GJ Book Club: Chapter 20 "Materials"

On the GJ Book Club, we're looking at Chapter 20: "Materials" in Harold Speed's 1917 classic The Practice and Science of Drawing.

In this chapter, Speed talks about a wide range of drawing media and the capabilities that each one offers. I'll outline the main points of the chapter so that you can refer to them in the comments if you want.

1. Speed advises trying all kinds of drawing media out to explore their range of expressive possibilities. Then, he suggests that we should seek those qualities of the subject that are suited to the capacities of the medium. 

Rembrandt, ink and wash drawing

2. He warns against falling into the trap that oil paint can present, which is to use the medium to deceive the eye with the the pursuit of ultra-realism. “Art is not a substitute for nature,” he argues, “but an expression of feeling produced in the consciousness of the artist, and intimately associated with the material through which it is expressed in his work.”

This same sort of argument has recently been applied to the realistic potential of CG animation. The idea is that the ultra-realistic computer simulations can take away from the capacity that the animation medium has to create stylized shape and movement, which can have more psychological and emotional resonance. The unquestioning pursuit of imitation of nature can blind an artist to the conscious choices that an artist must make.

I only partially agree with Speed on this point. As much as I love stylization and caricature, I also believe that extreme realism is anything but a "meretricious deception," and achieving it is not easy, especially not in paint. Even if one's goal were to hold up a perfect mirror to nature in oil paint or digital animation, that would only be possible with a sophisticated awareness of the limitations of even those tools. And ultra-realism is capable of conveying subjective emotions, depending on the spirit and skill of the artist.



3. Central to Speed’s argument is that every art medium has a limitation, whether it be stop motion animation, black and white film, charcoal pencils, pen and ink, or sanguine. Great masters, he says, “represent nature in terms of whatever medium they worked in, and never overstepped this limitation."

4. I do agree with Speed that students are well advised to approach oil painting with self-imposed limitations, such as monochrome or a limited palette. Such limitations are liberating.

5. Then, Speed lists each of the drawing media: lead pencil, silverpoint, charcoal, red chalk (sanguine), black Conté, white chalk, lithography, pen and ink, and paper. Reading his descriptions of each of them was inspiring to me, as I haven't tried several of them, such as silverpoint and lithography.

In the comments I'd love to hear from people who have tried some of the less common materials that he refers to, and I wonder how your experience tallies with his.

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The Practice and Science of Drawing is available in various formats:
1. Inexpensive softcover edition from Dover, (by far the majority of you are reading it in this format)
2. Fully illustrated and formatted for Kindle.
3. Free online Archive.org edition.
4. Project Gutenberg version
Articles on Harold Speed in the Studio Magazine The Studio, Volume 15, "The Work of Harold Speed" by A. L. Baldry. (XV. No. 69. — December, 1898.) page 151.
and The Windsor Magazine, Volume 25, "The Art of Mr. Harold Speed" by Austin Chester, page 335. (thanks, अर्जुन)

GJ Book Club on Pinterest (Thanks, Carolyn Kasper)
GJ Facebook page

Overview of the blog series
Announcing the GJ Book Club
Chapter 1: Preface and Introduction
Chapter 2: Drawing
Chapter 3: Vision
Chapter 4: Line Drawing
Chapter 5: Mass Drawing
Chapter 6: Academic and Conventional
Chapter 7: The Study of Drawing
Chapter 8: Line Drawing, Practical
Chapter 9: Mass Drawing
Chapter 10: Rhythm
Chapter 11: Variety of Lines
Chapter 12: Curved Lines
Chapter 13: Variety of Mass
Chapter 14: Unity of Mass
Chapter 15: Balance
Chapter 16: Proportion
Chapter 17: Portrait Drawing
Chapter 18: Visual Memory
Chapter 19: Procedure
Chapter 20: Materials

Rötig's Wild Boars

Georges-Frédéric Rötig,
Wild Boars in a Wood Under Snow, gouache

Georges-Frédéric Rötig was a French artist born in 1873 who painted many kinds of animals, including lions, deer, and pheasants. But he especially enjoyed portraying wild boars.

