Basics of drawing 4.-10.8.2014.

impression of the Studio after cleaning up on sunday night at the end our Workshop week

This was a very intensive week at art school. hard work and great fun. Studying in a life class with a teacher in person and with 13 class mates. The first workshop about the basics of drawing. The idea or let’s say the ideal of this art school is not to separate technical skills from artistic skill. So we jumped right into the cold water (did you say this in english like we do in German?). As well I found too some basic exercises which I learnt in altered ways with Carla. Now and here these were at another and very intensive level through the direct feedback of teacher and classmates. Only go through. Through the exercise and through the emotions and struggling untill the teacher gave us a time out. After almost every exercise we were looking at our drawings and the drawings of our class mates and pondering the characteristics. Pffii!! Two times with three-hour session a day for seven days one after the other in high-speed pace. An amazing experience.

Es war eine sehr intensive Woche in der Kunstschule. Harte Arbeit und große Freude. Ein Präsenz-Studium mit direktem Kontakt zum Lehrer und 13 Kommilitoninnen. Ziel der ersten Arbeitswoche war, die Grundlagen des Zeichnens zu erlernen. Dabei ist die Idee oder besser gesagt das Ideal dieser Kunstschule, die technische Seite nicht von der künstlerischen Seite zu trennen.  Wir sind sprichwörtlich direkt ins kalte Wasser gesprungen. Gleichwohl habe ich auch einige Grundlagenübungen identifiziert, die ich schon in abgewandelter Form in den Klassen mit Carla Sonheim gelernt hatte. Jetzt und hier waren sie allerdings durch die direkte Rückkopplung mit Lehrer und Komillitonen auf einem anderen sehr intensivem Level. Einfach arbeiten. Durch die Übungen und durch die Gefühle und Zeifel arbeiten, bis der Lehrer die Übung beendet hat. Nach fast jeder Übung haben wir gemeinsam die eigenen Zeichnungen und die der Kommilitoninnen betrachtet und die Besonderheiten der zusammengetragen. Pffii!! Zwei mal drei Stunden pro Tag über sieben Tage – eine nach der anderen in hohem Tempo.

(Sorry about the weird object – it was not my favourite one but we had to choose by lots. I had to work with this 4 days long…)

We draw large. Small objects on large paper. In between in sort of break from the main drawing we did some with eye-opening exercises. Would you think that I spend two days on drawing this object…

(Tut mir Leid wegen dieses merkwürdigen Objekts, mit dem ich 4 Tage lang arbeiten musste…)

Wir haben großformatig gezeichnet. Kleine Objekte auf großem Papier. Zwischendurch haben wir mit erkenntnisreiche Übungen von der großen Zeichnung pausiert sozusagen. Kannst Du Dir vorstellen, dass ich zwei Tage damit verbracht habe, dieses Objekt zu zeichnen….

… part of lower jaw… contour drawing, shading, hatching, contrast with pencil and grafite …. 70×100 cm DIN B1 or 27,6×39,4″ …

The same object we meet for two more days when we were drawing and working experimentally. For me it is very difficult to free my mind and surprise myself. this is the advice of my teacher: “Das Gefallen ist das Abgleichen mit dem Bekannten; das Überraschen bringt das Neue.” (Liking is comparing with the well-known field, but surprising give the new. – hardly translated…) Pffiiii, at last they were days with lots of fun.

The topic of these days were “metamorphose” and “series”.

The one exercise was really cool and therefore I will try to describe what we did.

• We folded a DIN B1 (100x70cm) paper two-time into four parts and had to draw on every single part without looking at the others
• We draw a part of our object on one of the four pages – over the edges or not – within 3 minutes time
• We repeated this on every page with another part of the object
• We unfolded the paper and started to connect the four drawings in one unique composition
• We worked hard on the piece trying not to draw any recognisable thing, only connect and letting go with the drawing – PLAYING

I followed the recommend to insert any break into my drawing. But… I had to learn that a break doesn’t work for me if I force it too much because I can deal with it and I don’t like it.

• Surprise surprise: We had to cut the piece down to four single pages – and call them series
• We draw on every single page and made them connected in ….
• We worked hard on this assignment to make every drawing different from the others and bring them into a relationship with each other at the same time
• Surprise surprise: We had to go one step further and to compose them in a new way. Cutting and glueing and painting over … ponder the effects with the little help from pieces of white or black or pattern paper.
• Has the new creation anything to do with the main object? ist the question.

“You feel discomfort – well, the main point is that anything happens….” said Thomas Egelkamp.

I am not either happy with my solution nor are they finished. I like to show it to only illustrate the process and for an example. At the point where I’m trying to integrate all parts in one image and to be bold in contrast I failed. Uh, I’m not so good in giving the drawing a contrast or break so I mess the drawing at that pont. But don’t worry. I don’t want to bore you so I show not every single step and piece at the this point:

One weird thing and four different edges:

No. 1…

No. 2…

No. 3…

No. 4…

… on one large paper.

Trying to integrate all parts in one image…

… and had to cut it down into four pieces again.

No. 1 at last

Nr. 2 at last

No. 3 still in process

No. 4 still in process

The two days studio work were divided of a wonderful day outside at an amazing place. Drawing in nature, drawing little interesting parts of the chaotic nature … this means to decide and reduce and focus.

Oh ,yes, it is important to reduce to the essential. I realize that my loose quick not-thoroughly better say unworried drawings are those with most expression.

Sketches of random edges

Drawing nature and architecture

Two more days left. I got use to stand in front of the easel. Can’t say exactly what I’ve learnt when I portrait a part of the big still life which was installed in the middle of the room. The last two days were gone in kind of fever. Physically and mentally exhausted but focussed and clear.

Me and the easel with the first object a dead stuffed crane….

my second object the cloth hangers – grafite pencil, charcoal, white crayon, oil pastel crayon on prepared paper with an ink wash 70×100 cm DIN B1 or 27,7×39,4″ –

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My computer is going down – so I will finish this post later after solving the computer problem – (6.9.2014)

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