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Well, the weekend update has come early.

First, some figure drawings. These were both longer poses—60 and 80 minutes, respectively.

We are starting to put muscle groups onto the pre-ecorche figures. Here I’ve added most of the upper and lower leg muscles. Can’t wait to see what the real ecorche figures are going to look like.

In Martha’s Painting I class, we’ve had the continuing homework assignment to complete a still-life painting. Each quarter of the painting will be done using a different approach. The upper left quadrant was to be done in a monochrome style (Indian Red and White was recommended). The upper right quadrant was to be done opaquely using a Dead Color palette (Indian Red, Ivory Black, Yellow Ochre and White). The lower left quadrant was to be done using a wipe-out. The lower right was to be done using a wipe-out with Dead Colors. The specific assignment was a little more involved than this (we were also to employ specific lighting conditions), but I think you get the gist.

The painting isn’t finished… but it is getting fairly close.

Here is a detail of the lower right quadrant. I’ve done a couple of wipe-outs (to unify the shadows and model the form). I painted some opaque local color of the shapes and then glazed over the whole thing with Alizarine Crimson, Transparent Gold Ochre and Ultramarine Blue. Then I added highlight based on the inverted-compliment of the local color. Once that was dry, I glazed local color back over the shapes and wiped back to the complimentary highlights. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Well, with the school closed for the next four days, I’ll be limited in the amount of school work that I can do. I’ve got my sketchpad with me, though, and this will be a good opportunity to write the paper that is due for our Art and Culture class. We’ll see how it goes…

A very happy Thanksgiving to all!

– Jeremy

The first is a figure drawing.

The second is a start at a structural drawing of the Belvedere Torso. I was really hoping to have a finished drawing of this cast before the end of the semester. Unfortunately, it seems as though there is now too little time for personal distractions.

– Jeremy

The saga of Sir Charles and Harriet Byron proceeds in the fifth volume much in the same vein as those previous, though things definitely begin to go Harriet’s way.

The beginning of the volume sees Sir Charles in Italy, reunited with Clementina and Jeronymo, beginning the mental healing process of the former, and the physical healing process of the latter. Both make significant improvement, and just when Sir Charles seems beyond Harriet’s reach, Clementina makes a resolution that begins to free him up. Sir Charles returns to England, to the dismay of much of the Porretta family, and begins a (very) tentative courtship of Harriet.

I’m not sure how this book can possibly go on for two more volumes. I have just started the sixth volume, and it appears from the contents that Sir Charles and Harriet will be married by its end. That leaves an entire book for the wrap-up of the Clementina thread (whether by her death, marriage, or sequestering), and other more minor threads: the ultimate fate of Sir Hargrave and Harriet’s other disappointed suitors; the probable marriages, etc. of various friends and family of the couple; possible deaths of various elderly relatives; and the conclusion of a variety of Sir Charles’s good deeds; most of which I can’t muster interest in.

Finally, an interesting morsel from the book on casinos. Not being particularly interested in gambling, I don’t know the origin of the name or the institution, but came across a footnote in this volume that made me wonder. Here it is, for your contemplation:

“The Casino at Bologna is a fine apartment, illuminated every night, for the entertainment of the gentlemen and ladies of the city, and whomsoever they please to introduce. There are card-tables; and waiters attend with chocolate, coffee, ice. The whole expense is defrayed by twelve men of the first quality, each in turn taking his month.”

I decided not to go into the studio today, but I managed to make it to a couple of critical New York locations. It is interesting to see how different the various areas of the city look and feel. One needs only walk for a few blocks to get the sense of a completely different country (though all of the people speaking in various languages helps to suspend disbelief). I’ll illustrate. Here is the setting as seen from Brooklyn.

Here is what most people (not incorrectly) think New York City is like:

But this is also New York City:

These are, of course, two of the most recognizable and famously distinct places in the city. But TriBeCa really does feel different from SoHo or the Financial District, though they are all within walking distance of each other. Truly a unique city.

– Jeremy

Sorry that I haven’t posted anything of a more philosophical nature lately. I’ve got some more gems from classes as well as from a clinic put on by Vincent Desidero. I’ll try to post that in the very near future.