Georges-Frédéric Rötig, Wild Boar Studies, pencil

He sketched extensively in various media from living and dead specimens, using gouache, oil, and pencil.

Here are some studies in oil. It's a good idea when painting a living animal to start several poses. That way when they move from one to another, you can switch to the one you're seeing at a given moment.

Georges-Frédéric Rötig, Wild Boar Studies

Georges-Frédéric Rötig, Boars in the Sunshine After the Rain,
gouache, 8.7 x 15.4 inches

With all these studies at hand for reference, Rötig could compose his paintings and put the boars in any position.

Georges-Frédéric Rötig, Wild Boars in the Snow, gouache

He studied with Jules Lefebvre, Benjamin Constant, and Jean-Paul Laurens. He showed in the Salon, winning various prizes including the Rosa Bonheur Prize in 1913. Rötig died in 1961.

Georges-Frédéric Rötig, Boars, gouache

There's a page about him on the website of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, which has one of his paintings.

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Another great painter of wild boars was the Dutch artist Rien Poortvliet.

Viscous Forms Melting in CGI

There's something mesmerizing about watching little dragons made of semi-viscous cookie batter falling helplessly into heaps and melting into each other. (Link to YouTube)

Reminder: Outdoor Market in Gouache

Eugene Galien Laloue (1854 - 1941) La Gare de l'Est. 
39 by 69.5cm., 15 1/2 by 27 1/4 in. gouache on paper

In case you missed the announcement late last month, I've issued the challenge to paint an outdoor market in gouache using three colors and white.

Charles Walter Simpson, 1885-1971 Newlyn fish market, gouache

Here's a link to the original blog post, and there are already some exciting entries being uploaded to the Facebook Event page.  The deadline is August 31.
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Own the 72-minute feature "Gouache in the Wild"
• HD MP4 Download at Gumroad $14.95
• or HD MP4 Download at Sellfy (for Paypal customers) $14.95
• DVD at Purchase at Kunaki.com (Region 1 encoded NTSC video) $24.50

Hoffbauer's Civil War Mural Sketches

Charles Hoffbauer (1875-1957) painted a series of murals about the Civil War known as the Memorial Military Murals. They're in Richmond, Virginia, and they have recently been restored.

The Virginia Historical Society owns the sketches that Hoffbauer did in preparation for painting the murals. He had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and followed a fairly typical method of the time. 

He began by studying whatever photographs and accounts he could find of the battles, and he produced thousands of sketches. Here are some of his quick sketches of a drummer boy to get just the right action.

Here is one of his studies from a costumed model standing in for Robert E. Lee, with a grid drawn over the study to allow it to be transferred to the canvas.

Hoffbauer produced the murals between 1913 and 1921. He would have been familiar with the sculptures of Rodin and Remington, and the maquettes of Meissonier. Hoffbauer's clay reference maquettes have a vitality all their own.

The maquettes helped him with perspective and staging. You can see a grouping of maquettes in the right foreground of this photo. Leaned up against the painting are some of the small color sketches he referred to. The low table in the middle contains other sketches, which number in the thousands.

Sometimes the maquettes were pretty elaborate, but it was a great way to work out the groupings and silhouettes. Hoffbauer didn't end up using this composition at all because it shows the backs of the Confederates, and he feared it would be perceived as a portrayal of retreat.

Wikipedia on Charles Hoffbauer

Article in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, "Making the Confederate Murals"

More about using maquettes, sketches, grids, and costumed models in my book: Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist

New Illustration History Website

Last weekend the Norman Rockwell Museum introduced a new illustration history website, which provides an rich resource for fans, collectors, and scholars.

The website includes capsule summaries of each period of illustration, starting in the Paleolithic, and going all the way through the 20th century decade by decade. 

