Weathermap, 2011, watercolor on paper, 38" x 34", by Fred Hatt

A few months ago, I made a change in my regular life drawing practice.  My primary drawing medium for over fifteen years had been Caran d’Ache Neocolor II aquarelle crayons.  Aquarelle means watercolor, and the pigments laid down by these crayons can be thinned or blended with water, but I always used them as a dry medium.  Caran d’Ache crayons are similar in size and feel to the familiar Crayola crayons, but they have a much higher pigment density, so they just glow on a background of black or gray paper. One day I decided to change over to a very different medium, to give myself new challenges.  I feel it’s important to keep any creative practice expansive by changing things up in small ways constantly, and in big ways occasionally.  So when I went to the life drawing sessions I began leaving my crayon box at home and bringing instead my watercolor paints and brushes.

There’s a repetition factor in the life drawing practice anyway, as you’ll often see the same models in similar poses to ones you’ve drawn before, and in such a case it’s always more interesting if you can come up with a slightly different approach than the one you used the last time.  Working with a very different medium, one you haven’t yet mastered, is certainly enough of a change to keep it fresh.  I’ve begun to amass a collection of similar pieces in the two media, and in this post I’ll be sharing pairs of images.  Each one of these pairs is of the same model, in similar poses, drawn at similar sizes and over roughly the same amount of working time, but one of each pair is a watercolor painting while the other is a crayon drawing.

The painting at the top of this post and the crayon drawing just below are both studies of model, actor and artist Alley, rendered in free, expressive strokes in their respective media.  I’ve always liked the linear aspect of drawing, as the movement of the line captures a feeling of energy.  Interestingly, in comparing these two, the painting has more linear energy than the drawing does, but the crayons on a black ground give more of an impression of light.

Rotation, 2006, aquarelle crayon on paper, 30" x 30", by Fred Hatt

Next, here are two larger-than-life-size heads of Michael, the first a crayon drawing and the second a watercolor painting.

Michael W., 2009, aquarelle crayon on paper, 28" x 20", by Fred Hatt

Michael W, 2011, watercolor on paper, 19" x 24", by Fred Hatt

Initially the crayon drawing may appear more linear, but a closer inspection shows that both versions are built up from linear strokes following the contours of the face.  My painting style is becoming quite similar to my drawing style.  The biggest difference is that the crayon drawings start with a dark surface and add light, while the paintings start from white paper and build shadows.  The crayon drawings are an additive process, like modeling a sculpture from clay, while the watercolor paintings are a subtractive process, like carving a sculpture from a block of stone or wood.

Details of two portraits of Michael W, 2009 crayon (left) and 2011 watercolor (right)

Here are two 20-minute sketches of Lilli’s back.  Notice how free is the movement of the hand in the lighter colors of the crayon drawing.  I can add higher-value colors little by little in this scribbly fashion until it’s light enough.

Sidesit, 2009, aquarelle crayon on paper, 20" x 28", by Fred Hatt

In watercolor painting, the white paper is dominant and blinding, but a single wrong touch can destroy it.  The sculptural analogy holds here – in watercolor painting, as in stone carving, a misplaced stroke can ruin it all.  The hand must be confident and sure.

Seated Contrapposto, 2011, watercolor on paper, 15" x 20", by Fred Hatt

These two 20-minute portrait sketches of Mike (not the same Mike as in the third and fourth pictures in this post) show me trying to go against the tendencies of the media mentioned in the notes on the Lilli back sketches.  In the crayon drawing I’m trying to give the lines great clarity and confidence.

Sketcher and Poser, 2011, aquarelle crayon on paper, 20" x 25", by Fred Hatt

In the watercolor painting below I’m trying to be as loose and sketchy as the cloudiest crayon drawing.  This is mostly painted with a fan brush or comb brush, the paint kept fairly dry.

Michael H, 2011, watercolor on paper, 19" x 24", by Fred Hatt

I’ll conclude with another pair of more developed drawings of Lilli, in both of which she closes her eyes.  (Lest this pairing give the wrong impression, I assure you that Lilli is always alert and focused as a model, eyes closed or not!)  Both of these pieces are worked in many layers, to approach a realistic impression of color and solidity.  A closer look at either one, though, will show the construction of cross contour lines, with colors mixed on the paper, not on the palette.

