forest

Oh, deer.

Posted on by azorch

19 November, 2018. On a very chilly evening last week, I took a shortcut through the parking lot of a local lumberyard. Pedaling across the pavement, the first thing I noticed was a black 1962 or ’63 Impala illuminated under the tall light pole, the lid of the trunk partially raised.

It’s important to understand how truly enormous the storage space is in this vintage American automobile… it’s large enough that some of the tiny British and Italian sports cars I’ve owned over the years might come close to fitting inside. Certainly there would be ample room for my racing bike, and perhaps even several other bikes as well.

There was, in fact, ample room for the dead buck, which was the second thing I noticed. 

In Missouri, this is the time of year when one walks through forest and field wearing bright orange clothing. To do otherwise would be foolhardy. Outside of town, the world is populated with grizzled, gun toting individuals dressed in camouflage. Ducks, geese, deer, turkey, squirrel, quail, pheasant – and soon rabbits – are all in hiding from pickup trucks and John Deere hats… and apparently even vintage cars.

Focus.

Posted on by azorch

(Number two in a series of ten ideas I have about sketching.)

12 August, 2018. One of the more difficult concepts to teach young art students is the idea of emphasis. Novices sometimes have blinders on when they start to draw, and this tends to emerge on paper in one of two ways. Some find themselves focusing only on the object of their attention, to the exclusion of all else. They find themselves with an object plopped in the middle of the paper with no context to place, time, or relationship to the world. A billion or two very unsatisfying sketchbook pages look exactly like this.

Others go in the opposite direction, drawing everything in their line of sight, and even some things that aren’t. I know a few artists who pull this off very well, but it’s important to note that what they are interested in sharing is the overall texture of a place or thing: all of that incredible detail is the subject. For the rest of us, too much stuff is visually overwhelming.

What I ask myself to consider as I sketch is pretty simple: Why am I drawing this thing or place? What exactly caught my attention in the first place? An object? A building? A person? When I can answer that question I know where to focus my attention, and thus my drawing. I draw that. Everything else in the sketch that contributes to the story is important. Anything that does not is a distraction from the story and from the focal point.

So I don’t feel obligated to include tons of detail in those areas that are a distraction. Maybe they don’t even need to be drawn at all, or perhaps they need to be simplified into basic shapes or values.

In the sketch above, made at yesterday’s plein air event, Paint the Forest, I was interested in the way that light played across the ground, tracing the topography of Line Creek Trail. Patches of light struck some of the other plein air artists ahead of me. And the receding perspective of the path itself helped to create leading lines, emphasizing these interesting areas.

All around was a cacophony of tree limbs and branches and foliage and trunks and all sorts of stuff. But none of it mattered, visually, because to focus on them would have meant taking away from those areas that interested me most. So all of that stuff got simplified into three elements:

  • simplified verticals and horizontals
  • simplified solids (or quasi-solids)
  • simplified lights and darks

The path and the people are also simplifications, but they contrast from the surrounding spaces, crossing over or separating from them, contrasting by breaking from the patterns of striating light and shadow. Those surrounding spaces have just enough visual information to communicate a sense of place and, perhaps, a bit of theatricality. But because they are intentionally abstracted into directional shapes and patterns, they aid the viewer by moving the eye into and through the drawing.

5.5 x 8.5 inches, using a fude tip fountain pen and Uni-Ball Signo white gel pen on Stillman and Birn gray Nova Series paper.

Black and White, and Grey All Over.

Posted on by azorch

4 June, 2018. Over the past couple of days I’ve carried around two pens – my trusty Uni-Ball Deluxe and a white gel pen – and this small, pocket-size Stillman and Birn sketchbook. As always, I’m interested in seeing just how far I can push my sketches while purposefully placing limitations on myself. In this case, the limitation is range of value: black, white, grey, and the implied value created by hatching.

It’s interesting to me how different textures can be achieved by varying the strokes, as well as changing the lines into shapes.

The format of this booklet is so damn small that it does force me to consider positive and negative relationships, as well as recognizing the limitations of drawing across gutters and within the margins.

I also have to stop myself from going to far, making too many marks. Limiting the mark-making and relying on contrasts is effective. As with my choice to draw and later add a spot color to sketches, there’s a mechanical appearance when working on the grey paper that I like.

Selectively choosing which elements get the addition of white allows me to be selective about which elements get emphasized. I think there are some real storytelling opportunities working with this illustration approach, but for now it’s just me fooling around.

Nature Sanctuary

Posted on by azorch

8 November, 2015. I often find myself drawn to the paths of Martha Lafite Thompson Nature Sanctuary, a small, unassuming tract of hilly, wooded land on the outskirts of Liberty, Missouri. It’s nearby, and within five minutes I can be surrounded by trees and birdsong. Especially in the early morning and late afternoon, this is a wonderful location for painting and sketching: long shadows trace the contours and undulating surface of the hills that make up nearly the entirety of the property.

As I reconnect with oils, I find a common pursuit with that of my line work and watercolor: Keep things loose and free. Avoid the temptation to overwork; enjoy the flow of mark making, the pushing around of paint, the calligraphy of line – and accept the gifts of chance as they are presented. I want to see that lines are drawn, that mistakes are made, that the surface is painted; if the process gets too precious then it’s no longer even about the process, but about the end product…and that is anathema to the process.

I’m not interested in photographic – or even accurate – representations so much as I am reacting to the moment and place. I remember the first time this occurred to me. I was in college; there was a massive thunderstorm brewing and suddenly I was overwhelmed with the desire to be a part of it. For me, this meant rapidly assembling a painting kit and heading outside to capture the elemental fury that was about to take place. My roommate laughed nervously and told me I was nuts. I vividly recall the desire, as much as I do the frustration of not being able to capture even the simplest part of the storm. Thirty years later I understand that I was approaching things as if I was a camera, rather than as a painter. Faithful documentation – even had I the skills to do so back then (and I decidedly did not) – was missing the point. (Clay County, Missouri. Oil on tinted panel, 12 x 9 inches.)