Some of the major names in illustration are featured with bios and sample images. There's also a growing collection of essays which will be written by museum staff and scholars of illustration around the world. The list of resources includes blogs, recommended books, college study programs, and interview videos.

For example, in this 2004, video, (Link to video) Illustration historian Walt Reed (1917-2015) talks about how he got started as an educator for the Famous Artists School, how he got to know Norman Rockwell, and how that led him to opening the Illustration House gallery. 

The scope of the website encompasses genres such as editiorial illustration, comics, cartooning, storyboarding, tattooing, and architectural illustration.

The focus is primarily on American illustrators, and there are a lot of important names that are inadvertently left out (please mention 'em in the comments!). And they have overlooked many genres of illustration, such as natural history, medical, paleoart, concept art, pin-up, imaginative realism, reportorial, editorial, and paperback covers. But I trust they'll fix these gaps—they're just starting out, and they're open to feedback. 

(Link to video) The Rockwell Museum has a lot of other videos and audio interviews in their collection that they're happily beginning to release, such as this video where Mr. Rockwell talks about how he found "plain, everyday people" from his small New England surroundings to stand in for people of all religions in his painting "The Golden Rule."

N.R.M.'s new Illustration History website

Previously on GJ: Why is There No Illustration Textbook?

Portraits by Maurice de la Tour

Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1704-1788) was a French portrait painter. His self portraits often showed himself confident and smiling, radiating charm and equanimity.

Overcoming his parents objections, he left home as a teenager to go to Paris to pursue his craft. His pastel portraits of noble and royal subjects were the delight of the Salon, because he portrayed his sitters as poised and intelligent.



His compositions were remarkably simple, with soft frontal lighting, serene colors, and well crafted surfaces. No one had painted such lifelike portraits in pastel before.



He was known for working quickly, never tiring his models, and charging reasonable prices. In 1750 he was appointed as the royal painter to King Louis XV.



More and more he painted the most exclusive society set in Paris. His prices went up and he became capricious and whimsical, refusing to paint anyone who didn't please him.

He became more and more eccentric in dealing with his models, insisting on never being interrupted—not even by the king himself, and requiring his models to be precisely punctual. He demanded absolute control over lighting, costume, and pose. If the sitter disobeyed, he would punish them by leaving the portrait unfinished.

By 1766 he began the regrettable practice of retouching and sometimes ruining his earlier works, and in his later years he suffered a nervous breakdown and mental illness.  But his loyal brother stuck with him and took care of him until the end. 

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Book: Maurice-Quentin de la Tour: The greatest pastel portraitist

A short online bio full of anecdotes at OldandSold.com

Dancing with a Pig

This 1907 dance routine between a lady and a guy in a pig costume was probably based on a Vaudeville performance. They dance together for a while and then the pig is embarrassed when his clothes come off. They bow to the audience and go backstage behind the curtain.

But the kicker is at the end (Skip directly to 2:00) when a closeup of the pig's face shows him grimacing, waggling his ears, and sticking out his tongue, which is delightfully creepy (Link to YouTube). Thanks, Mel!

GJ Book Club Chapter 19: Harold Speed on Procedure

On the GJ Book Club, we're looking at Chapter 19: "Procedure" in Harold Speed's 1917 classic The Practice and Science of Drawing.

This is a short chapter, but it's crammed full of valuable pointers about the importance of intentionality in drawing. So I thought I'd pull out a few of my favorite sentences. I'll number them in case you want to refer to those points in the comments.

Byam Shaw criticizing a student's work

1. "It is seldom if ever that an artist puts on paper anything better than he has in his mind before he starts, and usually it is not nearly so good."

[James here] There's a corollary— if I have nothing in my mind when I start, I can be sure of producing nothing worthwhile.

2. "Try and see in your mind's eye the drawing you mean to do, and then try and make your hand realise it, making the paper more beautiful by every touch you give instead of spoiling it by a slovenly manner of procedure."

Drawing by Adolph Menzel

3. "To know what you want to do and then to do it is the secret of good style and technique."

