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{\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.21.2509;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20 Working With Form\par
\par \par
\par Now in the real world, in proportion to our
size as human beings, we are confronted with form. The first impression one has concerning
form is massiveness as in the sea, mountains, hills, clouds, plains, cities. But this massiveness
can even be sensed when looking at crystals of palladium under the electron microscope.\par
\par It is therefore necessary in these exercises
to be able to successfully convey with shading and highlight and by other means a sense of
massiveness. Some artists that come to mind are Motherwell, Moore and so on. We live in
an existence where the eye also conveys to our minds not only the picture of detail,
but also of volume. Here is the -- I'm looking for a synonym of the word "challenge", it's
such a worn out term and often quite stilted and a bit arrogant -- perhaps I can invent
something like trying to make a living to buy food, hence "chowlunge", or don't step
in the stew as in not being "stewped". Maybe elsewhere some other time, perhaps the humor
pages.\par \par
Anyway, here is the earnest of significant artwork in that there is a balance of sorts
between detail and form. One cannot do a drawing and make something of it by the inclusion
of detail alone to the exclusion of all else. Is there more than the two? Perhaps. You know
something, there might be hundreds more criterion one could discover to place in the work. In
digital art, I'm looking at the inclusion of surface features that, though quite separate
than the subject, add a profundity to the portrayal of the work.\par
\par But here it is imperative to master form itself,
oft times armed with no more than the pencil, or perhaps a stick of charcoal. In mastering
these things you can come to a sense of relief in that the tedium and the chore of the work
of art is subdued if not shoved aside and then you, the artists, can proceed with exuberance
and actually enjoy what you're doing, making the work itself an accomplished and significant
piece of art. And that's what we're about, isn't it?\par
\par It's what Vincent Van Gogh's elder relative,
I think uncle, tried to get him to do (I saw the movie. *** for Life with Kirk Douglas
as Vincent) (how do I know? I saw the movie.) (all right, so it's a visually oriented existence.
all the more reason to paint). Mauve gave Vincent casts (replications of statues or
parts thereof in plaster) and told him to paint them. Vincent hated that and after a
while he went out and painted "au plien air" outside but he was still working with forms.\par
\par It's as one of my art teachers told me in
the conservative "Ruskin School of Drawing and of Fine Art" in the cast gallery out behind
the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford University: "Priests do penance, artist paint statues
-- same difference."\par \par
"May I quote you?" I asked.\par \par
"No," She said, "...we'll leave it in its complexity. You can paint outdoors in the
summer."\par \par
You see, I intensely disliked the cast gallery. It was religious art. Every statue was some
sort of ancient Greek's idea of gods and goddesses. It was for them a chowlunge; much livelihood
in the productions of religious paraphernalia. Now what Van Gogh did for us was to graduate
us from the kindergarten of the boot-lickers of idol groupies and into the joy of the real
existence free from all the tripe of traditionalistic dead-ending. There's a livelihood in sucking
up but it's a dead-end street from which there is virtually no return.\par
\par I was fascinated by a reality in the casts
of the antiquitous statues, and that was the evidence of the depiction of time itself in
the reproduction of the deterioration and damage virtually every piece in that place
sported in one way or another. A missing arm or nose hacked off by invading soldiers in
the belief that they were disarming the premises of it's supernatural power. Also time itself
and the weathering of outside pieces showed their effects.
\par \par
But it is necessary to work with volume, and the point of the teacher is well taken; you've
got to work with something more than a fussy fidgety squirming live model. You can make
casts by enclosing the arms, or feet, or so on of a volunteer in sort of bandages and
making a mould for a pouring of plaster. I don't know how to do that so you'll have to
find out perhaps from the internet somewhere because plaster can be very damaging to the
skin or something so watch it. Otherwise perhaps somewhere in your neighborhood there are statues,
albeit maybe not the nude one you really need like those money-grubbing ancient Greeks made.
Oh, they were good, but so what? If they got out of their rut, they would have been great.\par
\par But if you can find statues, do some paintings
and drawings of them, at least once a week for a year of something like that. We have
to master the sense of depicting form in the work. Getting involved in the descriptive
and the sketchy is a common temptation with the amateur and the novice thinking to him
or her self: "... ah, this is what I must do
to produce art." Here's where the use of shading in design exercise comes in handy. As one
teacher told me, "What we are after is the change of 'planes',
not detail. Too brief a sketch of the surface features doesn't mean anything until you make
them mean something." I tried to take notes of what he was telling me to which he added
without even glancing over his shoulder, "...that's ridiculous." He didn't realize I was working of
the
depiction
of
time itself. But
that's another exercise.\par \par
But you see, we are
also concerned with form. The logical mind gets rapped up in the depiction of detail
and surface features. But those who depict the awe of the massiveness of what people
perceive visually in reality are able to impart the sense of professionalism that when the
viewer of the artwork looks at the piece he or she knows they are being confronted with
something significant. I mean, they've got to be moved. That's when you're professional
and not just some amateur dabbling around.\par \par
Massive or exquisite, the form is there. It's worth exercising to ferret out the skills
to depict that on the picture plane or even in sculpture. Where you go from there will
be vastly more intriguing and fascinating if you can first get there.\par
\par \par
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