The Drop --- Day 3/242

Walk: Waldorf School (Alta Plaza Park Meeting), Sundance Kabuki (The Drop)
Distance: 2.6 miles



See (or rent) The Drop for the quietly riveting Tom Hardy
         and his dog, Rocco 

Survived Again --- Day 3/241

Walk: Union Square
Distance: 6 blocks and home yoga practice

Things Ciwt fears:









            

“I think the most important thing a woman can have - next to talent, of course, - is her hairdresser.”
― Joan Crawford

Drawing, Part 4 --- Day 3/240

Walk: Corte Madera, The Hood
Distance: 3.5 miles and home yoga practice


Henri Matisse, Drawing for Dance 1, pencil on paper, 9" x 14", ca 1909

Still Ciwt's most beloved artist.

Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954)

'Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.'

Drawing, Part 3 --- Day 3/239

Walk: Piatti's, Ross Dress for Less, Maxwell Shades, Laurel Village, Trader Joe's
Distance: 3 miles



M.C. Escher, Drawing Hands, 1948, lithograph, 11.1" x 13.1"


Ciwt became so intrigued with her 'What is Drawing' question* that she took herself to a short Fundamentals of Drawing class nearby in the Presidio yesterday.  Until yesterday, she had never quite understood why the most famous artists in the world were required to take years of drawing studies in art academies and/or remain with a master in a workshop for many years until they could move on to noteworthy (ie, collectable) art works such as sculpture and paintings. Well, now she has some glimmer of that answer:  Because drawing is Difficult!  It can be taught to anyone (according to yesterday's instructor), but the demands are many. The basics give you techniques for teaching your fingertips to see.  But then there comes the perfecting of those techniques in simple sketches followed by the intense studies of hands, faces, noses, eyes, bodies in movement, etc. which can be intensives in themselves.

Even the little drawing we did in class yesterday put Ciwt in touch with a fascinating phenomenon that happens when you immerse yourself in even attempting to capture a subject with pencil on paper. Enormous focus and energy come to bear - and emotions like fear, respect, appreciation, fascination. Drawing is like entering another world; you even start sort of bonding with your subject and picking up its energy.  Kind of other-worldly, powerful and described so well by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917):

'What is drawing? Not once in describing the shape of the mass did I shift my eyes from the model. Why? Because I wanted to be sure that nothing evaded my grasp of it… My objective is to test to what extent my hands already feel what my eyes see.'

The secret the instructor said is to keep at it; draw a lot, all the time if you can.  Like yoga, just get to your mat.  It is experiential.  And breathe.  The more you can do those things, the greater your chances that your drawing abilities will open to you.  Here is how Camille Pissarro (1831-1903) put it: 'it is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

But Ciwt - who would probably need decades on just fundamentals - can also see the impatience that surfaced for many artists like Anders Zorn ** (Sappho) who was essentially born to draw and dropped out of the Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm early into his studies because he felt (correctly) that his skills were already beyond the classes he was required to take.  Same with Konstantin Makovsky***  the renegade Russian realist painter of The Russian Bride's Attire (1889) , and of course the Impressionists. There have been many others who have needed and taken their artistic freedom.

Whether academic or self-taught, Ciwt now comprehends a bit more deeply some of the statements made by artists on drawing.

Spencer Frederick Gore (1878 - 1914)

'By drawing, man has extended his ability to see and comprehend what he sees.'

Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)

'In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better.'

Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)

'Drawing is a kind of hypnotism: one looks in such a way at the model, that he comes and takes a seat on the paper.'

*     See CIWT Days 3/235 and 3/236
**   See CIWT Days 2/307, 2/308, 2/310, 2/311
*** See CIWT Days 76 and 78

Fundamentals and Other Drawing classes by today's teacher: www.johnmuirlaws.com/

Fall Signs -- Day 3/238

Walk: Presidio Warming Hut, Mindful Body
Distance: 1.6 miles and teach yoga class



Pet Japanese Maple begins its rest...

Enough Already --- Day 3/237

Walk: JCCSF, Trader Joe's
Distance: 2 miles and take yoga class



  Deer leaving the city via Golden Gate Bridge (during rush hour).