Reverie, 2008, aquarelle crayon on paper, 28" x 20", by Fred Hatt

Standing, Eyes Closed, 2011, watercolor on paper, 19" x 24", by Fred Hatt

Readers, I invite you to comment on these pairs – what strikes you about the difference between a crayon drawing and a watercolor painting of the same subject?

Blessed Solstice, Happy Hanukkah, Io Saturnalia, Merry Christmas, Winter Greetings, Tolerable Festivus, New Moon, Epiphany, Kwanzaa, Yule!

To all my readers, a wish for the season:  As the longest night finally awakes in ultramarine glow, may the sun without and the sun within commence to wax!

(Digital illustration by Fred Hatt.  Tree silhouette from here.)

Persona, 2011, by Fred Hatt

I am by my essential nature more drawer than painter.  In taking on painting as a challenge, I have approached it as a form of drawing.  I seek spontaneity, linear expressiveness and energy, and a direct connection between perception and mark-making.  I’m not particularly concerned with sophisticated composition or illusionistic realism.  In drawing, perceptions are traced as lines, and drawn figures remain transparent, because they’re not all filled in.  This allows multiple images to coexist, as they often do in the mind, or as they do in the painting above.  Even when a drawing or painting isn’t explicitly layered in this way, I like it to have that kind of openness.

In quick sketches, I use the brush in much the same way as I use a pencil or pen, freely tracing the contours.  The brush is even more sensitive to the motions of the hand, and indicates shadowed areas more efficiently than the pencil can.

Claudia Three Poses, 2011, by Fred Hatt

To draw with the brush is to dance the contours of your subject.

Ridge, 2011, by Fred Hatt

I always start with this kind of rhythmic following of the movement of the figure.  The body is an expression of vitality, and even in stillness it expresses motion and projects energy with its curves and angles.

Robyn Poses, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In this post I share a selection of recent watercolor paintings of the figure, both raw and essential quick sketches and longer, more layered studies like the portrait below.  In painting, as in drawing, I try to let the strokes follow the three-dimensional form of the subject.

Claudia, 2011, by Fred Hatt

I’m using transparent watercolors, but I’ve also sometimes introduced white gouache (opaque watercolor).  In drawing, I usually preferred to use gray or black paper because I could draw highlights.  Watercolor needs a white paper base, but the white gouache lets me paint highlights.

Crouch, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The simplest figures convey emotion very directly.

Mendicant, 2011, by Fred Hatt

When I have more time, I give more attention to the subtleties of color and form and light, and the relation of the subject to its setting.

Knee Clasp, 2011, by Fred Hatt

That kind of development gives solidity to the image.  Maintaining transparency preserves the potential of movement.

Expand, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In the developed drawings, I’m working on a painting technique that is similar to my scribbly, optical color mixing style of drawing.  I use fan brushes and comb brushes to sketch with cross-contour lines.

Male, 2011, by Fred Hatt

Does developing the color and solidity actually obscure some of the emotional expressiveness?  Or are the quick sketches more expressive just because the shorter time allows the model to hold a more extreme position?

Anguish, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In a medium-length pose, like the two 20-minute drawings below, I combine a contour-based linear sketch with a relatively simple development of color and solidity.

Angle of Repose, 2011, by Fred Hatt

Chin on Palm, 2011, by Fred Hatt

Some artists don’t like quick poses because the limited time isn’t enough to go through the multi-stage process of creating an illusion of reality.  I like quick poses because models can explore everything the human body can do.  The range of poses that can be held for a minute or two is vastly larger than the range of poses that can be held for hours.  That fact was enough to motivate me to learn to draw fast!

Headstand, 2011, by Fred Hatt

There’s something inherently contradictory about painting or drawing.  I’m trying to be as loose and expressive as possible, and at the same time, as accurate as possible.

Angled Torso, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The lines need to carry the rhythm.  Color is more expressive the more approximate it is!  More layers make it more realistic, but sometimes fewer layers is more interesting.

Knees and Elbows, 2011, by Fred Hatt

Here’s one way of starting:  blobs (yellow), followed by hard contours (blue).

Stepping, 2011, by Fred Hatt

Everything is built out of gestures.

