to beat to study space and linear perspective.










And we started the whole semester where we eventually left off, with extended still lifes.  Here we used a combination of conte crayon and charcoal to look at some warm/cool color relationships.  Yes, the deer skull hung around a lot!  these helped prepare the students for the pastel work we eventually did.  They were done in the first few weeks of Drawing II and started this great overall semester!











And a few Final Projects exploring conceptual and material exploration to round it all out!  Including an invisible ink drawing, a self-portrait, an installation, and a multi-dimensional drawing.  We covered a huge range for a single semester!