Wednesday 22 December 2010
Thursday 30 September 2010
Life Drawing by John Berger
FOR THE ARTIST DRAWING IS DISCOVERY. And that is not just a slick phrase, it is quite literally true. It is the actual art of drawing that forces the artist to look at the object in front of him, to dissect it in his mind’s eye and put it together again; or, if he is drawing from memory, that forces him to dredge his own mind, to discover the content of his own store of past observations. It is a platitude in the teaching of drawing that the heart of the matter lies in the specific process of looking. A line, an area of tone, is not really important because it records what you have seen, but because of what it will lead you on to see. Another way of putting it would be to say that each mark you make on the paper is a stepping-stone from which you proceed to the next, until you have crossed your subject as though it were a river, have put it behind you.
THE EXPERIENCE OF DRAWING: as I looked down at the clean page in my sketch-book I was more conscious of its height than its breadth. The top and bottom edge were the critical ones, for between them I had to reconstruct the way he rose up from the floor, or, thinking in the opposite direction, the way that he was held down to the floor. The energy of the pose was primarily vertical. All the small, lateral movements of the arms, the twisted neck, the leg which was not supporting his weight, were related to that vertical force, as the trailing and overhanging branches of a tree are related to the vertical shaft of the trunk. My first lines has to express that: had to make him stand like a skittle, but at the same time had to imply that, unlike a skittle, he was capable of movement, capable of readjusting his balance if the floor tilted, capable for a few seconds of leaping up into the air against the vertical forces of gravity. This capability of movement, this irregular and temporary rather than uniform and permanent tension of his body, would have to be expressed in relation to the side edges of the paper, to the variations on either side of the straight line between the pit of his neck and the heel of his weight-bearing leg.
I looked for the variations. His left leg supported his weight and therefore the left, far side of his body was tense, either straight or angular; the near, right side was comparatively relaxed and flowing. Arbitrary lateral lines taken across his body ran from curves to sharp points – as streams flow from hills to sharp, compressed gulleys in the cliff-face. But of course it was not as simple as that. On his near, relaxed side his fist was clenched and the hardness of his knuckles recalled the hard line of his ribs on the other side – like a cairn on the hills recalling the cliffs.
I now began to see the white surface of the paper, on which I was going to draw, in a different way. From being a clean flat page it became an empty space. Its whiteness became an area of limitless, opaque light, possible to move through but not to see through. I knew that when I drew a line on it – or through it – I should have to control the line, not like the driver of a car, on one plane: but like a pilot in the air, movement in all three dimensions being possible.
Yet, when I made a mark, somewhere beneath the near ribs, the nature of the page changed again. The area of opaque light suddenly ceased to be limitless. The whole page was changed by what I had drawn just as the water in a glass-tank is changed immediately you put a fish in it. It is then only the fish that you look at. The water merely becomes the conditions of its life and the area in which it can swim.
Then, when I crossed the body to mark the outline of the far shoulder, yet another change occurred. It was not simply like putting another fish into the tank. The second line altered the nature of the first. Whereas before the first line had been aimless, now its meaning was fixed and made certain by the second line. Together they held down the edges of the area between them, and the area, straining under the force which had once given the whole page to potentiality of depth, heaved itself up into a suggestion of solid form. The drawing had begun.
The third dimension, the solidity of the chair, the body, the tree, is, at least as far as our senses are concerned, the very proof of our existence. It constitutes the difference between the word and the world. As I looked at the model I marvelled at the simple fact that he was solid, that he occupied space, that he was more than the sum total of ten thousand visions of him from ten thousand different viewpoints. In my drawing, which was inevitably a vision from just one point of view, I hoped eventually to imply this limitless number of other facets. But now it was simply a question of building and refining forms until their tension began to be like those I could see in the model. It would of course be easy by some mistaken over-emphasis to burst the whole thing like a balloon; or it might collapse like too thin clay on a potter’s wheel; or it might become irrevocably misshapen and lose its centre of gravity. Nevertheless, the thing was there. The infinite, opaque possibilities of the blank page had been made particular and lucid. My task now was to co-ordinate and measure: not to measure by inches as one might measure an ounce of sultanas by counting them, but to measure by rhythm, mass and displacement: to gauge distances and angles as a bird flying through a trellis of branches; to visualise the ground plan like an architect; to feel the pressure of my lines and scribbles towards the uttermost surface of the paper, as a sailor feels the slackness or tautness of his sail in order to tack close or far from the surface of the wind.
