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
This is day 6 of our 30 day creative challenge! To learn more about this 30SAL challenge, click here. Take figures from the painting on the left and put them into the room on the right. Feel free to change space in the composition, and alter figures as you prefer. Artwork 1: Mary Magdalene Healing the …
Never underestimate the beauty potential of a simple study on paper. These works are mostly vine charcoal on toned paper, some white charcoal (or white pastel), and pencil. The drawing above is watercolor. For most of these, regardless of color, the toned paper is standing in for medium value, so the artist only has to …
Abed Abdi, Muslim Painter Lately I have been interested in what happens to the focus of making art when artists live in politically turbulent times. What happens to your artwork when you feel anxious, confused, frustrated, angry, blindsided, and destabilized? What happens to your artwork when you feel like your opinion is valued, and what …
I chose the clip above for Kerry James Marshall’s thoughts about how identifying as a Black artist is not a real choice, because only white artists are not burdened by the problems of race. Then the paintings of Black artists in the ‘Being an Artist” video (above) led me to seek out more of Marshall’s …
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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This is day 6 of our 30 day creative challenge! To learn more about this 30SAL challenge, click here. Take figures from the painting on the left and put them into the room on the right. Feel free to change space in the composition, and alter figures as you prefer. Artwork 1: Mary Magdalene Healing the …
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Never underestimate the beauty potential of a simple study on paper. These works are mostly vine charcoal on toned paper, some white charcoal (or white pastel), and pencil. The drawing above is watercolor. For most of these, regardless of color, the toned paper is standing in for medium value, so the artist only has to …
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Abed Abdi, Muslim Painter Lately I have been interested in what happens to the focus of making art when artists live in politically turbulent times. What happens to your artwork when you feel anxious, confused, frustrated, angry, blindsided, and destabilized? What happens to your artwork when you feel like your opinion is valued, and what …
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I chose the clip above for Kerry James Marshall’s thoughts about how identifying as a Black artist is not a real choice, because only white artists are not burdened by the problems of race. Then the paintings of Black artists in the ‘Being an Artist” video (above) led me to seek out more of Marshall’s …