Baren Digest Friday, 12 April 2002 Volume 19 : Number 1796 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Bill H Ritchie Jr" Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 07:48:36 -0700 Subject: [Baren 17844] Life Drawing My humble opinion on life drawing vs. photo-aided art. I think there's an additional "caveat" or warning to remember. When photography was being developed (no pun intended) there were three factors: optics, chemistry and mechanical engineering. Thus I say photography is ALL engineering at its birth, and no art at all. No harm done, of course. Our beloved printmaking fine art also has this non-artistic origin--making templates to produce exactly reproducible images--all engineered for one purpose or another and only by accident producing beauty, truth, etc. What is fixed in my mind is the usual necessity that a photograph requires a fixed point of view, owing to the optics part. The genius beind this is in the use of conic sections, from "solid" geometry. I like to think it relates to our tiny little eye-hole called the pupil, with its expandable/shrinkable iris so much like that in old camera lens design. What's missing, though, in all this is the multiple points of view, which I think is a creation of artists like DuChamp, Picasso, Brach, the Futurists, and also Degas with his monotypes. And then there was Edweard Muybridge. Escher was another genius who challenges our reliance on the single point-of-view and assumptions that lurk below the surface of things. And O. W. Holmes, who's famous statement about the skin of things being recordable by photography, but not what's beneath the surface, i.e., in art terms, content. I prefer the multiple points of view available in, say, cubism, or comic books, or the new media that combine single and multiple points of view AND random sampling, i.e. DVD. My old friends in the art schools still teach figure drawing, and in Seattle there's a highly successful school for realistic art. But I wonder, what does real mean, really? Bill H. Ritchie, Jr 500 Aloha #105 Seattle WA 98109 (206) 285-0658 mailto:ritchie@seanet.com Web sites: Professional: www.seanet.com/~ritchie Virtual Gallery and E-Store: www.myartpatron.com First Game Portal: www.artsport.com ------------------------------ From: "marilynn smih" Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 09:36:02 -0700 Subject: [Baren 17845] Re: Baren Digest V18 #1795 I spent 10 years drawing every Friday from a live model. There is a certain feeling when you work from life that just does not exist when you work from a photo no matter how good you are or how much you have observed. Yes I work from my watercolors and my sketches when i do my carvings for my prints, and they always change, they become a work for themselves. I also spent at least 5 years doing huge oils from meomory and inagination. I find when I carve that I use both the feeling from the sketch and expand it all with imagination and turn on the classical music and let it flow, I believe that is called right brain working. It is not copying as many do with a photo and it will not ever look like a photo but will have a spark of self and a spark of life and feeling all of its very own. Photos take a piece of self and a piece of life from work, at times it seems impossible to avoid having photos to create something, say for a client. But they are definitely not necessary whenn creating quality fine art and I find they definitely take something away from the subject, you can say it is flattened and that knowledge will change this , but I think there is a feeling of life that will always be missing. That is why I learned to draw from life and spent so many years really learning those drawing skills. Marilynn ------------------------------ From: marco@speedingbullet.com Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 10:20:25 -0700 Subject: [Baren 17846] Cherry blocks in the US? hello there, does anybody know of a vendor that carries cherry blocks good for printmaking in the California/Northwest (or elsewhere in the US, I guess). grazie, Marco Flavio ------------------------------ From: "Dan Sabo" Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:38:42 -0400 Subject: [Baren 17847] RE: Cherry blocks in the US? Yes. Graphic Chemical and Ink Company, Villa Park, IL. http://www.graphicchemical.net Dan - -----Original Message----- From: owner-baren@ml.asahi-net.or.jp [mailto:owner-baren@ml.asahi-net.or.jp]On Behalf Of marco@speedingbullet.com Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 1:20 PM To: baren@ml.asahi-net.or.jp Subject: [Baren 17846] Cherry blocks in the US? hello there, does anybody know of a vendor that carries cherry blocks good for printmaking in the California/Northwest (or elsewhere in the US, I guess). grazie, Marco Flavio ------------------------------ From: