DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt

2010/07/18

Movement Multiples

Filed under: Movement Drawing — Tags: , , , , , , , , — fred @ 21:06

Space Between (Anna), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

In the late 1990’s, an important focus of my drawing practice was capturing the energy of moving figures through expressive line.  This week’s post is a selection of drawings from 1997 through 1999.  All of these feature multiple renderings of the same pose in different positions.  It was my attempt to introduce the dimension of time into the two-dimensional world of the sketch.

Nested (Ignacio), c.1998, by Fred Hatt

In the drawing above, the transition of the figure from upright to fetal forms a natural nested composition, with different colored lines used to keep the phases of the movement separate.  The drawing below is more like a stroboscopic sequence moving across the frame, reminiscent of this kind of photograph I remembered seeing as a kid.

Stage Cross (Arthur), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

Here’s a beautifully simple study of the movement of the spine:

Spinal Movement (Francisca), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

In drawing from a model in motion, it is often impossible to capture the entire figure.  The composition below arises from the bony contours of ribs and arms, shoulderblades and collarbones:

Bony (Francisco), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

A model who is an expressive dancer can convey feeling even in quick movement sketches:

Emotion (Anna), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

Here are two figures, with two phases each:

Turns (Heather), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

Here, the arm of the forward bending figure becomes the leg of the standing figure:

Unfolding (Caitlin), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

Ink drawing with a brush has the spontaneity of dance:

Motion 4, c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

Here, the soft colors seem to be separating from the hard colors:

Stepping Out of Oneself (Miha), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

There are five fragmentary figures here, two drawn softly, in white, using the edge of the crayon, and three drawn crisply, in dark blue, using the point.  The differing techniques make the white and the blue drawings appear to be on different planes:

Circularity (Corinna), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

The cool softness above is contrasted by the hot energy below:

Lunge (Claudia), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

At times, the overlapping lines of the figures cease being figures and become abstract patterns:

Grass (Anna), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

In drawing from moving models, I often focused on one part of the body.  Here, it is the movement of the legs:

Legwork (Joe), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

The simplicity of the ink drawing below makes it possible to see many forms, not just figures, suggested in the flowing brushstrokes.

Motion 3, c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

When the models movements suggest power and vigor, those qualities come through in the drawing:

Explode (Toby), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

A softer style of movement makes a softer drawing:

Shimmy (Nyonnoweh), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

The model for the next two drawings was a dancer whose movements all seemed to flow from a supple spine:

Spinal Flexure (Donna), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

Leap & Turn (Donna), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

In the one below, the model must have been holding the poses for at least a minute, as there are relatively complete figures, kept mostly separated on the page:

Angst (Joe), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

Here two phases of the model’s changing states find expression in the drawing.  The face, like a placid moon, looks down upon the thrusting figures below it:

Serene Vigor (Julie), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

I believe the drawing below arose from a model moving very slowly.  As the upper body gradually changed position, I kept sketching the contours.  In this case slow movement produced a sketch with a lot of energy:

Twist and Reach (Lea), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

Many of these drawings look like they should be painted on the walls of a cave.  They have the roughness and vitality of stone age painting.

Stone (Claudia), c. 1998, by Fred Hatt

All of these drawings were done between the years, 1997 and 1999, mostly at the movement drawing sessions I used to run at Spring Studio in New York.  The color drawings are done with aquarelle crayons and sometimes ink, and are about 18″ x 24″.  Some of the ink drawings here may be as small as 10″ x 10″.  The digital images used in this post were made in the same era as the drawings, by photographing the drawings on 35mm film and scanning the prints, so they’re not quite up to the artwork photography standards I try to maintain today.

Note:  The “Claudia” that is credited as the model in two of the drawings in this post is not the same Claudia that many of my readers know as the blogger of Museworthy.

My portfolio site from this era is still online, and features a selection of movement drawings.

This week I’ll be teaching workshops and doing body painting and other fun things at the Brushwood Folklore Center in Sherman, NY.  I won’t have access to a computer, so forgive me if I don’t reply to your comments right away, or if the next post takes a little more than a week to appear here.

2010/06/28

Reclining, Not Boring

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Poses — Tags: , , , , , , , — fred @ 20:09

Body Helix (Beu), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Some artists denigrate the reclining pose as the choice of the lazy model getting paid to nap.  But reclining poses can embody tension or emotion rather than just relaxation, and the open-minded artist will revel in the chance to see parts of the body foreshortened and juxtaposed in unusual and even complex ways they would never see in a vertically composed pose.  This post is a collection of my recent reclining pose sketches, twenty-minute or ten-minute poses, mostly from the Saturday morning life drawing sessions at Figureworks Gallery in Brooklyn.