For now I have a number of pictures.

I seem to have pictures from just about every class… so I might as well go in order. Monday is Figure Structure. We’ve spent a couple of weeks working on the armatures now. I’m finding that I’m obsessed with making the clay as perfectly smooth as I can. Fun stuff—I really wish that I had an opportunity to take a real sculpture class.

There is a class in the first semester of the second year called Ecorche… basically we’re doing a pre-ecorche figure here. In that class, the figure will be similar, but larger and much more detailed. Fun stuff, I can’t wait.

Tuesday we started to do some memory drawings. Basically, we had three minutes to memorize what the model looked like and then we were given 20 minutes to render the figure without the model. It was interesting… and at the same time not… I didn’t find this to be particularly difficult for some odd reason. It wasn’t that hard to get a believable contour drawing—though with only 20 minutes, it wasn’t much of a drawing.

Wednesday is Figure Drawing day. A very predictable class. I seem to be stuck between receiving the ‘too generic’ and the ‘too specific’ speeches from Harvey. Sounds like we’re going to start doing some longer poses as well… can’t wait. I really did intend for there to be a face on the second drawing. I wasn’t happy with the way it was going and decided to spend the last 20 minute pose working just on that, but unfortunately we didn’t get another 20 minutes with that pose.

Thursday is Painting I. Martha is a firecracker. We’ve spent the last 5 class periods working on this painting. We started with a detailed drawing which was transferred to the canvas. The canvas was then toned and prepared for a wipe-out. From my point of view the figure was almost entirely in light, so there wasn’t a lot of tone left after this step. Then we painted the figure using a series of pinks and lavenders created entirely from Indian Red, Ivory Black and Lead White. The key thing was to lose chroma as the form turned away from the light. This part was painted directly into the wet wipe-out. Shadow areas would have been left alone. Once that was finished, we added a velatura (transparent glaze) of Terre Verte mixed with either Liquin or Galkyd (to make the paint thiner and speed the drying time). This was to be painted thinly, but with streaks of paint. I painted my green layer too thinly, though that seems to have been preferable to those who painted it too thickly. Once the green layer was dry we painted another velatura of Transparent Gold Ochre mixed with a bit of Cadmium Red Light over the whole figure. With this layer wet, we painted passages of mixed opaque flesh tone and added highlights using inverted compliments. I think most people understand complimentary colors (e.g. green is the compliment of red). Inverted compliments have to do with the relative value of the colors (e.g. purple is darker than yellow); therefore, an inverted compliment would be compliments that have an inverted value relationship (e.g. a light blue next to a dark orange). That was the process for the figure. The background and chair were painted opaquely.

My figure turned out a little yellow… perhaps I didn’t add enough Cad Red to my yellow velatura. So there is definitely room for improvement. But on the whole I’m pretty happy with the process and feel that I’ve learned a great deal from this painting. We are supposed to do a self-portrait using a similar procedure before the end of the semester. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

Friday is Structural Drawing day. I know that I havn’t been posting many images from the work we’ve been doing in this class. If you’ve been reading regularly you know that I feel this class is the key to the whole curriculum at NYAA, so perhaps you are having difficulty reconciling those two statements. It’s not that I’m trying to keep the information to myself, just that the homework for this class tends to not be terribly photographic. We have started working from the casts, though. I did a ink wash last week—too light to photograph, I’m afraid, but it was very educational. Frank Porcu is always saying that this is a “thinking man’s game.” He seems to be giving us the most difficult mediums with the intent to make us stop and think before striking the support. This past week we were to do a very carefully measured contour drawing of one of the casts in vine-charcoal (vine-charcoal, which we have been using all semester, is generally considered to be the most difficult drawing medium). We then continued to work on the cast in class. Here’s a picture of Bacchus and Silenus.

Believe it or not, it took about 4 hours to do all of the measuring and get an approximation of the contour. Three hours of class time was then spent refining the contour around the legs and starting to model the form. Here’s a detail.