I judged the height of the ear in relation to the eyes, the angles of the crooked triangle of the two nipples and the navel, the lateral lines of the shoulders and hips – sloping towards each other so that they would eventually meet, the relative position of the knuckles of the far hand directly above the toes of the far foot. I looked, however, not only for those linear proportions, the angles and lengths of these imaginary pieces of string stretched from one point to another, but also for the relationships of planes, of receding and advancing surfaces.
Just as looking over the haphazard roofs of an unplanned city you find identical angles of recession in the gables and dormer-windows of quite different houses – so that if you extended any particular plane through all the intermediary ones, it would eventually coincide perfectly with another; in exactly the same way you find extensions of identical planes in different parts of the body. The plane, falling away from the summit of the stomach to the groin, coincided with that which led backwards from the near knee to the sharp, outside edge of the calf. One of the gentle, inside planes, high up the thigh of the same leg, coincided with a small plane leading away and around the outline of the far pectoral muscle.
And so, as some sort of unity was shaped and the lines accumulated on the paper, I again became aware of the real tensions of the pose. But this time more subtly. It was no longer a question of just realising the main, vertical stance. I had become more involved more intimately with the figure. Even the smaller facts had acquired an urgency and I had to resist the temptation to make every line over-emphatic. I entered into the receding spaces and yielded to the oncoming forms. Also, I was correcting: drawing over and across the earlier lines to re-establish proportions or to find a way of expressing less obvious discoveries. I saw that the line down the centre of the torso, from the pit of the neck, between the nipples, over the navel and between the legs, was like the keel of a boat, that the ribs formed a hull and that the near, relaxed leg dragged on its forward movement like a trailing oar. I saw that the arms hanging either side were like the shafts of a cart, and that the outside curve of the weight-bearing thigh was like the ironed rim of a wheel. I saw that the collar-bones were like the arms of a figure on a crucifix. Yet such images, although I have chosen them carefully, distort what I am trying to describe. I saw and recognized quite ordinary anatomical facts; but I also felt them physically – as if, in a sense, my nervous system inhabited his body.
A few of the things I recognized I can describe more directly. I noticed how at the foot of the hard, clenched, weight-bearing leg, there was clear space beneath the arch of the instep. I noticed how subtly the straight under-wall of the stomach elided into the attenuated, joining planes of thigh and hip. I noticed the contrast between the hardness of the elbow and the vulnerable tenderness of the inside of the arm at the same level.
Then, quite soon, the drawing reached its point of crisis. Which is to say that what I had drawn began to interest me as much as what I could still discover. There is a stage in every drawing where this happens. And I call it a point of crisis because at that moment the success or failure of the drawing has really been decided. One now begins to draw according to the demands, the needs, of the drawing. If the drawing is already in some small way true, then these demands will probably correspond to what one might still discover by actual searching. If the drawing is basically false, they will accentuate its wrongness.
I looked at my drawing trying to see what had been distorted; which lines or scribbles of tones had lost their original and necessary emphasis, as others had surrounded them; which spontaneous gestures had evaded a problem, and which had been instinctively right. Yet even this process was only partly conscious. In some places I could clearly see that a passage was clumsy and needed checking; in others, I allowed my pencil to hover around – rather like the stock of a water-diviner. One form would pull, forcing the pencil to make a scribble of tone which could re-emphasize its recession; another would jab the pencil into re-stressing a line which could bring it further forward.
Now when I looked at the model to check a form, I looked in a different way. I looked, as it were, with more connivance: to find only what I wanted to find.