4. "Look well at the model first; try and be moved by something in the form that you feel is fine or interesting, and try and see in your mind's eye what sort of drawing you mean to do before touching your paper." 

[James here] Yes! It's a good idea to sit for a few minutes in front of your subject before you start drawing to collect your thoughts and feelings, imagine the picture you want to make, and focus your energy on how to achieve it.

Drawing by Heinrich Kley. More Kleys on Muddy Colors today.

5. "Be extremely careful about the first few strokes you put on your paper: the quality of your drawing is often decided in these early stages."

Yeah, but don't get nervous.

6. "It is much easier to put down a statement correctly than to correct a wrong one; so out with the whole part if you are convinced it is wrong."

When I have to rub out a section and start over, I always remind myself that Sargent did that many times to get a good portrait.

7. "Do not work too long without giving your eye a little rest; a few moments will be quite sufficient.

A good reason to work standing. You're more likely to back up and look with a fresh eye.

8. "Do not go labouring at a drawing when your mind is not working."

You can tell from across the room (without even seeing the drawing) if an artist is doing a good a drawing by looking at their posture and their level of engagement.

Drawing by John Vanderpoel

9. "In the final stages of a drawing or painting, when, in adding details and small refinements, it is doubly necessary for the mind to be on fire with the initial impulse, or the main qualities will be obscured and the result enfeebled by these smaller matters."

This is why doing a thumbnail can be a good thing; it reminds you of what attracted you at the beginning.

10. "The great aim of the draughtsman should be to train himself to draw cleanly and fearlessly."

11. "Let painstaking accuracy be your aim for a long time. "

12. "Try and express yourself in as simple, not as complicated a manner as possible."

13. "Every student should begin collecting reproductions of the things that interest him."

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Harold Speed (Dover ed.)

The Practice and Science of Drawing is available in various formats:

1. Inexpensive softcover edition from Dover, (by far the majority of you are reading it in this format)

2. Fully illustrated and formatted for Kindle.

3. Free online Archive.org edition.

4. Project Gutenberg version

Articles on Harold Speed in the Studio Magazine The Studio, Volume 15, "The Work of Harold Speed" by A. L. Baldry. (XV. No. 69. — December, 1898.) page 151.

and The Windsor Magazine, Volume 25, "The Art of Mr. Harold Speed" by Austin Chester, page 335. (thanks, अर्जुन)

GJ Book Club on Pinterest (Thanks, Carolyn Kasper)

GJ Facebook page


Overview of the blog series
Announcing the GJ Book Club
Chapter 1: Preface and Introduction
Chapter 2: Drawing
Chapter 3: Vision
Chapter 4: Line Drawing
Chapter 5: Mass Drawing
Chapter 6: Academic and Conventional
Chapter 7: The Study of Drawing
Chapter 8: Line Drawing, Practical
Chapter 9: Mass Drawing
Chapter 10: Rhythm
Chapter 11: Variety of Lines
Chapter 12: Curved Lines
Chapter 13: Variety of Mass
Chapter 14: Unity of Mass
Chapter 15: Balance
Chapter 16: Proportion
Chapter 17: Portrait Drawing
Chapter 18: Visual Memory
Chapter 19: Procedure
Chapter 20: Materials

Twitter Fun

I'm excited to pass the 1000 followers mark on Twitter, especially since I only very recently tried it out. 

The content that I put there is sometimes a little different from what I put out on Facebook and the blog. Below are the most recent tweets. 

1. James Gurney ‏@GurneyJourney  7h7 hours ago

   ART TIP: Just have one accent area of light. Two areas divides the power by half. More than two drains the life out.

   5 retweets15 favorites
   
2. James Gurney ‏@GurneyJourney  7h7 hours ago

   ART TIP: The shadow area and the illuminated area look best if there's a contrast of color temperature as well as of value.

   16 retweets48 favorites
   

If you do Twitter, please follow me @GurneyJourney.