Value of Drawing

Left: my teacher's drawing and the finished painting.

After yesterday's Still Life class I was quite demoralized.

I set up my subjects, looked at them, and didn't know where to start drawing. I held my arm out straight, pencil in hand, trying to measure heights and widths.....of the vase, the tangerines, the tray. My head was spinning because I just didn't know where to begin or how to proceed in the task of placing the scene accurately on the canvas!

I made the effort, but it looked inaccurate.

After half an hour, my teacher came by and sat at my easel. Trying not to be a whining student, I calmly explained that I was having trouble...that although I had taken a drawing class in 2008, I hadn't been practicing at all.

( I didn't tell him that I had been using photos and transfering the contours of my subjects to the canvas not by drawing from life but with the grid method).

He extended his arm, pencil in hand as I had done, measuring and comparing and relating the size and position of one object to another...calculating angles etc. and with a sure hand he corrected my drawing. I so envied his ability.

Now, the school I attend follows a very classical tradition. A student, in time, may adopt any style, but only after mastering the art of accurate rendering.

My teacher told me about a colleague of his, Anthony Ryder, who is a master drawer and has written a book: The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing.

He said that Mr Ryder spent an entire year doing nothing but drawing the contours of posing models...not the interior of the form, just the contour. Measuring, comparing distances and positions and angles etc.

For an entire year! Training his eye. Training it to know what to see, where to look. Constantly re-adjusting the marks on his paper until everything was in right relation to everything else.

A very valuable skill. A skill I don't possess....yet. lol

So here I am...at a fork in the road. One path leads to working on my drawing skills, the other to the camera and an easy way to get the contours onto my canvas.

I have to be honest... I will probably from time to time, transfer from photo to canvas. But I will be working on my drawing too.

Here is what Anthony Ryder says about drawing:

" It is easier to draw the figure than it is to paint it. And you can only paint the figure as well as you can draw it. If, through the medium of drawing, you do not understand the surface of the human body, nor comprehend its subtle formal structure, there is very little likelihood that you will master it in paint. All the great painters have been great draftsmen. This is because drawing is the essence of painting.
It is therefore essential that all aspiring painters learn to draw: to draw, not simply to sketch. Sketching is in itself a beautiful art......Drawing on the other hand builds an image of the figure, an image replete with every subtle curve, both in the outline, and throughout its entire visible surface. This is accomplished in drawing through the work of shading. Through shading is described the ever turning, ever modulating form of the surface of the body that occurs within the confines of the contour.
The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing was written for those who wish to develop an in-depth vision of the human figure. It was written for painters and draftsmen alike, who, having seen the drawings and paintings of the masters, desire to work in that ancient and venerable mode. As, to the refined and sensitive palate, fine aged wine is better than newly squeezed grape juice, so the great art of centuries past is infinitely more pleasing than much that goes by the name of art today. Would that we all might discover the richness of the beauty of the human figure as it was once known to artists of old."