Remember Why We Draw

The last few months have been busy. Busy is a good thing. It means that people like what we do and want to buy it, but sometimes we need to take a little time to remember why we do what we do. I have stolen a few moments the last few weeks to simply draw. No project, no purpose, no client, I drew just to draw. Drawing is the fundamental building block of every true artist, but sometimes we forget to draw. Life is busy and even in the midst of an art career, we sometimes stop drawing if it's not part of the current project When we forget to draw just for fun, we lose sight of WHY we draw and sometimes even feel like we have forgotten HOW to draw.

I fall into this trap all too often. Deadlines feel too tight to take a moment of frivolous drawing. It seems selfish to indulge in drawing for drawing's sake when the paying projects are nagging at you, but this is just what I did on a few recent outings. I don't regret the choice. The experience of drawing from nature with no intentions other than to capture what was in front of you and make it a permanent expression of your perceptions on paper is a powerful experience. I had forgotten how therapeutic it can be to simply draw for no other reason than to draw. I found myself immersed for a few moments in the shapes and textures of my subject. I found myself really seeing the things I was drawing and solving problems as I worked to get them down in my sketchbook. I was totally invested in the effort and for a moment there was nothing between me and the trees but a thin column of carbon. I became one with my drawing. This is why I draw.

I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen.
-Frederick Franck

In spite of everything, I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great disagreement, and I will go on with my drawing.
-Vincent Van Gogh

There will always be reasons why not to draw. but don't let the ups and downs, the pressures of life and deadlines derail you from your drawing. Draw on!

Geronimo Finished Drawing

Here is the final drawing for one of the Boys' Life illustrations I am working on. I always take my thumbnail drawings and enlarge them to use as the basis for my final drawing, adding detail and making adjustments as I work. I recently purchased a portable light table that has been very helpful in this process. For years, I created my final drawings on tracing paper right over the top of my enlarged thumbnail drawing. This allows me to retain the shape relationships, proportions and overall arrangement of elements that I carefully established in my concept sketch.

Tracing paper is a terribly non-archival surface and these drawings will probably fall apart in short order. I always figured I had the physical painting though, so I didn't worry about it.  Since I am painting more digitally these days and there is no actual painting, I decided it might be nice to have some sort of artifact from the process other than a pile of pixels on a hard drive. I am now creating more finished full value drawings which I then scan and paint over digitally in Photoshop. I am really enjoying the drawing phase of the process and like having something physical left over as a result. This drawing is on 100 pound smooth finish Bristol which, by using the light box, I can see through well enough to get guidelines from the enlarged thumbnail drawing.

Temptation - Preliminary Drawing

For my  senior portfolio class we had a painted final. I had everyone choose some sort of portrait  and I gave them all three pieces of reference from which to choose two. I gave a sheet of various snakes, some random mechanical parts and had them choose an element (fire, wind, water, etc.).  I decided to paint along with them and I will show more of that later. Here is the preliminary drawing I did for it. I have wanted to paint this subject for years and never have gotten around to it. I think Eve often times gets a bum rap for being the one that succumbed to temptation, but I believe it was really a conscious choice that she did not take lightly. The painting itself is a bit of an experiment and I have some process shots I will show as well. 

My Drawing in the Getty

Hey, I have a drawing in the Getty Museum! Well, sort of. During my MFA studies, my friends Ron Spears, Mike Wimmer and I had a chance to spend the afternoon at the Getty.

l-r; Mike Wimmer, Ron Spears and me drawing in the Getty

On a whim we decided to sketch for a while in the sketching gallery that they have set up in one of the galleries where you can draw from a selection of paintings and sculptures on display. We all settled in to draw the dynamic marble sculpture of the discus thrower that was in the center of the gallery. It was a fun experience and if you ever get a chance to do it, I highly recommend it.

Me drawing away at the Getty

After 30 or 40 minutes, we hung our drawings up on the display board and left them there for all to enjoy. Since all drawings that are left become the property of the Getty, I technically have a piece of my art in the Getty collection!

Well I suppose it's possible that it was only briefly in the Getty collection before it made its way to the L.A. Department of Sanitation collection, but who knows? maybe it is still there. One can hope right?

Robert Fawcett on Drawing

Defeat and Death on Battan by Robert Fawcett

When asked in a 1960 Famous Artist Magazine interview how important drawing was to the total result of a picture, Robert Fawcett replied with the following quote:

Drawing constitutes the fountainhead and substance of painting and sculpture and architecture...Let him who has attained the possession of this be assured that he possesses a great treasure.
-Michelangelo

After my last post, I realized there was much more to share from the book Robert Fawcett- The Illustrator's Illustrator (which I highly recommend by the way).  I figured I'd post a little more today. The following is a breakdown of Fawcett's drawing style and mark making along with a few quotes from the above noted interview.

Q:What is the use of a picture anyway?

A: What use is a Beethoven symphony? To feed the spirit, to feed the soul.

Q: Do you believe artists should be trained?

A: They must pursue constant and relentless drawing. Being able to draw only comes about by drawing. Of course training will give the artist hints. But in the last analysis, the artist develops himself.

Q: Must an artist have talent?

