Learning from Great Drawings

Copy of Luca Camiaso's  'Christ leading the Calvary' 

Copy of Luca Cambiaso's ' Group of figures'

The sketches are my attempts at copying of drawings by Italian artist Luca Cambiaso (1527-1585) from the book 'Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters" by Robert Beverly Hale. The book analyzes 100 drawings and defines figure drawing fundamentals. The book looks into the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rodin, Goya, Rembrandt and others and shows in seven chapters  how these artists utilized basic concepts of line, light & planes, mass, Position Thrust or direction, and Artistic anatomy.

I have always had trouble with thinking in terms of simple masses and shapes when sketching.  I am hoping copying like this will help me see light values and seeing the simplest geometric forms in everything.  I noticed in the book there are block like, cylindrical and spherical styles of sketching. The book explains: " You soon realize that there are very few basic shapes in the universe and that there is a geometric relationship between the most diverse objects. the sea is but the skin of a sphere and is related to the spherical head of a pin."   I have had the book for many years but only recently decided I will start copying the various drawings in different styles to get practice -especially on those days when I have limited time and no idea for a daily sketch. 

Have you copied for practice master drawings or paintings? do you find the exercise useful learning tool? Love to hear your experiences! 

Food For Thought

Jam jar watercolor on yupo 6x4 " by Meera Rao

Presimmons watercolor on Yupo 4x6" by Meera Rao

I painted these two small paintings on YUPO  two weeks ago. They were both donated to a fundraiser for Akshaya Patra a non-profit organization in India that aims to make sure "no child shall be deprived of education because of hunger."  Their website www.foodforeducation.org explains: "A public-private partnership, Akshaya Patra combines good management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver school lunch at a fraction of the cost of similar programs in other parts of the world. The program started in 2000 by feeding 1,500 children from a temporary kitchen in Bangalore, India. Currently, we distribute freshly cooked, healthy meals daily to 1.3 million underprivileged children in 8,000 government schools through 19 kitchens in eight states in India." Recently, the organization's wonderful work was highlighted by PBS, NPR in their news programs.   

Speaking of education, I came across an article in Huffington Post: Drawing Ability Has Psychological Basis In Perception And Memory, Researchers Say  by Natalie Wolchover.  She highlights research on 'What separates the drawers from the drawer-nots?'  Of course, lots of practice is way up there along with some very interesting observations : Based on their research, the psychologists recommended the following techniques for getting better at drawing: Focus on scaling a drawing to fit the size of the paper; anchor an object in its surroundings by showing how it sits in space; focus on the distance between elements of the object and on their relative sizes; and focus on the size and shape of "negative space," or the empty space between parts of the object. Lastly, they recommend thinking of "lines" as what they really are -- boundaries between light and dark areas. I would love to read the original study in detail but then I should just go and practice sketching :) 

PS : If you have time to kill go on and watch the videos on creativity in the same link under "Also on Huffpost."  

Imaginative Reality

Rose Pencil 9x12"

Yesterday as I was working on the Rose, I heard a discussion on NPR about "Scientists Pinpoint Monet's London Balcony." According to the reporter, artist 'Claude Monet spent the winters of 1899, 1900 and 1901 freezing on the balcony of London's Savoy Hotel, painting a famous series of images of Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge. Now, the scientists at Birmingham University have used solar geometry and historical weather data to figure out exactly which balcony Monet was standing on and what time of the day he was likely working.' I chuckled to myself as I followed the conclusions. I am sure if anyone tries to figure things out from my art work they would be in for a surprise because I do take a lot 'artistic license' when I sketch, draw and paint. I change or eliminate things often to match my technical abilities(or rather lack of) and to change the composition to suit my taste. And I started wondering how many artists really faithfully follow the original subject (other than for illustration purposes) and how many viewers think an artist is true to the subject's every detail :contour, shadow, value, color etc. ? Should we come to major conclusions about historical facts from an artist's creation or are these just fun exercises - not major theses. Along the same lines, earlier there was this piece on "High Art: Were Boticelli's Venus and Mars Stoned? " The object of discussion here was the identity and effects of a fruit that was in the hand of one of the little satyr in the painting. Click on the highlighted words in the blog and you can hear/read the scoop.

Rose is done using 2, 4 and 6B pencils and some Prismacolor cool greys here and there in the background leaves. It was an exercise in values I came up with. I had taken color digital picture of the rose from our garden. Then using the photo-software changed the color to black & white and played with the settings for light and shadows. I then printed it out for sketching using grids. The final piece is an composite of all that and my imagination as I simplified the background.

Like A Well-Filled Day

Today is the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, born in Vinci, Italy in 1452. A legend in his own times and reportedly a strikingly handsome man, he was an extraordinary painter, musician, sculpture, inventor, philosopher and a scientist. And, he was a vegetarain too! His celebrated journals are filled with anatomical studies, elements of mechanics, studies for paintings and architecture. His dissections of the human body resulted in remarkably realistic and accurate figures. 'Leonardo, the Artist and the Man' by Serge Bramly is a well researched book about his fascinating life and is based on Leonardo's own notebooks. For my sketch today, as homage to the great artist, I decided to try copying a few of his sketches. Here is my attempt at his 'Hands' from the book 'Drawing Lessons From The Great Masters' by Robert Beverly Hale - the book to study classical figure drawing.

And MSNBC reported yesterday that a vividly colored portrait of Leonardo, dating to 1530 was recently found in a window in Arezzo's Cathedral, Tuscany, Italy.