Then the end. Simultaneously ambition and disillusion. Even as in my mind’s eye I saw my drawing and the actual man coincide – so that, for a moment, he was no longer a man posing but an inhabitant of my half-created world, a unique expression of my experience, even as I saw this in my mind’s eye, I saw in fact how inadequate, fragmentary, clumsy my small drawing was.
I turned over the page and began another drawing, starting from where the last one had left off. A man standing, his weight rather more on one leg than the other ….
THE EXPERIENCE OF DRAWING: as I looked down at the clean page in my sketch-book I was more conscious of its height than its breadth. The top and bottom edge were the critical ones, for between them I had to reconstruct the way he rose up from the floor, or, thinking in the opposite direction, the way that he was held down to the floor. The energy of the pose was primarily vertical. All the small, lateral movements of the arms, the twisted neck, the leg which was not supporting his weight, were related to that vertical force, as the trailing and overhanging branches of a tree are related to the vertical shaft of the trunk. My first lines has to express that: had to make him stand like a skittle, but at the same time had to imply that, unlike a skittle, he was capable of movement, capable of readjusting his balance if the floor tilted, capable for a few seconds of leaping up into the air against the vertical forces of gravity. This capability of movement, this irregular and temporary rather than uniform and permanent tension of his body, would have to be expressed in relation to the side edges of the paper, to the variations on either side of the straight line between the pit of his neck and the heel of his weight-bearing leg.
I looked for the variations. His left leg supported his weight and therefore the left, far side of his body was tense, either straight or angular; the near, right side was comparatively relaxed and flowing. Arbitrary lateral lines taken across his body ran from curves to sharp points – as streams flow from hills to sharp, compressed gulleys in the cliff-face. But of course it was not as simple as that. On his near, relaxed side his fist was clenched and the hardness of his knuckles recalled the hard line of his ribs on the other side – like a cairn on the hills recalling the cliffs.
I now began to see the white surface of the paper, on which I was going to draw, in a different way. From being a clean flat page it became an empty space. Its whiteness became an area of limitless, opaque light, possible to move through but not to see through. I knew that when I drew a line on it – or through it – I should have to control the line, not like the driver of a car, on one plane: but like a pilot in the air, movement in all three dimensions being possible.
Yet, when I made a mark, somewhere beneath the near ribs, the nature of the page changed again. The area of opaque light suddenly ceased to be limitless. The whole page was changed by what I had drawn just as the water in a glass-tank is changed immediately you put a fish in it. It is then only the fish that you look at. The water merely becomes the conditions of its life and the area in which it can swim.
Then, when I crossed the body to mark the outline of the far shoulder, yet another change occurred. It was not simply like putting another fish into the tank. The second line altered the nature of the first. Whereas before the first line had been aimless, now its meaning was fixed and made certain by the second line. Together they held down the edges of the area between them, and the area, straining under the force which had once given the whole page to potentiality of depth, heaved itself up into a suggestion of solid form. The drawing had begun.
The third dimension, the solidity of the chair, the body, the tree, is, at least as far as our senses are concerned, the very proof of our existence. It constitutes the difference between the word and the world. As I looked at the model I marvelled at the simple fact that he was solid, that he occupied space, that he was more than the sum total of ten thousand visions of him from ten thousand different viewpoints. In my drawing, which was inevitably a vision from just one point of view, I hoped eventually to imply this limitless number of other facets. But now it was simply a question of building and refining forms until their tension began to be like those I could see in the model. It would of course be easy by some mistaken over-emphasis to burst the whole thing like a balloon; or it might collapse like too thin clay on a potter’s wheel; or it might become irrevocably misshapen and lose its centre of gravity. Nevertheless, the thing was there. The infinite, opaque possibilities of the blank page had been made particular and lucid. My task now was to co-ordinate and measure: not to measure by inches as one might measure an ounce of sultanas by counting them, but to measure by rhythm, mass and displacement: to gauge distances and angles as a bird flying through a trellis of branches; to visualise the ground plan like an architect; to feel the pressure of my lines and scribbles towards the uttermost surface of the paper, as a sailor feels the slackness or tautness of his sail in order to tack close or far from the surface of the wind.