The above sketch is as far as possible from the familiar gently-curved sideways reclining nude painted by many artists from Giorgione to Modigliani.  Note particularly the twisted torso, showing both front and back of the body, the balanced angled supports of left arm and leg, and the lower leg folded up the wall.

The posing area at Figureworks is in an archway between two rooms, with artists drawing from both rooms.  Models are not posing in the round, but to two sides, with a sort of frame providing supports for leaning.  The model in the drawing below raised his left leg with his foot up on the wall of the arch:

Dreams (Saeed), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here are some other uses of the wall as a leg support.  Here the body is held in a state of tension between the hands pressing against the floor and the foot pressing against the wall:

Angle Tension (Theresa), 2010, by Fred Hatt

This pose conveys an unusual bold power in the contrast between the closed upper limbs and the open lower limbs propped against the wall:

Arms Crossed Legs Open (Beu), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Another pose by the same model, also using the wall as a support for the legs:

Right Angle (Beu), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Reclining poses can provide interesting challenges in foreshortening.  I try to see the body as though it were a landscape, with the shapes as hills and mountains arranged at different distances.

Hands Clasped Behind (Jiri), 2010, by Fred Hatt

The face is a particular challenge when seen from an angle at which the features are not in standard frontal relationship.  Studying faces from these unusual perspectives can give you a much stronger sense of their three-dimensional structure.

Lying Back (Danielle), 2009, by Fred Hatt

Ribcage (Jiri), 2009, by Fred Hatt

I often approach the foreshortened forms of the body using cross-contours and studying light that strikes the body from opposite my viewing angle, as in these two studies of the model Corey’s unusually well-defined musculature:

Hammock Style (Corey), 2009, by Fred Hatt

Hugging the Blanket (Corey), 2009, by Fred Hatt

Similar techniques are used to convey the form of this beautiful female back:

Callipygia (Lilli), 2009, by Fred Hatt

Various twists and crossings can add interest to reclining poses:

Ankle Knee Cross (Jiri), 2007, by Fred Hatt

The quick sketch below is interesting because you can see my first approach to analyzing the figure, building it out of ovals, in beige, and then a second stage, going for more precision, in black and white, with significant corrections to proportion and relative positions:

L with Twist (Claudia), 2008, by Fred Hatt

That’s Claudia, the Museworthy blogger.  Here’s another of her great poses.  This is dynamism in a horizontal orientation:

Arm Overhead (Claudia), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here are three wonderfully sinuous poses from the model Madelyn:

Complex Repose (Madelyn), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Tight Coil (Madelyn), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Supine Arched (Madelyn), 2010, by Fred Hatt

This model created an evocative pose simply by posing with a flashlight, giving a feeling of lying awake at night in a lonely tent:

Flashlight (Taylor), 2010, by Fred Hatt

Contrasting that waking stillness, the final pose in this post gives me the impression of active dreaming:

Dreaming Puppeteer (Theresa), 2010, by Fred Hatt

In previous posts I haven’t always credited all the models by name, but in this case it seemed appropriate, because these poses are all so creative and expressive.  You’ll notice some of the same names appearing several times.  These are magnificent models, and I would never have been able to make these images without them.

All drawings are aquarelle crayon on paper, sizes ranging from 18″ x 24″ to 20″ x 28″.  All are 10-minute or 20-minute sketches, mostly drawn at Figureworks Gallery.

2010/06/11

Face Plus Body

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Portraits — Tags: , , , , , — fred @ 20:32

Betty, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The portrait and the nude are generally considered distinct and separate genres within pictorial art.  The nude is rarely a depiction of a particular person; rather, it is usually generalized or idealized, used to depict eroticism or heroism, struggle or abjection, joy or disgust as universal phenomena.  The portrait is about conveying the essential character of an individual.  Historically, the line separating these subjects was rarely breached, except in the occasional portrait of a mistress. Alice Neel and Lucian Freud both made highly individualized depictions of nudes, but they’re outliers.  In contemporary art, the body is still nearly always de-individualized and even depersonalized, used as a symbol or provocation.

