Drawing is often described as the most direct way to make an image. And the marks that an artist makes can be thought of in the same way that we might think about hand writing. Mark making can be seen as indicative of personality, emotional state, feelings about the subject, familiarity with the materials, time spent on the work, attention to the task at hand, etc. Make your journal drawings with this in mind. Imagine that you are trying to communicate visually, through the way you make your drawing. You're trying to communicate without being able to use words or explanations.
You'll be doing a few different things in your book.
Collecting
Images of drawings by contemporary artists
Images of drawings by old master artists
Images of any kind of art work
Images of things that you just like
Print images from the internet print for your book
Cut images from magazines for your book
Make photographs and print them for your book
Writing
Thoughts about things that interest you
Why you chose to collect the things that you've collected
Ideas about works of art that you want to make
Writing by people who inspire you, quotes, etc
Observing / Drawing - Draw for one hour every day
Draw from observation!
Spend the whole hour on one drawing
Make as many drawings as you can in one hour - good drawings, not just scribbles
Copy the drawings that you collect
Copy one old master drawing every week
Copy one contemporary artist every week
Experiment with the materials and methods we're using in class
At this point you're probably not an expert drawer and you don't have a variety of artistic skills. The old masters definitely are experts and they are the ones who developed the wide range of visual tools and representational strategies that you see in all sorts of art. We'll figure that out through trying to do what they did.
What's an Old Master? The old masters are Renaissance artists who lived between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, that is between 1400 and 1800. They are people like Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci. If you do a Google search you'll come up with more than enough to work with. For example, click this sentence for an alright page about some of their work. If you want to be more systematic about it and learn some art history as you go Wikipedia has a pretty good chronological list of the Old Masters. Just remember, copy a drawing not a painting or a sculpture.
Keep looking back at those old master drawings for ways to make marks and use the materials. Also, start spending some time looking at contemporary artists. Some contemporary artists who are pretty great observers include Michael Landy, Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, David Hellams, Joseph Stalnaker, Nicholas Brown, Toba Kehedoori, Roland Flexner, and Peggy Preheim. Click on their names to see their work.
As you make your drawings, remember that thing about mark making and hand writing. You are trying to communicate with a viewer through the way you make the work. Tell the viewer what you think about it through the way you use the materials. Think about your personality, emotional state, feelings about the subject, familiarity with the materials, time spent on the work, attention to the task at hand, etc.
Here are a few pages of this kind of thing to maybe give you a little inspiration. They're hyperlinked for you. Zak Smith's Drawing for Every Page of Gravity's Rainbow, Matt Kish's Drawing for Every Page of Moby Dick, Ester Wilson's Daily Drawings, Kate Bingaman Burt's Drawing of a Daily Purchase, Joe Wierenga's Daily Drawings, Rob Pepper's Drawing Diary, Ben Adams' Daily Drawing, Emily Prince's Drawing of Every U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and On Kawara's painting for everyday of his life. An internet search will turn up some more.
And hey, don't for get the research part of your journal.
Collecting
Images of drawings by contemporary artists
Images of drawings by old master artists
Images of any kind of art work
Images of things that you just like
Print images from the internet print for your book
Cut images from magazines for your book
Make photographs and print them for your book
Writing
Thoughts about things that interest you
Why you chose to collect the things that you've collected
Ideas about works of art that you want to make
Writing by people who inspire you, quotes, etc
Observing / Drawing - Draw for one hour every day
Draw from observation!
Spend the whole hour on one drawing
Make as many drawings as you can in one hour - good drawings, not just scribbles
Copy the drawings that you collect
Copy one old master drawing every week
Copy one contemporary artist every week
Experiment with the materials and methods we're using in class
At this point you're probably not an expert drawer and you don't have a variety of artistic skills. The old masters definitely are experts and they are the ones who developed the wide range of visual tools and representational strategies that you see in all sorts of art. We'll figure that out through trying to do what they did.
What's an Old Master? The old masters are Renaissance artists who lived between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, that is between 1400 and 1800. They are people like Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci. If you do a Google search you'll come up with more than enough to work with. For example, click this sentence for an alright page about some of their work. If you want to be more systematic about it and learn some art history as you go Wikipedia has a pretty good chronological list of the Old Masters. Just remember, copy a drawing not a painting or a sculpture.
Keep looking back at those old master drawings for ways to make marks and use the materials. Also, start spending some time looking at contemporary artists. Some contemporary artists who are pretty great observers include Michael Landy, Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, David Hellams, Joseph Stalnaker, Nicholas Brown, Toba Kehedoori, Roland Flexner, and Peggy Preheim. Click on their names to see their work.
As you make your drawings, remember that thing about mark making and hand writing. You are trying to communicate with a viewer through the way you make the work. Tell the viewer what you think about it through the way you use the materials. Think about your personality, emotional state, feelings about the subject, familiarity with the materials, time spent on the work, attention to the task at hand, etc.
Here are a few pages of this kind of thing to maybe give you a little inspiration. They're hyperlinked for you. Zak Smith's Drawing for Every Page of Gravity's Rainbow, Matt Kish's Drawing for Every Page of Moby Dick, Ester Wilson's Daily Drawings, Kate Bingaman Burt's Drawing of a Daily Purchase, Joe Wierenga's Daily Drawings, Rob Pepper's Drawing Diary, Ben Adams' Daily Drawing, Emily Prince's Drawing of Every U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and On Kawara's painting for everyday of his life. An internet search will turn up some more.
And hey, don't for get the research part of your journal.
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