I judged the height of the ear in relation to the eyes, the angles of the crooked triangle of the two nipples and the navel, the lateral lines of the shoulders and hips – sloping towards each other so that they would eventually meet, the relative position of the knuckles of the far hand directly above the toes of the far foot. I looked, however, not only for those linear proportions, the angles and lengths of these imaginary pieces of string stretched from one point to another, but also for the relationships of planes, of receding and advancing surfaces.
Just as looking over the haphazard roofs of an unplanned city you find identical angles of recession in the gables and dormer-windows of quite different houses – so that if you extended any particular plane through all the intermediary ones, it would eventually coincide perfectly with another; in exactly the same way you find extensions of identical planes in different parts of the body. The plane, falling away from the summit of the stomach to the groin, coincided with that which led backwards from the near knee to the sharp, outside edge of the calf. One of the gentle, inside planes, high up the thigh of the same leg, coincided with a small plane leading away and around the outline of the far pectoral muscle.
And so, as some sort of unity was shaped and the lines accumulated on the paper, I again became aware of the real tensions of the pose. But this time more subtly. It was no longer a question of just realising the main, vertical stance. I had become more involved more intimately with the figure. Even the smaller facts had acquired an urgency and I had to resist the temptation to make every line over-emphatic. I entered into the receding spaces and yielded to the oncoming forms. Also, I was correcting: drawing over and across the earlier lines to re-establish proportions or to find a way of expressing less obvious discoveries. I saw that the line down the centre of the torso, from the pit of the neck, between the nipples, over the navel and between the legs, was like the keel of a boat, that the ribs formed a hull and that the near, relaxed leg dragged on its forward movement like a trailing oar. I saw that the arms hanging either side were like the shafts of a cart, and that the outside curve of the weight-bearing thigh was like the ironed rim of a wheel. I saw that the collar-bones were like the arms of a figure on a crucifix. Yet such images, although I have chosen them carefully, distort what I am trying to describe. I saw and recognized quite ordinary anatomical facts; but I also felt them physically – as if, in a sense, my nervous system inhabited his body.
A few of the things I recognized I can describe more directly. I noticed how at the foot of the hard, clenched, weight-bearing leg, there was clear space beneath the arch of the instep. I noticed how subtly the straight under-wall of the stomach elided into the attenuated, joining planes of thigh and hip. I noticed the contrast between the hardness of the elbow and the vulnerable tenderness of the inside of the arm at the same level.
Then, quite soon, the drawing reached its point of crisis. Which is to say that what I had drawn began to interest me as much as what I could still discover. There is a stage in every drawing where this happens. And I call it a point of crisis because at that moment the success or failure of the drawing has really been decided. One now begins to draw according to the demands, the needs, of the drawing. If the drawing is already in some small way true, then these demands will probably correspond to what one might still discover by actual searching. If the drawing is basically false, they will accentuate its wrongness.
I looked at my drawing trying to see what had been distorted; which lines or scribbles of tones had lost their original and necessary emphasis, as others had surrounded them; which spontaneous gestures had evaded a problem, and which had been instinctively right. Yet even this process was only partly conscious. In some places I could clearly see that a passage was clumsy and needed checking; in others, I allowed my pencil to hover around – rather like the stock of a water-diviner. One form would pull, forcing the pencil to make a scribble of tone which could re-emphasize its recession; another would jab the pencil into re-stressing a line which could bring it further forward.
Now when I looked at the model to check a form, I looked in a different way. I looked, as it were, with more connivance: to find only what I wanted to find.
Then the end. Simultaneously ambition and disillusion. Even as in my mind’s eye I saw my drawing and the actual man coincide – so that, for a moment, he was no longer a man posing but an inhabitant of my half-created world, a unique expression of my experience, even as I saw this in my mind’s eye, I saw in fact how inadequate, fragmentary, clumsy my small drawing was.