Piera, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The realistically observed portrait has been a staple of art since the Greeks and Romans, but of all the classic genres it has been the most challenged by the rise of photography and the most marginalized by the conceptual turn of contemporary art.  To me portraiture remains a compelling pursuit.  I believe a drawing or painting captures a subjective reality that photographs often miss, and the essence of a person is a rich and complex subject to tackle.

Jeremiah, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The nude portrait became one of my own primary genres simply because, many years ago, I was asked to be the monitor, or session supervisor, for a weekly three-hour nude pose at Spring Studio.  This isn’t the class I would have chosen to run, as I was more interested in quick poses and movement than in long poses and academic rendering.  Nevertheless, learning to sustain my focus and to develop drawings through a longer process was a great learning experience.

Aimi, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Minerva Durham, the proprietor of Spring Studio, favors models who have unique character, and that surely helps keep it interesting for the more advanced artists.  When you draw from life as a regular practice for years, after a time you struggle more with boredom and the rut than you do with form and proportion.  Drawing endless generic nudes could get a bit dry, but if you try to perceive and capture the specialness of each model, it remains much more interesting.

Sue, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The face and the body both show us something about the person’s character and life experience.  The face is the window to the soul but also the public mask of self-presentation.  In the body we see how the energy flows and rests.  The body also conveys a great deal about the subject’s attitude and way of relating to the world.

Kate, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Nude portraits are nearly impossible to sell in a gallery show.  People love these pictures, but no casual collector wants a recognizable picture of a nude individual hanging in their home – even if it is themselves.  People have often commissioned me to do nude portraits of them, and they love the resulting pictures but have difficulty deciding where – or if – they should hang them!  But since I have always supported myself by other work in order to keep my art free from the dictates of the marketplace, I don’t mind that the work is unsellable.

Christophe, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The division separating the nude from the portrait may exist because of market realities, rather than because of any deeper reason.  But the combination, the nude portrait, represents to me a reunification of the primal split in the human soul, our loss of connection with our physicality and our earthly nature.  Technology has allowed us to separate ourselves more and more from Nature, which is our origin and on which we are utterly dependent whether we realize it or not.  Only our own bodies can reassert this primal symbiosis.  A portrayal of face and body as one is a small statement of the unity of spirit and matter.

Amalia, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

There”s a section on nude portraits, as well as one on head-only portraits, on my portfolio site.  Also, many of my previous blog posts have featured nude portraits.

Julio, 2010, by Fred Hatt

All portraits in this post were made in the last six months during the Monday morning long pose session I monitor at Spring Studio.  All are aquarelle crayon on paper.  Sizes range from 18″ x 24″ to 20″ x 28″.

2010/04/16

Stories in the Round

Filed under: Sculpture — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — fred @ 13:16

Randolph Rogers, Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii, 1859, photo #2 by Fred Hatt

Sculpture practice involves working in the round.  A traditional figurative sculpture studio has rotating platforms for the work and for the model, so both can be observed from all angles.  A sculptor must also consider the work from an engineering standpoint, analyzing weight distribution, compression, tension, torque and shear, especially when the work is large.  Looking at a figurative sculpture from different angles helps us understand the expressive qualities of a pose in three dimensions.  The human body is a dynamic structure, achieving stability through adaptive movement.  A sculptor gives the illusion of life by suggesting movement in a stable structure.

In this post I’ll look at two neoclassical works, both made in the middle of the 19th century, when the art of sculpture was still defined by the combination of technical excellence and emotional connection, before modernist innovation took the art in a thousand different directions.  Both of these pieces are based on literary sources.  Randolph Rogers’ Nydia illustrates a scene from Edward Bulwer-Lytton‘s best-selling 1834 historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii.  Carpeaux’ Ugolino is based on an episode from Dante’s Inferno.  Like Bulwer-Lytton’s turgid Victorian prose, this kind of artwork is completely out of fashion today, and from a modern perspective, both of these works are pure kitsch, but taken in their own context they’re beautiful and complex.  Both are on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I took these photographs.

Randolph Rogers, Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii, 1859, photo #3 by Fred Hatt

Randolph Rogers was an american sculptor based in Rome.  This particular work was extremely popular in its time, and Rogers’ atelier made many commissioned copies of it.  It depicts a scene in which the blind girl Nydia has been separated from her friends during the eruption of the volcano that buried the ancient city of Pompeii.  The face shows a great deal of emotion while remaining youthful and innocent.  The side view above shows the forward lean of the pose.  The center of gravity of the body is above the right foot, so this is a pose that a model could hold at least briefly without external support (unlike the leaping poses in some later sculptures also seen in the sculpture court of the American Wing of the Met such as MacMonnies’ Bacchante and Infant Faun or Frishmuth’s The Vine).  But it has a strong forward lunge, with the upper body curving forward even more, giving a sense of urgency.

