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
[image_with_animation image_url=”11238″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] This last year, Seattle Refined highlighted both Nikki Barber and myself, Ruthie V. Now they’ve discovered Angie Dixon. KOMO said they look at the Seattle Artist League website to find artists for their ongoing “Seattle Refined; Artist of the Week.” (Thanks KOMO!) This week Angie Dixon receives highlights for …
Recently I posted about our family of New York Studio School influences, and Tina Kraft. I found a few more drawings that show aspects of a process that changed the way I draw. These portrait sketches by Tina Kraft demonstrate a technique of using marks to activate the white paper. The marks are both in …
One year ago in March, to protect our students and teachers from a new coronavirus, the Seattle Artist League moved our classes online. The virus was declared a national emergency, and we went into quarantine. We have now been in quarantine for thirteen months. Through this year, we have met each other online to draw, …
On January 6 I posted a challenge that was inspired by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. The challenge was to imagine what Julius Pringles looks like below the neck. We had so many fun submissions that I felt they deserved to be in their own collection. Here they are, in their crispy glory, starting …
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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