I received a very nice letter today. It’s about line, and how one League artist improved her quality of line – not by thinking about improving the quality of her line directly – but by checking in on her level of engagement with the drawing. It’s a nice letter. Enjoy. [image_with_animation image_url=”8072″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%[divider line_type=”Small Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”default” custom_height=”30
Dear Ruthie,
While not a newly invented art term, you gave us a perfect definition of “line” last summer. It’s far more evocative of line in art than the more common Respectable Definitions like, “an identifiable path created by a point moving in space,” or “lines are marks that span a distance between two points.” I think it was genius, and because it has helped me.
“Line is a record of your engagement.”
It was so lovely that I wrote it down, (or did I record my engagement with it with short lines that formed words?) and it has helped me in figure drawing the past couple of weeks. I see a noticeable difference in the quality of my line in relation to my level of engagement, and it can change in an instant. When my mind flits to something that isn’t the subject, my lines reflect it. I think it’s helping me be less judgmental and a bit more objective about my work. I can look at some drawings or parts of drawings and see, or even remember, where I felt most or least engaged. It is easier for me to work on my engagement with the subject than it is for me to think about how to make a lovely line.
In college I had a figure drawing teacher that constantly bugged me to improve my line quality, but I was at a loss for how to work on it, and became less and less engaged with the class. If only I had had your off-the-cuff definition in my pocket…
[image_with_animation image_url=”7643″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Bruce Nauman, Failing to Levitate in My Studio, 1966. In art school I learned about the clever and funny Bruce Nauman. In particular, I learned about a series for which he said (I’m paraphrasing broadly) “I am an artist, therefore everything I do is art, therefore this is art.” And …
[image_with_animation image_url=”8653″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Image above from Urban Sketchers Chicago Chris Harvey has a lot of long straight architectural lines in his painting, and no matter what he tried, every pass with the brush resulted in another wobbly line. The wobbles weren’t interesting or expressive, they were distracting from the painting’s quality …
The highest creativity is in the sketch, when the mind is still free to explore and let things happen. British Contemporary Watercolors Tuesday, August 27th, 2013 at 7:58 pm Source: http://watercolor.net/british-contemporary/ Looking At Watercolor Directions By 5 British Artists Stephanie Tuckwell, watercolor and charcoal In a recent ‘Resource Centre’ article, British art supplier and manufacturer, …
I was interested in learning some new language to talk about what is so captivating about Charity Baker’s drawings and paintings. Charity gave me a list of her teachers, Barbara Grossman was one of them. Barbara Grossman’s artworks are impressionistic, abstracted, full of color and pattern. Instead of drawing with focal points and perspective, she …
A Drawing is a Record of Your Engagement
[image_with_animation image_url=”8071″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”]
Drawings by Ruthie V.
I received a very nice letter today. It’s about line, and how one League artist improved her quality of line – not by thinking about improving the quality of her line directly – but by checking in on her level of engagement with the drawing. It’s a nice letter. Enjoy. [image_with_animation image_url=”8072″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%[divider line_type=”Small Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”default” custom_height=”30
Dear Ruthie,
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