Randolph Rogers, Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii, 1859, photo #4 by Fred Hatt

Much of the impression of movement is imparted by the swirling folds of Nydia’s dress.  Real fabric would not hold this form in a state of repose, so this makes the body appear to be in motion even though it is in a stable position.  The drapery creates a helical swirl around the body that makes Nydia appear to be turning towards the sound she hears in the distance.  The crossing of the arm to the ear and the drapery whipping around the walking stick reinforce this overall sense of twisting.

Randolph Rogers, Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii, 1859, photo #5 by Fred Hatt

Randolph Rogers, Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii, 1859, photo #1 by Fred Hatt

You might know Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux‘ famous group La Danse, which adorns the Paris Opera, a work whose exuberant orgiastic nudes caused scandal in their time.  His other famous work is Ugolino and His Sons, which imagines a story told in Dante’s Inferno.  Count Ugolino is imprisoned in a tower with his children and starving to death.  The sons beg the father to devour their bodies.  Even more than Nydia, this work exemplifies the 19th century style of marrying classical technique to emotionally extreme subject matter.  This can be partly attributed to the influence of the ancient Greek sculpture Laocoön and His Sons, with which Carpeaux’ piece bears many similarities.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 1860, photo #1 by Fred Hatt

The pose of Ugolino is similar to Rodin’s iconic Thinker, a piece that embodies stillness and concentration.  Here, though, the pose is full of anguish and tension.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 1860, photo #2 by Fred Hatt

The central figure of Ugolino is surrounded by four children.  Oddly, these figures all look to me like young adult male figures, varying in size but not proportion or development.  Even the youngest figure, lying at the left side of Ugolino’s feet, appears to be a boy’s head grafted onto a man’s torso.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 1860, photo #3 by Fred Hatt

In the view above, note how the hands of the son wrapped around the father’s knee echo the form of Ugolino’s own large hands as he chews his fingers.  The hands and feet of the five figures, limp or tense, carry much of the emotional stress of the composition.  The toes gripping the toes, shown below, is particularly masterful, a gesture that creates an instinctive gripping within the viewer.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 1860, photo #4 by Fred Hatt

Many sculptors have discovered the possibilities of enlarged, gnarled hands and feet to convey anguish.  Here it’s combined with a tormented facial expression.  Because the figure of Ugolino is larger than life size and elevated on a pedestal, his face is seen from a lower angle when approaching closer to the sculpture.  The expression is greatly intensified by viewing from below.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 1860, photo #5 by Fred Hatt

Many compositions of this type, that have such a clear front and back, are displayed near a wall so it’s hard to see the back side.  At the Met, Ugolino is not against a wall, so one can get the very different view of the piece shown below.  From this side, spared the overbearing emotionalism, we can appreciate Carpeaux’ obsessive attention to anatomical detail and the way the differently sized figures are clustered.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 1860, photo #6 by Fred Hatt

2010/04/09

The Secret of Practice

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Practice,Figure Drawing: Quick Poses — Tags: , , , , , — fred @ 22:46

Marina, December, 1994, by Fred Hatt

Practice itself is no secret. Everybody knows you have to practice to be good at anything athletic or artistic. Talk to anyone who has brilliant skills, whether with a fiddle or a basketball or a theatrical role, and you can bet you’ll hear they spend a lot of time practicing.

Shifra, December, 1995, by Fred Hatt

I’m a big believer in practice. As a young self-taught artist I had no consistent and regular practice, and it soon became clear that the occasional flashes of brilliance I perceived in my own work weren’t going to turn into any steady flame without a more disciplined approach. In 1994 I began a regular practice of attending timed life drawing sessions. I’ve continued to this day and will do so as long as I live.

Arthur, December, 1996, by Fred Hatt

The point about practice that I intend to make in this post can’t really be illustrated.  I thought maybe looking at my sketchbooks over the years would reveal something about the effects of sustained practice on my work, but it’s not perfectly clear.  The drawings show a great deal of variability due to changes of media, different models, or my own energetic state on a given day.  Of course it’s a bit overwhelming to look at thousands of sketchbook pages over sixteen years.  What I have chosen to intersperse with these paragraphs is simply sketchbook pages (or double pages) of quick poses (one or two minutes), one each from the month of December of each year since my practice began in December 1994.  These are all practice drawings.  None were made with the intention to exhibit them.  There’s no direct relation between the images and the adjacent paragraphs.