A: I do not think that artists are naturally born...Sweat and application will develop the artist. An artist who wants badly enough to do it will do it anyway. It will be impossible to dissuade him. If students want to be spoon fed, this is not likely to be a real desire on their part to be artists, but merely a whim.

Q: What do you hope to communicate to those who see your work?

A: I would like them so see a sense of positive organization in my picture. If you see a picture that is well organized you have no trouble looking at it. This is the logical outcome of drawing. Drawing is seeing. And what we do is create a kind of order in a picture that makes it easy for people to look at.

On the art of seeing:

I'm just a built in eye. I can see with such clarity. But the hand always falters between the eye and the paper. ...You can learn to see by seeing....If I have a trained eye, I will record a more comprehensive picture because I know how to translate what I see. there should be the least amount of interference between the eye, the brain and the hand. When you have exhausted conventional seeing, you can go into more interesting things.

Q: What is the best advice you can give an aspiring illustrator?

A: If you want to be an artist, you will be an artist. If you do not become one, there is nobody to blame but yourself. The techniques can be learned and should be learned thoroughly. Then comes the relentless application of your knowledge.

Many thanks to Manuel Auad of Auad Publishing for his gracious permission to share these pictures and excerpts.

Grasshopper Thumbnail

Thumbnail sketch - 2 3/4" x 2" pencil with digital tone

Just got concept approval on a series of pictures I am doing for Scott Feaster at Boys' Life Magazine. The story is a fictionalized account of a young Lakota warrior who hones his skill with the bow and arrow to the point where he can hit grasshoppers in flight. He eventually grows up to become Chief Crazy Horse. This is the thumbnail sketch for the opening spread. I typically work this way as I prefer to work out the design and basic composition before I get to far into the process, especially before I shoot photos. Shooting photos first seems to result in less a dynamic feel to the pieces. This way I get the drama I want and I pose the models to match. Everyone seems excited about the direction this is going- including me. Now I need to do some more research to gather reference material, schedule a photo shoot, etc. I'll post more of this project as it goes along.

Stefan

Stefan - Conte on rough newsprint

life drawing by Greg Newbold

Last fall in the figure drawing class I taught, we frequently had a terrific model named Stefan. He claimed to not be an athlete but did admit to "working out some". He was so much fun to draw and was great to teach with since you could use him to identify practically every muscle in the body. I wish we had him this term, but I think he went home for the summer- too bad. This drawing was done in under an hour on rough newsprint. I was trying very hard to only put down marks and not do any erasures. It was a challenge, but I like the way the drawing turned out.

Life Drawing

"Mei" -18" x 24" - Conte crayon on smooth newsprint

Life Drawing by Greg Newbold

I am back teaching figure drawing as well as head painting this summer term at BYU in the illustration department. It's a lot of fun to be able to draw from life every day so I am looking forward to drawing alongside the students. Yesterday we had a terrific Asian model named Mei. She was rock solid holding the poses while simultaneously giving really good lines. She was a lot of fun to draw. We are concentrating on short drawings right now in this class with lots of gestures and poses under an hour. I really want the students to learn to capture the essence of the figure and pose in a short time frame. It's so disappointing when you see a drawing that someone obviously spent a lot of time on but is lifeless or the anatomy is all wrong. The philosophy in this class is to capture the life of the figure rather than laboriously rendering the figure. I spent about thirty five minutes on this drawing.

50 Thumbnails

Sheep Shearing thumbnails

One of six 8 1/2" x 11" pages I filled with drawings

Howard Pyle taught his students that every painting should be preceded by at least fifty thumbnail sketches. His philosophy was that though you may hit on the best design on sketch 23 or 37, or even sketch 2, the real reason to do so many studies is to exhaust all of your options and to make sure that the one you ultimately choose to base the final painting upon is indeed the strongest solution. During my MFA studies, one of our assignments was to utilize this exercise in designing one of our "dream project" paintings. Admittedly, I hardly ever do more than a dozen thumbnail drawings, so this was quite a challenge to come up with fifty distinct designs. Despite drawing and designing for several hours, I was short of fifty when class rolled around the next morning. I sketched away during the beginning of class and hit on a design I liked at number 50. Looking back, I could easily turn several of these thumbnail drawings into paintings, but at the time it was a revelation to understand why Pyle so strongly advocated fifty drawings. Next post: Drawing number 51.

Bridgeman's Hands

Drawings From The Book of a Hundred Hands

by George Bridgeman

Details of hands from a few of my paintings

Hands are the second most expressive part of the human anatomy next to the face. I love doing a good hand and work hard to make them look right. I have heard it said that you can tell how good an artist is by how well he draws hands. I learned how to draw hands from George Bridgeman. Sometime around 1988 as a student, I bought a copy of The Book of a Hundred Hands. It became my bible on how to draw a good hand. Bridgeman was an exceptional teacher and artist and had a knack for breaking down the human form and anatomy to it's essence. Whenever I am battling a hand or some other aspect of the human anatomy, I turn to my old friend George and he calms me and sets me on the right track. it's no wonder his books are still around. If you don't have a copy of  The Book of a Hundred Hands or better yet his Complete Guide to Drawing From Life, I would highly recommend picking them up. Here are also a couple of details of hands I have done.