I turned over the page and began another drawing, starting from where the last one had left off. A man standing, his weight rather more on one leg than the other ….
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Wednesday 7 July 2010
Gretchen Kelly
Kelly paints from a model in short poses ranging from one to forty five minutes, usually. "It is the process of short poses that brings to life what I am after – simply the beauty of the human gesture and the color of that moment".
Swift strokes and decisions define her figurative work. "I walk away from the figure painting and come back to it later to add into the background. With refreshed vision I see what the painting is calling for – a vivid color, stenciled pattern, maybe an architectural shape or a horizon line".
Kelly's work is about focusing on what is in front of her at the moment – the present moment, "where I find perfection and beauty".
Thursday 6 May 2010
Spencer Tunick
"A body is a living entity. It represents life, freedom, sensuality, and it is a mechanism to carry out our thoughts. A body is always beautiful to me. It depends on the individual work and what I do with it and what kind of idea lies behind it — if age matters or not. But in my group works, the only difference is how far people can go if it rains, snows etc.” –Spencer Tunick
In 1992, Tunick began documenting live nudes in public locations in New York through video and photographs. His early works from this period focus more on a single nude individual or on small groups of nudes. These works are much more intimate images than the massive installations for which he is now known. By 1994 Tunick had organized and photographed over 65 temporary site related installations in the United States and abroad.
In 1992, Tunick began documenting live nudes in public locations in New York through video and photographs. His early works from this period focus more on a single nude individual or on small groups of nudes. These works are much more intimate images than the massive installations for which he is now known. By 1994 Tunick had organized and photographed over 65 temporary site related installations in the United States and abroad.
Wednesday 21 April 2010
A Drawing Lesson by Sarah Shilton
Forget all you know.
Your mind will now be re-visited,
With what is here (now)
Your new source.
Do not look away;
Absorb.
Open up and take flight.
Create an environment,
Create an emotion.
Colour is tone.
Plane meets plane.
Mass draws weight,
The pressure of the downward stance -
Muscles tighten - be still.
Look through the figure,
Imagine what is behind.
Watch as the light rests
And hides again,
Where black meets white and shape.
Draw quickly.
Then draw accurately.
Fill the blank reflection
To the edge and back.
Do not be afraid -
Or this will be drawn too.
Your mind will now be re-visited,
With what is here (now)
Your new source.
Do not look away;
Absorb.
Open up and take flight.
Create an environment,
Create an emotion.
Colour is tone.
Plane meets plane.
Mass draws weight,
The pressure of the downward stance -
Muscles tighten - be still.
Look through the figure,
Imagine what is behind.
Watch as the light rests
And hides again,
Where black meets white and shape.
Draw quickly.
Then draw accurately.
Fill the blank reflection
To the edge and back.
Do not be afraid -
Or this will be drawn too.
Thursday 18 February 2010
Drawing From Life
Life drawing is traditionally an academic activity which develops seeing and drawing skills. The concentration needed and the intensity of the experience often means that people learn quickly. Life drawing is essentially about the quality of observation and the sensitivity of the response, the vitality of the mark making that takes you that one step beyond simple accuracy.
• Artists over centuries have painted the nude figure for quite specific reasons and it
is useful to look at the different genres to be aware of your own preferences.
• Focusing on the formal elements of colour and composition etc is a logical and
practical line of enquiry which helps you clarify what interests you. It leads to
basic understanding of the elements and possible further development of your
work on a sound basis.
• Being open to experiment as opposed to being too conservative in your drawing
can be exciting and productive. Simply trying different media or combinations of
techniques can lead to a fresh area of investigation which in turn can suggest
further development. At the very least it will expand your repertoire and improve
your life drawing.
Romantic
Many artists choose to draw and paint the figure because of its beauty. This has been the
case for many centuries and there has been nothing happened that has changed this basic
perception of the human form. Some painters have idealised and others have
romanticised the figure. There are many examples.