Bruno, December, 1997, by Fred Hatt

Now when I look back at my work from 1994 and my work from today, I can see a lot of development. The quick sketches have become bolder and surer.  The long drawings have gotten looser and lighter.  The biggest improvement of all came in the first months of regular practice.  The long-term gains are subtler, but deep.

Rae, December, 1998, by Fred Hatt

The life drawing sessions I attend are filled with people who believe in practice. There are a lot of regulars there who have been pursuing the practice much longer than I have. Why, I wondered, do some of these devoted practicers not seem to show any improvement in their skill? (I won’t name names!)

Estella & Rudy, December, 1999, by Fred Hatt

The artists who show no growth aren’t challenging themselves. They tread the same well-worn path over and over again. They started out challenging themselves, but as soon as they found an approach that pleased them or earned praise from others, they stopped right there and went into endless repeat mode.

Daniel, December, 2000, by Fred Hatt

If you are an artist, you may have had the experience of being encouraged to maintain the rut. When a dealer finds work that sells, they want more of the same, not more experimentation.

Nora, December, 2001, by Fred Hatt

Many of the artists at the studio only want to do what they’re good at. A typical class starts with quick poses and increases the length, finishing with longer poses. Artists that excel with long poses but deal awkwardly with quick poses often come late to avoid the quick poses at the beginning of the class. Artists that do well with quick poses and tend to bog down on the long poses often leave early. They may be avoiding the experience of producing “bad drawings”, but they’re not doing their craft any favors.

Maryam, December, 2002, by Fred Hatt

This week I was reading, in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, a review by Annie Murphy Paul of a book I haven’t read, The Genius in All of Us, by David Shenk. I came across this sentence: “Whatever you wish to do well, Shenk writes, you must do over and over again, in a manner involving, as [Anders] Ericsson put it, ‘repeated attempts to reach beyond one’s current level,’ which results in ‘frequent failures.’ This is known as ‘deliberate practice,’ and over time it can actually produce changes in the brain, making new heights of achievement possible.”

Maggie, December, 2003, by Fred Hatt

I couldn’t have put it better. Bodybuilders use the term “training to failure“, and many of them believe pushing the muscles to the point of failure is essential to increasing strength and bulk. I believe an artist should also train to failure.

Christophe, December, 2004, by Fred Hatt

In art, when you start a practice, you’re failing every time. This is why beginner’s practice shows such amazing gains. When you finally reach a level that pleases you, you can easily stay at that level without continuing to experience failure. Of course, you will not experience any further growth either.

Carlos, December, 2005, by Fred Hatt

Artists at the open studio drawing sessions often say they’re having a “good day”, meaning they’re happy with their work, or a “bad day”, meaning they’re unhappy with what they’re getting. But if you want to expand beyond your limitations, you should view every drawing as a failure. After all, there’s no end point of perfection where a work of art is all it can possibly be. If you are trying to depict what you perceive, keep looking – you’re not quite getting it all yet. If you are trying to be as expressive as possible, keep trying – there is still more that you feel, that is not yet making it into your work.

Alley, December, 2006, by Fred Hatt

Once you get pretty good at something, you should be constantly on guard against settling into the comfortable rut. Keep challenging yourself. Try changing your media or the scale of your drawing or your position in relation to the model. Try using your non-dominant hand. Keep varying little things. Whether you have a minute or several hours to capture a pose, always consider that amount of time not quite enough, so that you must work furiously against the relentless clock. These are the small everyday ways of challenging yourself that can hone your craft.

Stephanie, December, 2007, by Fred Hatt

Bigger challenges can actually deepen your art. That’s harder to talk about because those bigger challenges are much more idiosyncratic and uncommon. Often, the great challenges come from outside, rather than being self-imposed. But by constantly challenging your craft in small ways, you are also developing flexibility and an orientation towards responding to problems by growth and adaptation rather than by denial and resistance.

Jaece, December, 2008, by Fred Hatt

In small things, strive beyond your ability. In large things, aspire to the impossible. Welcome failure, as often as possible. Failure is your friend!  That’s the secret!

Betty, December, 2009, by Fred Hatt

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