Saturday, September 20, 2008

Drawing with Edna


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BLOG DOT COM COMMUNITY

    I don’t know how your blog is working.  Mine is not working, and I’m paying for it. To get images properly formatted I must upload them directly from my computer.  If I load them to an album and then insert them in a blog entry, the heavily cropped square image is all that I get.  The image is not restored to its full size, as it was in the past two plus years.  Also, newly uploaded images are spread willy nilly throughout the album, which is a problem if the album has two hundred images.  I pay to have my blog images stored, but now, not one stored image is usable.  Furthermore, the text formatting is awkward and I am unable to leave comments at other blogs on this network.  Two e-mails to the management have gone unanswered.

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Meanwhile, back in the studio
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Detail of Previous Image

    Edna and I have missed a few drawing session in the last two months, but we have been busy creating early 21st Century master drawings nevertheless.  The foregoing are August and September’s latest work.

Posted by Chuck at 04:24:50 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Drawing with Edna

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 59cm), pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 59cm), pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 59cm), pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Detail, Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 59cm), pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol

Edna and I got together yesterday, July 3, for another day of joint drawing. We continued with the addition of color.

Posted by Chuck at 05:00:23 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Edna and Chuck Add Color to the Drawings

Last Monday, May 26, Edna and I got together at my studio expecting to painting. We sat down to consider where we were and where we were not. For me translating a drawing to a painting is not a big issue. I like to have the drawing and composition worked out in advance. For me painting offers enough difficulties without discovering well into the painting that a major motif should be three inches to the left. Edna improvises the composition as she goes. She likes to partially paint out and work over old textures to give a rich painted surface. I like that too, but I plan mine out. Edna paints on a white ground. I paint on an irregularly stained gray ground around value seven. The problem now is that we have not worked out an approach to painting the new images together. Each of us is going to alter or enlarge our customary methods of painting.

We pinned the last painting to a wall, and pulled out some finished drawings to look at. What to do? The drawings are black on white with smears of intermediate values. The big value change from black to white gives a feeling of drama. In painting, Jill Moser is a contemporary example. Franz Kline is a good Twentieth Century example. Seventeenth Century artists, Caravaggio and Gentileschi, are the king and queen of drama. Edna and I have to rethink how to translate the white of the paper into paint.

Similarly, the black in the drawings could be more than just black. Low valued colors may work as well. We ignored the black and white dimension in the painting from last week.

Then there is the size and proportion of the format. We both paint typically in a 30″ x 40″ (76cm x 102cm) format, Edna mostly horizontal, me mostly vertical. We each have used a square format about 22″ (56cm) to 24″ (61cm) on a side. The larger format gives enough room for an arm-sized gesture. The paper we’ve been using, Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol, is big enough for a gesture, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm). In addition, these sizes fit well in domestic settings with 8′ (2.4m) ceilings.

We plunged into painting without checking the depth thoroughly and marking any rocky hazards. Maybe we should add some color to the drawings. That would be a smaller step. I got out some pastels that had been kicking around for twenty years. We worked up some sketches in the morning to get the feel for the possibilities. In the afternoon, we made five finished drawings. Here are the results in their order of appearance. Feel free to comment, but frame your comment in at least a ten-word sentence.

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Chuck at 05:56:36 | Permalink | Comments (1) »