tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post5848449465533864292..comments2024-03-28T16:36:12.581-04:00Comments on Gurney Journey: Antonio Mancini's GraticolaJames Gurneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01870848001990898499noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-55399320684504571152020-10-22T11:23:16.333-04:002020-10-22T11:23:16.333-04:00Ava and James, the reason it is different - the gr...Ava and James, the reason it is different - the grid system in front of you on a live drawing as opposed to a photographic drawing where the "lens" used to translate. So when you look at a real life "still life" your eye translates the image in a spherical sense before it applies the grid, when you look to a photograph the "lens" of the camera translates in a "flattened" and foreshortened sense very differently. (different lens and focal points will capture the image differently.) Eventually, you realize that there is nothing as comparable to translating from life - unless you add a lens translation tool (as in photoshop it has lens distortion tools) Hi James!!! love your books... we'll always have Dinatopia chalking in Venice FL! You are the best!!! (by the way, I HATED grinding in college, so funny my livelihood depends on it now. ;-)Lori Escalerahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17106142853131405264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-46881392809571261462017-07-23T12:44:48.170-04:002017-07-23T12:44:48.170-04:00Mancini is one of my heroes but I really prefer th...Mancini is one of my heroes but I really prefer the paintings where he didn't use the Graticola. I'm not sure why he used it because he didn't seem to need any mechanical aids in his painting. There are about seventeen of his works at the museum here in Philly, and the ones they have on display don't look like they were painted with this device.Nixotronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09605191260747139863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-5418903993090315152017-07-17T14:48:34.660-04:002017-07-17T14:48:34.660-04:00You said it, Ava. Composition involves every aspec...You said it, Ava. Composition involves every aspect of picturemaking, not just placement in the rectangle. When you think of all the artistic decisions a photographer must make (such as depth of field, exposure, color, etc, etc.), there is artistry throughout the whole process, and that's why I think every traditional painter should know about photography and digital methods, even if it's just to inform what they do with their eyes and hands alone. But of course compared to what the photographer can do, we artists can distort and manipulate every aspect of the picture. And it's often the aspects of reality that we eliminate, distort, or degrade that makes an image seem "artistic." James Gurneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01870848001990898499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-32150491761013271742017-07-17T14:28:23.893-04:002017-07-17T14:28:23.893-04:00That was what I was saying, and you phrased it muc...That was what I was saying, and you phrased it much better. <br /><br />And what you say about every picture needing to begin with a sort of ideal mental image, I agree with. <br /><br />I feel like perhaps this covers an aspect of direct observation that I'd never thought about much, which is that even with very direct methods of measurement, an artist still has to make crucial decisions. I always feel like those decisions are the hardest to deal with when I'm drawing, even if proportion and angles on a particular subject can be challenging to eye, and I often wished that someone could have pointed out which ones mattered beyond "get the single point perspective right."<br /><br />I eventually learned more about composition separately from observational drawing, and I often feel like had I known more about composition—and other subjects—I could have made better observations somehow, but I couldn't exactly explain why.<br />Ava Jarvishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01777180628319261015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-27395610078402001632017-07-17T13:58:02.293-04:002017-07-17T13:58:02.293-04:00Ava, I like the way you posed that question, and i...Ava, I like the way you posed that question, and it's something I've been thinking about too. I've also made a list of the continuum of drawing aids. It includes all sorts of things like knitting needles for measuring, calipers, plumb bobs, viewfinders, grids, mirrors, reducing glasses, along with various and camera lucidas and obscuras, all the way to photo projectors and even painting directly over a photo or combining photo elements digitally. <br /><br />I agree with what (I think) you're saying: all of these can potentially be useful tools as long as they don't lead to that uncanny valley feeling you're talking about, or what I sometimes call "photodependency" and as long as they don't provide a substitute for direct observation and careful drawing. <br /><br />How to avoid that problem? I believe every picture—even a very realistic one—has to begin with a purely imaginative idea, a kind of archetype or ideal, a mental image. Perhaps the key is that the artist has to keep that ideal image in mind and allow it to shape all the artistic decisions, even if they're working in a photo-real mode. That might mean eliminating or downplaying some unimportant things, emphasizing focal points, manipulating and grouping values and finessing colors, and perhaps exaggerating or caricaturing some elements if necessary. Rockwell generally did that, even in his later, more Photo-derived work. It takes a strong artistic spirit to override the random information, the "compelling force of reality" that these optical aids offer.<br /><br />Dragonlady, I'll have to check Betty Edwards. I forgot she talked about it. <br /><br />Colonel, yes, many ways, and artists have always been experimenting with it. James Gurneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01870848001990898499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-82485865055882807102017-07-17T13:22:43.382-04:002017-07-17T13:22:43.382-04:00This is a tangent, but I've been thinking on a...This is a tangent, but I've been thinking on and off about what I think of as "more direct drawing aids" when it comes to things like angles and proportions. It's a spectrum—there's eyeing everything, there's doing comparative measurements with your brush or pen, there's ever so many variants of projection and gridding, and then there's various levels of tracing. And in theory these measures are helpful—how can they not be?<br /><br />But if that is the case, then why is it that when I look at works where the artist traced a photograph directly, which seems like it should be the most helpful method, that something is very often... missing? The human face in particular is strongly affected in a creepy uncanny valley sense, but even a vase of flowers can have issues.<br /><br />It's perplexing, and I looked through older blog posts on your blog, and the most I can figure is that tracing invokes the uncanny valley strongly if you aren't skilled enough to draw on your own. But I don't know why this is so.<br /><br />If tracing can have this uncanny valley effect when the drawing fundamentals are lacking, do grids also have a similar effect in similar circumstances? Why is this?Ava Jarvishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01777180628319261015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-29406816618082803102017-07-17T12:36:50.230-04:002017-07-17T12:36:50.230-04:00Essentially 3-D tracing, so it seems. Less precisi...Essentially 3-D tracing, so it seems. Less precision more interesting, to me. But fascinating indeed - for there's many a way to skin that darn pesky cat! A Colonel of Truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00968917380253732621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-87859565371522062282017-07-17T11:43:30.985-04:002017-07-17T11:43:30.985-04:00Interesting. The method was adapted by Betty Edwar...Interesting. The method was adapted by Betty Edwards in her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I hope to make a "proper" working easel and adapt a grid at the top to help with getting proportions right, and teach this to my students. dragonladychhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04388676720313631946noreply@blogger.com