I wish that he would have asked us to continue these drawings, but he seems to feel that the rest is just busy work. Great quote: “Any idiot with a burnt stick in a dark room can copy the shadow shapes.” Of course, we were standing in a drakened room holding vine-charcoal at the time, so that explains why we’re moving on. He said that he wants another cast drawing done for next week. The next one should be “10 times better.” Now if I can just find a way to extend the length of the day to 240 hours! I started on it today though… I’m working on a cast of the Belvedere Torso. That cast was awfully intimidating when we first arrived at the school, but now I can’t wait to tackle it.

Well, that’s the past week for me. I’ll post more about the philosophical side of the school shortly.

– Jeremy

Here’s some pictures from the past week.

The first three are figure drawings. All three were 60-minute poses, if I remember correctly (the reclining one may have been 80 minutes). I still need to get on to the faces of the figures… you’d think that with an hour to work, one could do as much as one wants; but alas, it is never enough time.

I posted a picture of the underpainting for this, as well as the preparatory drawing. Here it is a few weeks later. It looked really weird after putting the green velatura over the underpainting… I should have taken a picture. Anyhow, this picture is taken after putting on a yellow velatura and then painting passages of inverted compliments over that. I still need to work quite a bit on the background (among other things). The picture was still wet and therefore shiny so I had trouble getting a decent picture. Sorry. I’ll try to get a better one once it is finished.

Our block people evolved into ovoid people, and now they are moving off of the page…
We are going to be making two of these (one male and one female; even at the block-person level there are differences).

– Jeremy

Over the past weekend I buckled down and finished the print I posted about several weeks ago, which I have decided to call “Pause.” It turned out alright, though I did not get as strong an effect with the second layer of stipples as I had hoped. The second color is an opaque light purple, printed as a ghost so that it would allow a bit more of the umber to come through.

I will post this to the Sparks Gallery when I have a chance; in the meantime, here are the vital bits:

Title: Pause
Medium: 2-color woodcut, cherry block
Size: 5×8 image size, 7.5×10 paper size (chuban)
Materials: Daniel Smith oil-based relief inks on white Magnani Pescia paper
Techniques: light-over-dark, ghost printing

The image doesn’t do the piece justice as far as the stipple details and woodgrain. I am mostly pleased with the look of the hair and shirt; not so much with the face, though it could have been worse. At any rate, it is nice to have that piece finished, and mailed off for exchange, so I can move on to the next projects.

–Julie

Alias Grace is the third Margaret Atwood book I have read. After loving The Handmaid’s Tale and hating The Robber Bride, I was uncertain whether I wanted to venture further into Atwood’s oeuvre, but Alias Grace fell into my hands used and with a high recommendation. I decided to give it a try, and I found it a fascinating read.

This book covers territory far removed from those of the other two books mentioned: it is a work of historical fiction based on a real convicted Canadian murderess, Grace Marks, who lived in Ontario in the mid-nineteenth century. Atwood’s version of the story is told from several perspectives, mostly from those of Grace and an alienist, Dr. Simon Jordan, who hopes to determine whether Grace is innocent or guilty, sane or insane. Intermixed with their narratives are letters between Dr. Jordan and others, and quotations from contemporary accounts of the events surrounding the murders of Nancy Montgomery and Thomas Kinnear, including Grace’s own confession. Up until the last, Atwood dangles questions before us: Is Grace truly amnesiac about the murders themselves? Was she out of her mind, or acting as a cold, calculating, jealous woman? Was she dragged into passive participation by James McDermott, who was quickly hanged for the murders? Was she acted on by other, unseen forces?

The narrative proceeds slowly, but with a richness of detail that lent it authenticity beyond the contemporary documentation of the crime. It was particularly interesting to me because I know very little about Canadian history, and Atwood’s narratives bring it to life. My biggest complaint would have to be the closure of Dr. Jordan’s story-line; he exits abruptly, and without closure in his relationship to Grace, because of a peripheral event in his own narrative. Most of the questions proposed by Atwood in the course of the book were left unanswered, but that doesn’t bother me so much, since several possibilities were hinted at—one of which is subtly indicated by the title—and the guilt of the actual Grace Marks, remained a point of contention even after her eventual pardon. This was a fascinating, beautifully written book, and it is one I would recommend.