Omega, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In a more developed portrait, layers of color tendencies approximate perceptual colors.  Every stroke is made as though the brush is touching the body.

Traveler Returned, 2011, by Fred Hatt

When the brush touches the paper, it must be fully charged with the energy of life.

Black Hair, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The original watercolor paintings pictured in this post range in size from 11″ x 14″ (28 x 35.5 cm) to 18″ x 24″ (45.75 x 61 cm).

Attraction, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The Center for Remembering and Sharing, or CRS, is an organization devoted to supporting and teaching healing arts and creative arts.  Their studios near Union Square in Manhattan host dance and yoga classes, bodywork sessions, film screenings, performances (music, dance and theater), and meditation and energy healing circles.  I got involved with CRS several years ago because their excellent performing arts program, directed by Christopher Pelham, is one of a handful of organizations (along with Cave and the Japan Society) regularly presenting  butoh dance, the experimental Japanese performance art that grows out of the work of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno.  I first studied butoh in 1992 (in a workshop at La MaMa Experimental Theatre with Yoko Ashikawa), and have performed and collaborated with many butoh artists since then.  On several occasions I was involved in events at CRS, as a performer, video or light artist, or performance videographer.  Through those events I got to know Chris Pelham and CRS’s founder Yasuko Kasaki, and in 2010 they invited me to exhibit my artwork at CRS.  Last year I blogged about it as an upcoming show and posted a transcript of the interview Yasuko conducted with me at the opening.  In this post I’ll share all the drawings I made specifically for the CRS show, and talk a little about my experience making them.

Healing Circle 1, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Aside from the creative arts programs, CRS is a center for spiritual healing.  Practitioners use visualizations, focused breathing, and meditative mental states to channel and direct energy, much as yogis or martial artists do.  I thought this would be an interesting subject to approach as an artist, so I observed and sketched at some of the healing circles at CRS.  These large ink-brush drawings are based on rough sketches I made on-site.

Healing Circle 2, 2010, by Fred Hatt

It’s been a while since I attended these sessions, and some of the sessions were conducted in Japanese, which I don’t understand, so my memory could be wrong in some details, but I think all the healing sessions began with guided and silent meditation.  I believe there was some private speaking between each healer and his or her receiver.  The person receiving healing would sit meditating in a chair, while the healer would move around them, not touching them, but directing the hands towards various parts of the person’s body as though beaming heat waves at them.  Often the healer would raise one hand towards the sky, connecting to universal energy or Holy Spirit, and face the other hand towards the receiver.

Healing Circle 3, 2010, by Fred Hatt

At other times, a healer would move their hands several inches above the receiver’s body, as though smoothing fabric or combing hair in the air around the receiver.  In this drawing, instead of depicting the healers, I drew the paths of the movements of their hands around the receivers, giving, perhaps, an impression of the patterns of energy the healers perceive or conceive surrounding the body.

Healing Circle 4, 2010, by Fred Hatt

If you know my portraits and figure drawings, you’ll know that I often show “energy lines” or “auras” like this, in work that has nothing to do with spiritual healing.  People sometimes ask me if I can perceive energy, if I really see all the colors I put into my drawings.  I’ll try to answer those questions in this post, the remainder of which is illustrated with my drawings of the hands of various CRS healing practitioners, sketched from life as they sat in meditation.

Blessing, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

I have no sixth sense.  Like anyone else, my eyes perceive only light, and it is through seeing patterns of light that I can discern physical forms and movements.  Through many years of practice in observational drawing, I have trained myself to look with sustained attention, and to notice very subtle variations in form and color.  Through the practice of photography and filmmaking, I have learned a lot about how light works.

Connection, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Science tells us that solid matter is essentially an illusion, that all the diverse substances and objects in the world are just different arrangements of the same fundamental stuff, essentially patterns of energy.  The fundamental particles and forces that make up a blade of grass are the same as those that make a blade of steel, and fire and water are different patterns, not different elements.  We living creatures grow out of chemicals forged in stars, and every breath we breathe contains atoms that have been part of countless other things and beings.

