Today is the 26th day of our 30 day creative challenge. Wednesday is specifically a word challenge. Today’s word is an art vocabulary word, great for drawings and paintings.
Sometimes when you draw with soft graphite and then erase your drawing, you can still see a some of the previous lines on the paper. Those of you who have drawn with vine or willow charcoal will know that the material allows you to draw and then wipe your lines away, leaving the ghost image faintly on the paper. This opens up the paper to the potential for more drawing on top. In class we call these ghost marks pentimenti.
Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville (a highly influential artist that you should know about) makes giant figurative work with charcoal and paint on paper and canvas. Years ago she had a happy accident that changed how she worked. Since charcoal creates a lot of dust, she keeps a vacuum nearby, and one day in the studio she accidentally vacuumed the drawing right off the canvas. Delighted at the effect, she began to use her Hoover as a large eraser for subtraction. What followed was a highly influential series of figurative works, in which different figures in different poses were drawn one on top of the other, overlapping to show changes in gender, form, movement, and time.
Jenny Saville in her studio in Oxford.
Day 26: Pentimento #30SAL
Make a drawing with pentimento: the presence of earlier marks that have been changed, erased, or painted over. Plural: Pentimenti.
Share your drawing on Instagram with these tags: #30sal, #pentimento
Or post to this Padlet (Oops this links to Padlet Day 24. That’s ok. Keep posting, just let me know in the title which challenge you’re responding to.)
Jenny Saville, Out of one, two (symposium), 2016, charcoal and pastel on canvas, 59 ⅞ × 88 ½ inches (152 × 225 cm). Courtesy Modern Forms. Photo: Mike Bruce
People are still posting work for our 30 day January challenge, in which artists are invited to respond to a daily prompt posted on our V. Notes blog. Unlike other drawing challenges, these prompts are wildly varied, open to non-typical materials around us, and are designed to feed a broad spectrum of creative skills at …
I recently posted about my happy obsession with The Great Pottery Throwdown. Rich Miller is one of the regulars on the show; first as the kiln technician, then later as a judge, holding equanimity while the other judge bursts into tears. I liked the clear style of his critiques so I looked up his work, …
Do you have advice, an idea, or info that you would tell an art buddy? Let us know! Your idea could help fuel someone else’s creativity! For example: Did you know there is an app where people post photographs of themselves so other people can practice drawing/painting portraits? It’s a free app with real people, …
Last month I posted 16 Ways to Reduce the Carbon Footprint in Your Art Studio and I invited artists to contribute their ideas. One artist was chosen for their answer, and has won a free class: Courtney Wooten pointed out that as artists, our greatest potential for impact can be made by using our art …
Day 26: Pentimento #30SAL
Today is the 26th day of our 30 day creative challenge. Wednesday is specifically a word challenge. Today’s word is an art vocabulary word, great for drawings and paintings.
Sometimes when you draw with soft graphite and then erase your drawing, you can still see a some of the previous lines on the paper. Those of you who have drawn with vine or willow charcoal will know that the material allows you to draw and then wipe your lines away, leaving the ghost image faintly on the paper. This opens up the paper to the potential for more drawing on top. In class we call these ghost marks pentimenti.
Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville (a highly influential artist that you should know about) makes giant figurative work with charcoal and paint on paper and canvas. Years ago she had a happy accident that changed how she worked. Since charcoal creates a lot of dust, she keeps a vacuum nearby, and one day in the studio she accidentally vacuumed the drawing right off the canvas. Delighted at the effect, she began to use her Hoover as a large eraser for subtraction. What followed was a highly influential series of figurative works, in which different figures in different poses were drawn one on top of the other, overlapping to show changes in gender, form, movement, and time.
Day 26: Pentimento #30SAL
Make a drawing with pentimento: the presence of earlier marks that have been changed, erased, or painted over. Plural: Pentimenti.
Share your drawing on Instagram with these tags: #30sal, #pentimento
Or post to this Padlet (Oops this links to Padlet Day 24. That’s ok. Keep posting, just let me know in the title which challenge you’re responding to.)
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People are still posting work for our 30 day January challenge, in which artists are invited to respond to a daily prompt posted on our V. Notes blog. Unlike other drawing challenges, these prompts are wildly varied, open to non-typical materials around us, and are designed to feed a broad spectrum of creative skills at …
Richard Miller Ceramics
I recently posted about my happy obsession with The Great Pottery Throwdown. Rich Miller is one of the regulars on the show; first as the kiln technician, then later as a judge, holding equanimity while the other judge bursts into tears. I liked the clear style of his critiques so I looked up his work, …
Did you know…?
Do you have advice, an idea, or info that you would tell an art buddy? Let us know! Your idea could help fuel someone else’s creativity! For example: Did you know there is an app where people post photographs of themselves so other people can practice drawing/painting portraits? It’s a free app with real people, …
The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible
Last month I posted 16 Ways to Reduce the Carbon Footprint in Your Art Studio and I invited artists to contribute their ideas. One artist was chosen for their answer, and has won a free class: Courtney Wooten pointed out that as artists, our greatest potential for impact can be made by using our art …