Chuck Paints

A month or so ago, Edna Casman, my partner in drawing, suggested we try some sculpture.  That sounded good to me.  Here are some first efforts.

Untitled (Tennis Ball), 12 1/4″ x 10″ x 6 1/2″ (31cm x 25cm x 17cm), tennis ball, wood skewers, wire, hardware, brass tube, rags

Untitled, 4″ x 19″ x 7″, front, (10cm x 48cm x 18cm), tin can, rocks, tennis ball, wood skewers, wire, PVC pipe, rags, etc.

rear view

Untitled, 5″ x 4″ x 2 1/2″ (13cm x 10cm x 6cm), tin can, screws, nut, bolt, PVC pipe fitting

We got together last Sunday, October 25, for the afternoon.  We started about 1:15 PM and worked until 4:30 PM.   We produced these three sketches and started two more.  We worked at my studio because I have a lot of “stuff” kicking around plus some power tools.  We decided, for openers, that we each would work about 30 minutes on a piece then trade.  We had a fun time.

Whirligig #52 Ready to be Painted

Google Sketchup of Whirligig #52.  The blades rotate in a circle about 22″ in diamter. If you don’t know about Google’s Sketchup, download it.  It’s free and powerful.

Whirligig #51, 26 1/2″ x 20″ x 14 1/4″ (67cm x 51cm x 36cm), aluminum, brass, African mahogany, assorted hardware, sign paint

Whirligig #51 sports independently moving blue disks

In moderate breezes moving disks sound like a can being kicked

Zephyr Rated

See it move

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

EDNA Casman and I did the ten drawings above over our last three sessions, September 3, 8 and 15.  The first three represent more efforts to have the focus of the drawing toward a side edge.  The first two have a composition that amounts to a triangle pointing into the picture.  This gives the feeling that the empty space is about to be occupied.  The third is a little different.  Here the figure appears to be walking into or being pushed into the empty space.  The last drawing is an interesting attempt to salvage an unsatisfactory drawing by mostly covering it up.  The lower right triangle and the oval were part to the original drawing.  Here, we conducted the search for the drawing by erasing it with color, very low chroma colors, but color still.  By controlling the amount of color pastel in the coloring-out layer or erasing into the coloring-out layer, or fixing some of the underlying passages, we arrived at this solution.  In nearly all our previous drawings, except for the silver drawings, we have been content to leave the white of the paper as background.  In this drawing the uncovered paper could be read as foreground to the action in the drawing.  The uncovered paper could also be background to the drawing, which descends from above like a curtain, although we left the upper right uncovered to make that interpretation less certain.  We are very fond of uncertain interpretations.

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2ply rag Bristol

THESE  are the drawings from the last two drawing session, 20 and 27 August.  Well not quite.  Usually there are drawings that we are not sure about, at least not sure enough about to sign.  We take another look at these drawings the following week.  We decide to sign them or not.  The first drawing is one of the drawings with a delayed signature of approval.  So the first drawing above is from early August, not that it makes any difference, but, when we sign it later, we ask ourselves, “What was not to like?”  In this case - the first drawing above - we may have thought that it was too busy, that the three areas were not connected, that there were too many different colors.  But we signed it without altering or adding anything.

Sometimes we do a series.  If a sketch or finished drawing seems to be an image snatched from an ongoing event, a frame from a mental film, or something from a distinct series, we try to add more drawings to give it context or a story.  The last three drawings form a series.  The first was based on a sketch from the morning the week before.  We felt the Big Guy on the right was harshly addressing the Little Guy on theleft.  The Big Guy’s sudden angry outburst totally takes the Little Guy by surprise.  After Little Guy regains his emotional footing, he gets angry at Big Guy.  Little Guy’s anger at Big Guy grows more intense.  At these point Big Guy wishes he hadn’t said anything at all.

Edna and I are surprised at how little drawing is needed to suggest something specific.  What is just as interesting is how the specific thing varies from viewer to viewer.  To one person a round shape may suggest an eye, to another an ear.  It seems - and this is borne out by what I’ve read about how the signals from the eye are processed by the brain - the brain is determined to make sense of what it sees.  The brain wants to establish what the signals are signalling as quickly as possible.  That’s understandable.  “Is what I’m being signalled about dangerous (to me) or not?” says the brain.  This tendency can lead to some fun as in the work of M. C. Escher.  In the first of three drawings, the viewer can easily accept that the our intention that Big Guy’s attention is directed toward Little Guy.  We smeared some color and lines to connect the two.  What does that make the two circles in Big Guy?  The circle to the left is then an eye, and the circle to the right is an ear.  That makes the two figures stand in the same plane, as if they are both the same distance from the viewer.  If the two circles are both eyes, then, Little Guy is closer to the viewer, because the viewer sees both eyes of Big Guy.  (There is no doubt that the two circles in Little Guy are eyes, because they are so close together.)  This perception makes the illusional space in the drawing deeper.  It’s the viewer, then Little Guy, then Big Guy.  We made Little Guy bend backward to reflect the force of Big Guy’s what?  His words, his bad breath, his emotion?  If Big Guy faces the viewer and then viewer looks over Little Guy’s shoulder. The viewer then  may feel the force of Big Guy’s agression.  By ashifting the viewer’s point of view in a single image, we have involved the viewer in whatever is happening in the drawing.  When each of us interacts with the environment around us, we constantly shift our position to better triangulate the object of interest.

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″  (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

In July Edna Casman and I met to draw the 2nd in my studio and the 30th in her studio.  August 6th we met again in her studio.  The drawings above are from these sessions.  They do not appear in the order we did them.  I’ve forgotten what order they appeared.  As we draw and the drawing reveals itself to us line by smear, we often attach an amusing situation or story, which, in turn, suggests additions to the drawing.  The drawing just above began in a warm-up effort in the morning as a lazy moon lying at the bottom of the sheet of paper.  A few more lines made it a boat.   In the afternoon, on the “good” paper (which, by the way, has risen in price by more than a dollar a sheet the last several months)  a dragon menaces the boat, now occupied by two figures, one of whom shows a distressing nonchalance, considering the nearness and size of the writhing threat.  This all happens under a rainy, cloud covered sky.