Focus, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Our perception has evolved to show us a world of solid matter and separate objects.  For basic animal functioning, it’s a highly effective way of understanding what is around us, but it is an illusion.  I have made it a project of my life to try to train myself to see through that illusion, to make the unified field of reality not just an intellectual understanding, but a lived experience.  It seemed to me that our default mode of interpreting sensory input is the most powerful impediment to getting the deeper reality of what we know, and that a practice of honing perception might be a fruitful path.  My visual art practices are about learning to see the world in a way that I believe is truer than the default way, and about communicating that vision to others.  To put it simply, I try to perceive physical things, especially the human form, as patterns of energy, rather than as objects.

Heart, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Perhaps some people really can perceive invisible energies directly through the eyes.  Synesthesia is a well-known phenomenon in which sensory pathways get crossed, so that a synesthete might perceive particular musical notes as having colors, for example.  There are many variations of synesthesia, and perhaps seeing auras is a synesthetic phenomenon.  Alternatively, it could be a matter of intuition heightened by imagination – that’s what some who claim to teach clairvoyance seem to be describing.  I don’t know, because I don’t perceive that way, though intuitive imagination is a fundamental aspect of art, mine as much as anyone else’s, and you can see that in these examples especially in the backgrounds, which are essentially imaginative developments around the form of the hands (more on backgrounds later).

Insight, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Instead, my practice is to try to link the actual mark-making as closely as possible to the act of perceiving.  Ideally, every saccadic glance should be a stroke of the crayon or brush or whatever.  Every mark should move as though it is flowing over the surface it is describing.  The curves and rhythms of the movements of my drawing hand should reflect the patterns of organic growth that create the forms of the body, or whatever else I am drawing.  My aim is to work in the most direct and dynamic way possible, and in that way to achieve an image in which flow IS form.

Light, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

This approach can be steered more toward classical realism, by working to make contours and gradations as accurate as possible to what I see, or it can be steered more toward expressionism, by allowing the marks to be freer and looser – by letting the hand dance on the paper.  It’s like the musical distinction between playing it straight and swinging.  Generally the looser style creates a more immediate impression of energy in the viewer of the drawing.  I find that accuracy of proportion is rather unimportant – if the lines have the flow of life, the drawing has life.

Receiving, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The colors are just exaggerated from what I see.  In the drawing below, for example, I could see in looking at these hands that the knuckles were slightly more reddish than the rest of the skin, and the area around the veins slightly more bluish.  Color perception is highly relativistic anyway – our way of perceiving color is to compare adjacent areas to see how different they are.   In drawing, I often exaggerate these differences.  If I’m going for the more realistic style, I work at neutralizing the extreme colors by layering them with opposing colors, and the end product can look fairly convincing, when the colors combine in the eye.  If I’m being more expressionistic, I like to keep the more extreme color contrasts.

Rest, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

In these drawings, the backgrounds are fanciful abstractions.  Sometimes elements of the real background come into it.  In the drawing above, the river of color underneath the hands contains some forms derived from the wrinkles in the pants of the model, whose hands were resting on her thighs.  More often in these drawings, the backgrounds are made by echoing and extending curves in the subject, making a pattern that derives from the hands but also tries to express something of the intuitive feeling I get from the individual who is posing for me.  This aspect of these drawings really is the imaginative projection I discussed above, but it takes place strictly on the paper – it’s not something I could see without drawing.

Strength, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

I suppose it could be objected that my practice of working as closely as possible to direct perception of the subject, while treating the pictorial background as a projected abstraction, remains a form of separating objects, and therefore does not achieve the vision of unity I described as my ideal.  Alas, my practice doesn’t quite meet my goal.  It’s just the best I’ve been able to do so far in depicting the body as a pattern of energy, and it’s still a work in progress.

Warmth, Healing Hands series, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The “Healing Circle” ink brush drawings are 22.25″ x 30″ (56.5 cm x 76.2 cm).  The “Healing Hands” aquarelle crayon drawings are 18.4″ x 24.5″ (46.7 cm x 62.2 cm).

Texture in Gray and Tan, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

I don’t usually think of my urban landscape photos as Fine Art Photography.  They’re just visual impressions, casually collected by technological means.  Unless it’s a job, I rarely go out specifically to make photographs.  If I’m going to the kind of event I think will attract a lot of shutterbugs, I’ll deliberately leave my camera at home.  But when I’m going about my business around town, provided I’m not too rushed or carrying too much other stuff, I often carry a camera with me.  Looking for pictures in the world around me is an exercise in seeing the world abstractly.  I like patterns and geometry, randomness (chaos) and design (order), elemental and optical phenomena.

