apr 23
I’m starting on a couple of new larger drawings, and because I have never really drawn a snake,* I have done a few rough sketches to see how the expression changes with the shape of the head. This is a coachwhip, from Texas, and these show a wider head than true species type. I did one sketch with the head all nice and round and narrow, as it should be, but it looked a little bit too cute, and I want a hint of menace…
I’ll do sketches like this because once I start the actual drawing, I begin by making a lot of loose lines and don’t really “draw” it in, and I have to be able to feel my way around where something should be without actually seeing it. I guess what I’m saying is that I visualize it, and then make the work appear from that. Not always easy.
The most hilarious installation shot EVER: one of my first squirrel drawings has a new home: here is a pic of the loft where it has been installed. Love it.
*addendum: I just realized that I have drawn a snake before, once, in my initial blog project back in 2003. Link here.
April 23rd, 2008 18:09
Man! I am officially green with envy that M & C have one of your squirrel drawings!
I don’t care if I’m being nice or complimentary. I love your approach to ‘not drawing’. I won’t begin to get philosophical or art theory on your approach, but I have a feeling that you have invented this way of ‘not drawing’… is this so?
I’m always setting myself up for correction… but honestly I haven’t encountered your way drawing anywhere else.
April 23rd, 2008 21:15
Hi Catherine- I like the insight you provided in this post into your drawing approach. It’s interesting how so many of the “conventions” of drawing have to get tossed out for us to be true to the specific needs of a work. As a teacher, I sometimes feel like a complete hypocrite when I spend all day pounding these traditional drawing concepts into students and then completely dismiss them in my own studio work.
April 25th, 2008 18:33
Catherine,
On the topic of squirrels…
I found this and thought I’d send it your way:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=561946&in_page_id=1770
I know the Daily Mail is a British tabloid so I am not sure how accurate this is…
A.
April 26th, 2008 09:09
Re: Daily Mail article: Yeah - I’m not sure what to make of that - the Gray Squirrels definitely pushed out the Red Squirrels in England, and are two separate species. But I had always thought that the “Black Squirrels” were just a melanistic form of the Gray Squirrel, and since they are rarer in the wild than in parks (probably get picked off more easily), I have always assumed that there are just more of them breeding in the gene pool in parks. They are a mutant, in the sense that they have melanistic pigments that make them dark, but this testosterone level thing is a new one. And I think they are still the same species and interbreed with the Grays - there really are all sorts of colors out there, especially in urban parks where life is cushier - from reddish to gray to dark gray to black… and the occasional white/albino.
Mark L - know anything about this?
April 26th, 2008 09:25
Re: drawing approach: Yeah, I know what you mean. My drawing technique is really pretty far removed from academic approaches. And by academic I mean not only 19th Century classicism, but latter-20th Century Art School Academic as well. Though I could never truly claim to be an outsider, since I have been immersed in this for so long, and have tried so many different approaches, I certainly have done my share of throwing out what others have decreed sacred. It was always interesting while teaching, as you mentioned, because I wanted my students to think for themselves and find varied paths, but at the same time there were things to actually teach. I was always dancing around that.
April 26th, 2008 15:31
Cathy,
In response to the ‘outsider’ idea… so if one ‘invents’ an artistic approach that only that person uses (until it get’s copied later of course…), does that put someone in the borderline ‘outsider’ realm? (That would really mess with my head if that was so…) Or is it deemed ‘outsider’ if the artist doesn’t master the conventional teqniques first… (I think I may have answered my question…)
April 26th, 2008 15:56
When I think “outsider,” I’m thinking someone who developed their work without being involved in either arts academia or the art world. Someone who has not read Barthes, been through a beginning drawing class, or hung out with more mainstream famous artist types. Darger, for instance, who has become rather overly influential, even academically. I mention him because he’s so absorbed into insider art by now, and because there’s a show examining his influence right now at the American Folk Art Museum. Link:
http://www.folkartmuseum.org/default.asp?id=1895
Not that I think of myself as insider, either, mind you.
April 27th, 2008 05:27
But, do you like snakes? Really like?
ie: have you had them as pets, pick them up when you see them…et?
That drawing is veering a bit towards the Kaa, if you get my drift. Is that your intention?
RE: Darger’s influence on Barthes reading academes: well, it was never his intention, it was what everyone made of it after the fact. It’s never about the work, it’s what people make of other people making something of it.
Mark (god I need coffee and birds)
April 27th, 2008 07:29
Tee hee - the larger drawing, not so much.. I should send you the photo, though, cause the source is way Kaa too..
April 27th, 2008 15:19
I really enjoy Coachwhips and wish they were in New England. Thier patterning and color is really impressive (the last third being such a different color than the rest of the body). Fast snakes always freak folks out and there are a number of folk myths about the Coachwhip, but the following cited in Wiki is just about the wierdest.
“Another myth of the rural southeastern United States is of a snake that when disturbed, would chase a person down, wrap him up in its coils, whip him to death with its tail, and then make sure he is dead by sticking its tail up the victim’s nose to see if he is still breathing. In actuality, coachwhips are nowhere near strong enough to overpower a person, and they do not whip with their tails, even though it is long and looks very much like a whip. Their bites are also harmless.”
I like the fact that the author of this citation had to add that disclaimer at the end.
But they do steal your wallets!
Mark