Check out my Independence Day drawing of Claudia on her blog, Museworthy!
Tragic Alley, 2006, by Fred Hatt
Alley is an actress and a great professional artist’s model with strawberry blonde hair and alabaster skin. In trying to capture the impression of brightness when drawing Alley, I use a lot of white crayon. But clearly there are other color tendencies that I can see – pinks and yellows and pale blues. These are not so much the surface color of the skin, which is pretty near white, but result from the translucency and reflectiveness of the skin. Light penetrates below the surface, where blood flow gives it a reddish tone. Other colors reflect off the satiny surface of the skin, picking up the colors of surrounding objects and light sources. The slight yellowness is probably imparted by whatever low level of pigment (melanin) is there.
Alley, 2009, by Fred Hatt
There are basically three types of melanin, the pigment that causes the spectrum of human skin tones and hair colors. As the relative levels of red, green and blue in a computer monitor produce a wide range of hues, so the varying concentration of pigments create complexions we might describe as ivory, ruddy, olive, mahogany, butterscotch, cafe au lait, brown, and black, and all the hair colors from platinum blond and ginger through jet black. The three pigments are black eumelanin, brown eumelanin, and pheomelanin, which is reddish. Most hair-covered mammals have relatively little skin pigmentation, so scientists believe dark skin evolved as a protection against sun exposure and was later lost in populations that migrated out of the tropical regions.
The redness of blood in capillaries shows through the skin, as we can observe in flushing and blushing. A model holding a standing pose for a long time may show a noticeably redder tone in the legs and feet, and sometimes in the hands if they’re hanging down, as gravity causes blood to pool in the lower areas. In some light-skinned people you can see veins through the skin, especially around breasts, neck, shoulders and inner arms. Veins have a bluish appearance, even though venous blood is deep red, not blue. This phenomenon apparently results from the fact that the veins themselves absorb more light than other structures underlying the skin. As most of the light that reflects back through the skin is reddish, the relativistic nature of color perception causes the impression of blue in these less reflective areas.
Jessi, 2009, by Fred Hatt
Of course sun exposure causes an increase of pigment in the skin. The pinkness of the skin immediately following a sunburn is, as far as I understand, a result of inflammation in the capillaries, and so is imparted by blood, not pigment. The increase of pigment we know as tanning follows more slowly.
Beth Sunburned, 2003, by Fred Hatt
Veins don’t show through very dark skin, but dark skin still has the qualities of translucency and reflective sheen. Backlight that glances off the surface of dark skin can have a particularly vivid effect, as shown in this drawing where cool-toned window light comes from behind the model, Ken.
Kenneth, 2009, by Fred Hatt
To my eye, dark skin often seems to take on a reddish tone in the shadows, and a golden tone in the highlights. I think this has to do with the way the light penetrates the surface and reflects back. African and African-American skin tones have an even broader range of hues than European or Asian types. The model for the drawing below has a very dark complexion. I was taken with the range of colors of light I could see in her skin, reflecting off the sheen, glancing through the edges, bouncing into the shadows.
Aimi, 2009, by Fred Hatt
I’m not medically trained, so it’s possible I have gotten some of my physiological facts wrong. If you have better knowledge, leave a comment.
All drawings in this post are Caran d’Ache aquarelle crayon on gray Fabriano paper, 70 cm x 50 cm.
Ignis, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
When someone is driven by passion or ambition we say they have fire in the belly. It’s one of many idioms that describe mental or spiritual states in bodily terms. These common sayings reveal our sense that the whole body, not just the head, is the vehicle of the soul and a field of clashing forces.
Body painting is an ancient art of transformation, to make the warrior more terrible, the young mate more enticing, or the shaman more of a dream creature. I have used it as a medium of discovery, exploring the landscape of the body and finding the forces that lie beneath the surface. In the type of body art shown here, there is never any preconceived design. As the paintbrush follows the natural curves of the body, it becomes a kind of divining rod, finding the quality of energetic pools and flows and manifesting them in visible form.
The images in this post are all frontal torsos, painted in my studio in private sessions between 1999 and 2003, in which I used a free-flowing but symmetrical form to express the internal forces others have traditionally described in terms of chakras or internal alchemy.
