Modern Dance, 2008, by Fred Hatt
A sense of rhythm is as central to the art of drawing as it is to music. It is the movement of the artist’s hand that gives a drawing its sense of movement and life. Strokes that are fluid and responsive imbue a sketch with vitality.
I run a session at Spring Studio in Manhattan, where beginners struggling to get the hang of drawing from life work alongside accomplished artists who have logged many thousands of hours at the drawing board. If you look at people at work, you’ll notice that most beginners draw tentatively. They measure a lot and try to use intellectual knowledge to figure out what they’re seeing before they make their marks. There is no rhythm or flow to their lines. The parts of the body are drawn separately and never quite seem to integrate into a lifelike figure. But watch a really good artist and you’ll see that the hand is in motion most of the time, moving with the sureness and lightness of a conductor’s baton.
Lounging Ryan, 2008, by Fred Hatt
The contours of the body are all curves of various kinds. In drawing, these curves are translated into movements of the hand. I allow my perception to flow along the contours like a skier gliding along the grooves and rises of a snow surface. The drawing hand moves at a fairly constant pace, and those contours become rhythmic gestures traced onto the paper.
Natural, 2010, by Fred Hatt
In quick drawing, I almost never do any kind of measurement to determine proportions. If the flow of movement is constant, proportions fall into place because of a sense of rhythm in the changes of direction. The movement of the hand continues even when the pencil or brush is lifted from the paper, so that every rounded form is carried through from the front to the back, or from one side to the other. Thus even an unshaded line drawing is given a sense of solidity and connection.
Arch, 2010, by Fred Hatt
In longer, more finished drawings, I do measure proportional and angular relationships and make corrections, but only after I’ve first captured the feeling of the pose through this rhythmic tracing of contours. Proportions rigidly applied can crush the life out of a sketch, while giving priority to the flow and connection of forms can make a drawing communicate living energy even if the proportions are pretty far off.
Clasped Hands on Hip, 2008, by Fred Hatt
Attitude, 2009, by Fred Hatt
Complex shapes like hands, or complex poses that are hard to analyze in terms of straight lines, become simpler when treated as a continuous flow of curved shapes.
Hands, 2010, by Fred Hatt
Writhe, 2009, by Fred Hatt
The following sketches were done at Cross Pollination at Green Space Studio, a monthly event that offers the opportunity to draw while dancers warm up and move freely in the studio. The dancers aren’t posing – even when they’re stretching or relaxing, they don’t stay in one position for more than a few seconds at a time. The strokes I make are rough gestures, more often responding to memories of fleeting perceptions rather than the simultaneous perceiving and drawing I do in a life drawing session with timed poses.
Dancers Stretching, 2009, by Fred Hatt
Three Moving Figures, 2009, by Fred Hatt
Three Resting Figures, 2009, by Fred Hatt
Improvised Movement, 2008, by Fred Hatt
And here are two large-scale drawings – the first is 30″ x 48″ (76 x 122 cm) and the second is 48″ x 60″ (122 x 152 cm) – that take rhythmic flowing contours beyond the simplicity of the quick sketch:
Nyx, 2009, by Fred Hatt
Star, 2008, by Fred Hatt
If you like the movement drawings from Cross Pollination, check out this post for more.
6 Comments
I admire the liveliness of this set, particularly in the quicker drawings.
It also seems like that sense of life and energy is increased by displaying multiple gestures together — either on the same page or side by side.
Regarding your comment about beginners drawing tentatively, I think it takes a lot of skill to reduce something as complex as the human figure into a “simple” gesture drawing. Actually this paradox is true of many things, including writing clearly, streamlining processes, or even product design. Simplicity is not the same as simplistic. Simplicity is elegant and robust.
Andrew, you’re right. I should perhaps have added that it takes a lot of practice to achieve that simplicity and gestural directness in drawing, but that the practice has to be aimed towards that directness from the start. When I am advising beginners whose work is stiff and disconnected, I often suggest constructing the figure using overlapping full ovals, no other shapes allowed. I’ve seen striking improvements in both proportion and liveliness when students have tried that method.
Fred,
Posts like this make me wish you were interested in teaching (I know you’re not). I’ve witnessed among students in drawing classes, that “tentative”, cautious approach you describe, so many times. Now I have heard some instructors encourage the flowing, rhythmic lines you talk about, but not nearly enough, in my opinion. The results are those meticulously measured, well-proportioned drawings with the life “crushed” out of them.
This is one of the many reasons that the models are such great fans of your work. You capture our movement, our lines, our fully integrated form, and our distinct, individual energies.
Fantastic post. I look at “Arch”, and I see the pure essence of art modeling, and an artist with the perception and understanding of how to capture it.
Claudia
Yea, yea, everything that Claudia said and then some!:-)
and, and and, of course both you and she do a hell of a lot of teaching in your blog settings!
The ‘Arch’ appeals to me most of this set, the minimum line providing a wealth of candy for the eye and balm for the soul.
The complexity of ‘Star’ is, of course a delight as well. Just out of curiosity, Fred, did you do ‘Star’ in one sitting (of you drawing, not the model posing) or did you come back to the drawing a number of times!
Claudia, the blog is my main teaching platform at this point but I do like working with artists that are committed to learning. I’m self-taught, and part of the reason for that is that I didn’t like the approach of most of the art schools and art gurus, either those who think they have the one true way of craft, or those who obfuscate with theoretical gobbledygook. But I try to teach how to develop perception and to discover your own natural style. I think that’s a lot of what this blog’s about.
Thanks for your appreciation. Some artists do art to please the critics, or the public, or themselves. I’ve always wanted to please the models most of all!
Jim, thanks. “Star” was one session with the model – it was drawn sideways, with the model lying on an exercise ball – and then worked on quite a bit after the model was gone. I don’t remember how many times or how much time, but you perceived correctly that it’s been afterworked a lot.
“Arch” and “Natural” are from a new model named Madelyn from Hawaii, who’s starting to get really good. Pretty sure you’ll see more of her here soon.
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