Leonardo Da Vinci – high Renaissance accurately observed but ultimately idealised
beauty often depicting themes from mythology.
Rubens – High Baroque, extravagant sumptuous nudes
Ingre - classic beautiful and idealised interpretations mainly of the female figure
Lord Leighton – Grand master of high Victorian Neo classicism
Realism
Realistic images, as opposed to romantic or idealised, can be found in the realism of
Velasquez, Delacroix or the gritty realism and social statements of the kitchen sink
painters of the 1950’s like John Bratby or they can be very direct objective observational
studies like in the work of Lucien Freud.MODERNISM
Throughout the 20th century there has been a series of Art movements from
still based on traditional subject matter like landscape, still life and the figure.
Consequently we have many examples of the nude interpreted though these different
modern art movements. This is a great source of information on the very diverse
approaches to interpreting the human figure and understanding the original thinking behind them.
Impressionism
Impressionism represents the break with academic painting marked by the use of colour
theory, painting in the open air and a search for a new way of expressing reality. The
understanding of their rationale and use of their varied techniques is accessible and
useful.
Manet, Degas, Gauguin, Toulouse Lautrec
Fauvism
A post Impressionist movement that pushed the boundaries of colour beyond observed
natural colour and particularly in the work of Matisse the relationship between shapesand colours. Matisse, Bonnard
Expressionism
The person you are painting is a real person with a character, emotions and a history.
Your reaction could reflect your own emotional response to the subject as in the work of Van Gogh, Kokoshka, Otto Dix, Egon Schiele. 
Cubism
A short lived movement but which still influences many painters work 100 years later. It
is basically about the reduction and fragmentation of natural forms into abstract, oftengeometric structures. They believed that the reality of an object is not accurately
expressed by only one view and the artist is responsible for selecting and representing a
new arrangement of shapes that better describe the subject.
Surrealism
An attempt to record images of the subconscious and characterized by fantastic imagery
and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter. The actual movement was influenced by
the psychoanalyst Sigmund Feud and consequently often sexual in its interpretation of the
figure. The term surreal can now be used to loosely describe images generated by the subconscious. Dali, Magritte
Abstraction
When we observe the figure there are other visual possibilities to apart from the challenge
of realistically representing the human form. We actually see a complex collection of
shapes and forms and there are a number of starting points that can logically lead to semi
abstract images and possibly total abstraction.
We might decide that we want to be selective or even rearrange the shapes to produce
something totally new.
Picasso, Braque, Giacometti, Francis Bacon
Marcel Duchamp – Figure descending stairs.
Conceptual
For more than forty years now we have moved on from the ‘isms’ of modernism into the
post modernist period. Artists have gone freestyle and always on a search for the
individual approach characterized very much by the Brit-artists like Damien Hirst and
Tracy Emin. It can be a wonderful thing to throw away the rule book and look for new
ground. Jenny Saville and Ron Mueck are perhaps the artists that are most closely related
to the figure.
THE FORMAL ELEMENTS
It is no coincidence that the experimental art movements of the 20th century first of all
investigated the basic elements of colour, composition and techniques:
Coloursee in the figure. It was over a hundred years ago in the work of the Impressionists that
we see whole new palette of possibilities and the complete liberation that took place with
Matisse and the Fauves. We can use the knowledge we have as painters to find new
exciting colour combinations either suggested by what we see in the model and the
surroundings or completely from our imaginations. Bonnard is a wonderful example of a
celebration of colour. Composition
In a life class with the usual time restrictions the drawing often takes place in the centre
of the paper with little thought to the relationship of the shapes of the figure with the
sides of the paper. The figure itself is made up of shapes and angles with endless
combinations. Considering how they fit into the rectangle is the starting point of
composition. Moving in and selecting only a part of the body can be interesting and
forces you to make decisions about the composition. In a studio there are often a many
interesting lines and shapes, colours and tones which can be used to compliment the
shape of the figure. You can be selective and move these lines around so that they work
well with the figure. Freud makes good use of the simple lines and proportions found in
his studio.