Drawing, Pt. 2 --- Day 3/236

Walk: Fillmore Street
Distance: 2 miles and home yoga practice



Ciwt thought she detected rolled eyeballs when she asked the gallery manager "What is drawing?" Maybe it wasn't exasperation over a stupid question but a genuine reaction to the complexity that is the answer.  Drawing turns out to be a very vague term indeed and difficult to define.  Not a single, unchanged  entity, it's an activity that's continuously mutable, constantly adapting to new forms, emerging technologies and conceptual attitudes.

It certainly includes mark making which most children do and where Ciwt's skills have found their current limit: .  Somewhere in her childhood, getting  a roof right was quite a shock to her visual and motor skills and the beginning of her understanding that drawing is about skills she didn't know about yet and would have to be taught. For whatever reasons she chose to stay pretty close to stick figures and arrows on simple maps to give directions to friends.

But of course throughout history and to this day many - in and out of the art world - have developed their drawing skills.  These are the people who have made cartoons for tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, created visual maps.  In early civilizations drawing and language developed together, as calligraphy did in China.  Drawing is part of many worlds besides fine arts: architecture, medicine, advertising, science to name a few.  And many cultures such as Maori body tattooing. And it's definition, scope, materials, surfaces keep expanding with technology as perfectly illustrated here in San Francisco recently with David Hockey's huge and proficient iPad drawings.  *

When Ciwt thinks of drawing it is usually in a Western fine art context where drawing was THE fundamental skill.  Particularly with the development of Art Academies during the renaissance, drawing courses which taught techniques (eg, perspective and foreshortening) for naturalistic, three-dimensional representation were mandatory for several years before the student could move on to the 'significant artwork' of painting or sculpting. When artists did move on, they used various media to draw on boards and later paper to generate ideas and solve problems, such as composition and layout.

But the drawings remained with the artist as tools; no patron would consider drawing to be a collectible art form. This began to change during the eighteenth century when artists such as William Hogarth and Francisco de Goya engaged in caricature** to comment on the changing social and political conditions arising from industrialization and urbanization.  Concurrently there were developments in printmaking which enabled the circulation of such work in newspapers and leaflets. Then came the camera, film, the whole modernist movement where drawing, individual expression, painting, sculpting, technology became and are becoming more and more intertwined.  And the question "What is drawing?" became more and more elusive - and growing more so every day.
                                                                                                     

*** ****

*****


*David Hockney, Yosemite National Park, iPad drawing
**William Hogarth, Columbus Breaking the Egg, 1752
***Lascaux Cave Painting
****Leonardo da Vinci, Horse drawing for sculpture, ca 1462
*****Pablo Picasso, Guernica Sketch 6, 1937                                                          (CIWT To be continued.....?)
                                                                                                                                                     

Drawing, Part 1 --- Day 3/235

Walk: Marina Theater (A Most Wanted Man - 2), Chestnut Street
Distance: 2.5 miles and small home yoga practice

Recently a friend recommended a drawing show at one of our downtown galleries, and yesterday Ciwt was able to get there.

It was more extensive than the usual gallery show which allowed some her old (unasked) questions about drawing to surface.  She took a look at one of the first ones:

Patricia Watwood, Dress

And felt on solid ground.  Yup, that's a drawing.                              

Then she began to be blown away by the sheer technical proficiency of the next image:
 
Chelsea Herron, At the Crossroads (and detail), chacroal on paper                         

and many that followed would be mistaken for photographs from a distance - or even up close!
 
Deborah Lloyd, The Last Dance, charcoal              Kevin Moore, Moments Before, charcoal on paper


Leah F. Waichulis, Venture, charcoal and pastel on paper

She thought this portrait was photographic in its life-likeness

  Timothy Jahn, A Ginger, charcoal on paper
Until she saw the next one 
                                           Luis Enrique Lantigua Dominiquex , Tantrum, charcoal on paper
 and then .
                Emma Hirst, High Steaks, charcoal & pastel on paper      

  As the show went on, Ciwt encountered colorful images, some traditional
 
 Brian O'Neill, A Life Well Lived, pastel
some out there  
                         Chelsea Herron, My Very Eager Mother, pastel

By the time Ciwt had studied all 107 images - different shapes, sizes, colors, subject matter, media - the unconscious question she has had for many years finally surfaced.  So she went over to the gallery manager's desk and asked it:  What is Drawing?

To be continued......