Painterly Figures with Tone: Part 2

In Friday’s post I bragged about the drawings created in my recent Painterly Figures with Tone class. The earlier post shared how beautiful a drawing can be when the figure is sketched with no more or less attention than the wall behind it, with no outlines or delineations of form, only scribbles of tone. Today’s drawings go even further into abstraction.

These drawings were created by making short, distributed marks as they float in space, sometimes connected by a trail that an ant might take across the surface. There are no outlines, no delineated forms. This is incredibly engaging and concentrated work, and requires leaps of faith because there is no solidity at all to hang on to while they draw, and unlike our typical 20 minute studies, these take hours. The artist’s challenge is to keep making marks where they see them, without any of the typical efficient methods of sketching things out before time is invested, or connecting and affirming the correct positions before they have naturally emerged. Over time, the scene sort of coalesces out of mess. I’m including some of the first stages so you can see how the drawings emerge. I think they’re deep and exciting works. See what you think.

Again, please kindly overlook any flaws in the photography. The images were taken on the fly, past sunset.

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I love these Sunday figure drawing classes. No class is ever the same. Every class introduces a different approach to drawing. Next series is based on composition. “Composition” tends to sound like a great way to take the spontaneity out of a drawing, but I assure you, this is one of the most spontaneous and interesting methods of drawing I’ve ever experienced! Want to give it a try? I’m offering classes for beginner and intermediate artists.