barebonesart Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:36:26 -0700 Subject: [Baren 17848] Re: Baren Digest V18 #1795 I would add to Maria's comments about translating the figure, or landscape - really any subject matter, from photo to painting or print: Remember lost and found edges! It is easy to become so exacting in reproducing the photo that you reproduce it to its exact flatness. Success comes from acute observation, training, experience, etc. The lost and found edges are from experience - but they alone will not carry the weight, it has to be the "sum of the total". (I just love that expression -) Sharri ------------------------------ From: "Maria Arango" Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 15:09:59 -0700 Subject: [Baren 17849] models Yes, agree, no substitute for real live models, but many live life living drawings drawn from live life living models can still suck big time even after years of practice. The pesky human body is a tough thing to draw. Again, I think the key resides in translating all that form, shape, and energy into 2-D more or less successfully. And years of observation won't tell you what the greater trochanter of the femur looks like when you hyperflex the hip joint. Knowledge of anatomy frees the observer from the "I have to have a model!" syndrome, allowing the artist to move limbs and poses to suit composition without having to hire anyone. The other side of the coin is that drawing from live models can sometimes enslave students into a world where they can't draw without having exactly what they have in mind right in front of them. But again, just my opinion. I feel an artist should be able to both render live stuff accurately and eventually be able to "play" with reality. And may I be so bold as to offer a few of my cuts, all models from the very CD Julio introduced. I usually sketch these right on the block while sitting in front of the computer screen. The rest happens in the cutting. Carved Men and Newel received prizes in two separate competitions, flat or not: http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/fusion.html http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/asone.html http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/newel.html http://www.printmakingstudio.com/fullsize/carvedmen.html Also see a very interesting site: http://www.drawmodel.com/ Maria <><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Maria Arango Las Vegas, Nevada, USA http://www.1000woodcuts.com maria@mariarango.com <><><><><><><><><><><><><><> ------------------------------ From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 17:39:03 -0500 Subject: [Baren 17850] Re: models 04/11/2002 05:39:08 PM Hi Maria....what a coincidence, you are using the same cd & models for your inspiration. Small world, love those cuts! Here is a website by japanese printmaker Shusui Taki. Check out the 12 print series 'Irezumi Junisoroi' for some very unusual women prints. Also click on the large horse print to go to another window that shows step by step the color registration process. thanks........Julio ------------------------------ From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 17:47:48 -0500 Subject: [Baren 17851] Re: models, oops! 04/11/2002 05:47:54 PM Soory, oops...here is the url for Shusui Taki. http://www.mms-net.com/ukiyoe/index_e.html Julio ------------------------------ From: FurryPressII@aol.com Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 23:19:36 EDT Subject: [Baren 17852] Re: Cherry blocks in the US? In seattle there is a good hard wood dealer not sure of the name though most hard wood dealers have cherry some sell it ready to carve as it has been finished already or you might have to sand it. Or you can go on line and look it up? john of the furry press ------------------------------ From: "Dan Sabo" Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 00:35:52 -0400 Subject: [Baren 17853] Re: Cherry blocks in the US? There is also a place in Highland, Michigan called Armstrong Millworks. They will block up any size cherry you want. They sell all hardwoods. I just paid about 60 dollars I think for a 2' x 3' cherry block, 3/4" or 1" thick I forgot. It takes about a month for them to do it. Dan www.dansabo.com - -----Original Message----- From: owner-baren@ml.asahi-net.or.jp [mailto:owner-baren@ml.asahi-net.or.jp]On Behalf Of FurryPressII@aol.com Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 11:20 PM To: baren@ml.asahi-net.or.jp Subject: [Baren 17852] Re: Cherry blocks in the US? In seattle there is a good hard wood dealer not sure of the name though most hard wood dealers have cherry some sell it ready to carve as it has been finished already or you might have to sand it. Or you can go on line and look it up? john of the furry press ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V18 #1796 *****************************