Form
The practice of life drawing is naturally focused on form. To develop this idea further one
might logically tend towards sculpture and there are many superb examples.
Michelangelo, Bernini, Rodin, Frink, Henry Moore. However there are many painters for
who form is an important element if not the main focus. Cezanne, Picasso, Lempica’s
slick stylized figures which owe much to the cubists…
Classic life drawing
Life drawing has become an academic activity with its own traditions and disciplines.
The degree of observation is usually intense so the results tend towards realism rather
than idealism or romanticism. It is the process of recording with the hand what is seen by
the eye. As a result elements of this process can become central to the artist’s intentions;
the actual act of drawing or mark making or maybe the interpretation of form
Euan Uglow – a 20th century, English academic painter who focuses on the precision and
accuracy of measuring during the drawing process. The result has the beauty and
simplicity of mathematics rather than a depiction of a photographic or expressive reality.
TECHNIQUE
The techniques from oil painting to charcoal to etching to sculpture can be central to the
reason for producing the work for some artists. Different techniques can certainly help
determine the character of a piece. As a logical step forward from life drawing, varying
your media can have very positive results and alone help you find a new direction.
Pastels - Degas
Pencil, pastel plus watercolour wash – Rodin, Egon Schiele
Wax resist and watercolour – Henry Moore
Collage – Picasso, Muñoz, Valdēs
Photography – Cindy Sherman
Video – Bruce Nauman
...or try anything from your shed.
Monday 18 January 2010
Trilogy - A Play that Celebrates Women by Getting Them to Dance Nude
The hit of the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Nic Green’s Trilogy, which attracted critical attention in part for a joyous naked dance performed by female, Edinburgh-based volunteers, comes to BAC and the Barbican this January. The show, originally co-produced by Glasgow-based multi-arts venue The Arches and BAC, played to sell-out audiences at The Arches at St Stephens in Edinburgh and won the Arches Award for Stage Directors 2009 and a Herald Angel award.
Trilogy is a celebratory venture into modern-day feminism and examines and interrogates the joys and complexities of being a woman today whilst driving steadfast into the future with commitment and hope. Through narrative, debate, dance and song the triptych challenges prevailing attitudes and prejudices. It begins by exploring women’s relationships to their bodies, then reconstructs the infamous 1971 New York Town Bloody Hall debate before concluding with a joyous paean to womankind. Green and her dedicated company deliver an evening of raw energy designed to challenge and inspire.
Nic Green is a Glasgow-based performance practitioner. Her work spans solo performance and group shows, as well as community-based projects with young people. She has performed throughout the UK and led small and large-scale devised projects, and she strives for her work to be accessible in form and applicable in content, resulting in broad social inclusion and involvement.
Wednesday 6 January 2010
Know Your Body
In order to draw a good nude, some drawing skills are necessary but it is not enough. If you rely only on your eyes, chances are your drawing will look messy, disproportionate, and plain wrong. You will often need a basic knowledge of anatomy, such as the arrangement of the bones in the skeleton. This way you can see the model from the inside as well as the outside, helping you to understand what you see and hence, draw it better.
On top of that basic knowledge it is often very helpful to know the main muscles in the body to understand what happens under the skin of the model as he or she takes different uncommon postures. Without this knowledge it is unlikely that you would be able to resolve an awkward perspective of, say, a foot. However, this skeleton frame is not to be followed to the letter: some models are disproportionate according to the standards of the day : very long limbs, huge heads or very short torso. The anatomical knowledge is no substitute for acute observation.
A pose can last from 10 seconds to 30 minutes in a 2 hours session. Bearing in minds that there is a point in your drawing when, whatever you do, you loose the spontaneity of the first shot and start to degrade your creation. One of the thing you must keep in mind is to know where to stop. That is true for any kind of drawings. Depending on the course you are following and your intention as an art student you may need the same postures for days on end, even weeks or more, especially when doing a sculpture, although it becomes increasingly rare to encounter truly anatomically correct nude drawings and sculptures.
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