Sometimes the patterns of shadows and light, when framed in the viewfinder, look like abstract expressionist paintings, especially when organic scatterings come together with rectilinear structures, as in the above image of mottled tree shadows falling across subtle bands of colored stucco and concrete.  In the picture below, the mottled pattern is light reflected from the windows of another building, a towering projection of fire in the middle of a monolithic shadow.

Light Within Shadow, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Decorative ironwork makes the stark necessity of security an occasion for creative design, and the visual layering of the black iron and the dark shadows in afternoon sunlight make a complex tessellation.

Cracquelure, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

At night, multiple light sources, of different colors, come from different directions, creating subtle patterns.

Stair Shadows, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Here, the sun shines through windows of beveled glass onto a tile floor perhaps inspired by Piet Mondrian.

Sunlight Through Leaded Glass, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

A geometrical arrangement in red, beige, and dark gray frames an adumbral totem of modernity.

Cobra, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

Another signpost is the figure on a ground of stippled gold and teal.

Park and Adelphi, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

In a shadowy corridor, a beam of light shining through a skylight gives this brass number a soft aura.

Three, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

In early morning sunlight, shadows and reflections from chrome architectural fixtures play like wild luminous graffiti across this stodgy corporate structure.

Plaza, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

I think of this one as a study in polyrhythms, as the different repeating intervals of light and dark, thick and thin, angled and perpendicular, come together.

Interval Variations, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

This composition of perspective and piebald is held together by the patch of bright orange netting in the corner.

Under a Scaffold, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Here, shadows of trees cast directly by the sun overlap shadows cast by the sun bouncing off of greenish glass, a vision worthy of a great abstract colorist like Joan Mitchell.

Shadows in Green and Gray, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Two lamps cast cones of light like sentries guarding this Romanesque arch.

Lamps and Arch, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This porch light in the late day sun projects a robotic face on the wall.

Daytime Nightlight, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Someone tried to relieve the ennui-producing rigidity of this building façade by putting the vinyl siding on at a 45 degree angle, but the venous shadows of bare trees are what finally do the trick.

Winter Composition, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Don’t rectangles and organic branching patterns complement each other wonderfully?

Storefront, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

In this nighttime shot, the shadow of a cluster of signs and the crosswalk markings add their jagged geometry to a well-worn street corner.

Bold Stripes, 2008, photo by Fred Hatt

On this wall beneath an iron grating, two white lights and one yellow one create a network of stripes over the masonry.

White and Yellow Light, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Light reflecting from (I think)  a bowl of water in the sun throws this ghost on an old tin ceiling, with a bit of a rainbow forming about the lower left edge.

Refractive Projection, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The cable installers never seem much concerned about neatness, and the angled sun turns their tangle into an art brut scrawl.

Coaxial Cluster, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

The columns in this neoclassical temple are cast concrete, but sunlight and bare trees give them the veined patterns of Carrara marble.

Fluted Columns, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Here the crepuscular rays of a car’s headlights cross the sidewalk slabs from one angle, while the elongated shadow of a bicycle, cast by a sodium-vapor streetlight, cross at another angle.

Crossing Light and Dark, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Here the shadows of decorative ironwork dance across the treads and risers of a New York brownstone stoop.

Filigreed Steps, 2008, photo by Fred Hatt

White stripes, orange splotches, dark windows, a looming presence.

Night House, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

A tree’s narrow leaves make the shadows on this security gate, but it looks like the work of a berserk calligrapher.  The sky blue and pink paint on the wall are the colors of baby announcements, but what kind of world are they being born into?

Shadow Gate, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

The shadow of an ornate carved wooden cross at a Lithuanian church breaks as it falls across a stepped wall.

Segmented Cross, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

When multiple light sources of different colors cast shadows of a single object, the colors neutralize in the bright areas but intensify in the shadows, especially where light of only one color falls.

Tinted Lines, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

The city is designed and constructed of plane surfaces, but without the organic forms of trees and people in motion, it would be nothing.

Sidewalk Shadows, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt