Lendy and I have been trading drawing images lately. She sent me these by Ginny Grayson. Lendy and I often share artworks with each other, some of them end up in V. Notes. We’ve been sharing drawings especially because we both love them so much, and they are underrepresented in galleries and museums. People often want to learn drawing so they can move on to other mediums, like painting. But why? How can an entire medium of loveliness be seen as being inferior to another, viewed as a stepping stone, when clearly they are beautiful and conceptually rich on their own.
Perhaps it is the money. Drawings on paper need to be framed and protected, and often the frame ends up costing more than the artwork itself. Paper and graphite earns 1/10th of what paint and canvas earn (I am making this number up but I am publishing this on the Internet so it must be true), and work on paper doesn’t last 300 years like some paintings do, leaving drawings unprofitable for investors and unaffordable for both the artist and the gallery. What a pity.
And yet drawings are wonderful to make, and lovely to look at. So much is learned and experienced through drawing. I have deep reverence for the sound of charcoal on paper in an otherwise quiet room. The soft brush of charcoal on paper is the sound of focus and curiosity. The process of drawing is the process of seeing, and that is not unlike the experience of falling in love.
On the artist’s website, Ginny Grayson says “(…) my preference has always been for the works that look more like a smudge / pile of dust, then the form slowly becomes recognisable. It is the process of working with the medium, mistakes and what evolves that I find most rewarding.”
This is one in a series of posts showcasing work made by students in the League’s online classes. We have now been in quarantine for twelve months. In the last year, the League has grown in numbers, and our artistic voice as a school has evolved. We started working with Special Guest Star Fran O’Neill …
Preparing for my Unconventional Portraits class this Friday night, I asked Google to show me famous portrait painters. I saw this: In a line of 27 portrait painters, 24 are white men. The exceptions are two black people, and two women. One person in the line is both black, and a woman: Amy Sherald. That …
Michelle Muldrow uses the aqueous and graphic casein paint to give fresh painterly color to her urban landscapes. Her scenes describe the buzzing light and glinting metal, linoleum, and synthetic fabrics of department stores. Edited from her website: Muldrow explores the the landscape genre and what it means to be picturesque. She contrasts the idea of the picturesque by …
This show at MoMA was brought to my attention by a League member. (Thanks Chris!) He had been there to see it and said it was impactful to see works in context not by culture, but by timeline. What was happening while Matisse painted his ladies? What was the dominant art world thinking about at the time, …
Ginny Grayson’s drawings
Lendy and I have been trading drawing images lately. She sent me these by Ginny Grayson. Lendy and I often share artworks with each other, some of them end up in V. Notes. We’ve been sharing drawings especially because we both love them so much, and they are underrepresented in galleries and museums. People often want to learn drawing so they can move on to other mediums, like painting. But why? How can an entire medium of loveliness be seen as being inferior to another, viewed as a stepping stone, when clearly they are beautiful and conceptually rich on their own.
Perhaps it is the money. Drawings on paper need to be framed and protected, and often the frame ends up costing more than the artwork itself. Paper and graphite earns 1/10th of what paint and canvas earn (I am making this number up but I am publishing this on the Internet so it must be true), and work on paper doesn’t last 300 years like some paintings do, leaving drawings unprofitable for investors and unaffordable for both the artist and the gallery. What a pity.
And yet drawings are wonderful to make, and lovely to look at. So much is learned and experienced through drawing. I have deep reverence for the sound of charcoal on paper in an otherwise quiet room. The soft brush of charcoal on paper is the sound of focus and curiosity. The process of drawing is the process of seeing, and that is not unlike the experience of falling in love.
On the artist’s website, Ginny Grayson says “(…) my preference has always been for the works that look more like a smudge / pile of dust, then the form slowly becomes recognisable. It is the process of working with the medium, mistakes and what evolves that I find most rewarding.”
See more on her website.
There’s a Tuesday evening drawing class starting October 8th. Who’s tempted? Click here to learn more.
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Online Anniversary Show: Fran O’Neill, Part 3
This is one in a series of posts showcasing work made by students in the League’s online classes. We have now been in quarantine for twelve months. In the last year, the League has grown in numbers, and our artistic voice as a school has evolved. We started working with Special Guest Star Fran O’Neill …
Amy Sherald
Preparing for my Unconventional Portraits class this Friday night, I asked Google to show me famous portrait painters. I saw this: In a line of 27 portrait painters, 24 are white men. The exceptions are two black people, and two women. One person in the line is both black, and a woman: Amy Sherald. That …
Michelle Muldrow
Michelle Muldrow uses the aqueous and graphic casein paint to give fresh painterly color to her urban landscapes. Her scenes describe the buzzing light and glinting metal, linoleum, and synthetic fabrics of department stores. Edited from her website: Muldrow explores the the landscape genre and what it means to be picturesque. She contrasts the idea of the picturesque by …
Art From Banned Countries
This show at MoMA was brought to my attention by a League member. (Thanks Chris!) He had been there to see it and said it was impactful to see works in context not by culture, but by timeline. What was happening while Matisse painted his ladies? What was the dominant art world thinking about at the time, …