White Strike, 1999, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
A kind of lightning bolt centered on the heart or sternum, above, becomes a dancing Nature spirit in the example below:
Shaman, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
A colorful approach to the body’s structure becomes a festive celebration of the life force:
Botanic, 2001, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Arch, 1999, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
In these, the body is wrapped in veils of more subtle color:
Cathexis, 2002, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Dragonfly, 2002, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
In these examples, the belly becomes a vessel, containing and transforming energy that is projected upward and outward in the chest area:
Flask, 2002, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Phoenix, 2002, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Power Stance, 2003, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Bright Seed, 2000, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
Projection, 2002, bodypaint and photo by Fred Hatt
We all have a clear sense that acting from the gut, acting from the heart, and acting from the head are three entirely distinct ways. Those who study yoga or martial arts learn to experience the internal force fields of the body in terms of chakras or dantiens. My approach is loose and intuitive. I hope it reveals the dynamic nature of the human body as structured energy.
Weeping, 2009, by Fred Hatt
Christophe Nayel is an artists’ model with a specialty. He has a remarkably expressive face and can hold facial expressions for a long time. He did the pose above this past Monday morning at Spring Studio‘s three-hour session, twenty minutes between breaks. He squeezed a wet tissue over his eyes to simulate tears, and made the expression real enough that his nose and eyes reddened.
Quite a few professional models develop the ability to hold challenging poses, and some of them can stay in stressful positions while maintaining a placid expression, but Christophe is the only one I know who contorts his face this way. For an artist, it is both a treat and a challenge. Most artists trying to capture facial expressions refer to photographs. That’s how Norman Rockwell did it. Getting it down directly from life is not so easy. Some of the artists in that Monday morning class really got the feel of it, but many others weren’t even getting close.
Here’s Christophe in a more typical artists’ model’s pose, full-length and with a close portrait made during the same pose, showing a relatively neutral face:
Triumphant, 2005, by Fred Hatt
Triumphant face, 2005, by Fred Hatt
In the standing figure above, his hair was being blown up by a fan, which somehow makes that drawing.
Christophe is from France. Like many models, and like myself, his creative interests and efforts range broadly. He’s a singer, songwriter, actor, painter, and film editor. As a musician, he uses the stage name D-XRISTO. He began modeling in New York on September 10th, 2001, a time that imparts a fateful aura to any kind of beginning. You can check out some of Christophe’s work on his MySpace and YouTube pages.
Here’s one of my first detailed portraits of Christophe, from 2002:
Ruminating, 2002, by Fred Hatt
In the above image he’s not contorting his face, but you can see how much feeling comes through anyway. At a 2006 session he held a grin for three hours:
Smile, 2006, by Fred Hatt
Christophe also models with costumes and props. On Monday he mentioned that for an upcoming costume session he’ll be bringing his genuine NYC Police Officer’s uniform and his saucy French maid outfit. But it is his expressions I find so compelling. Here is a quartet of sketches from a session at Figureworks Gallery, showing a range of faces that is both hilarious and terrifying:
Crying, 2007, by Fred Hatt
Sneer, 2007, by Fred Hatt
Stupor, 2007, by Fred Hatt
Cracked, 2007, by Fred Hatt
I can tell you these aren’t easy to draw. When I was working on the set above, I remember feeling my rendering of the sneer failed to capture the level of acidic disdain Christophe was conveying.
Christophe should have posed for Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, or maybe Goya or Bacon or some other artist specializing in the extremes of the human condition. But I value him because as a model he brings something unique, difficult and engaging. When Christophe is the model, I know I have a chance to make strange and compelling images.
All drawings in this post are 70 cm x 50 cm, Caran d’Ache aquarelle crayons on Fabriano paper.
Arch, 1996, photo by Fred Hatt
The word “photography” is derived from greek roots literally meaning “writing with light”. A light-sensitive chemical emulsion, or, these days, a light-sensitive silicon chip, is altered when it is exposed to light. An image focused through a lens, with an exposure timed by shutter, is only one possible way of using this process of writing with light. For example, you may be familiar with contact photograms, in which objects are placed on a photosensitive paper or film and the light darkens the area around the object, with the shadow of the object leaving a bright shape. In fact, some photo historians believe photograms were produced as early as around 1800. One of my favorite contemporary artists, Adam Fuss, uses the photogram technique to produce mysterious and fantastic tracings of energy.
Light painting is another one of those classic experimental photography techniques. In light painting photography, you work in the dark. The camera’s shutter is held open for a while, and you move a light source around, and wherever the light goes it gets recorded on the film or digital chip. Nowadays it’s very popular to draw things in the air with a handheld light, LED or glowstick. Back in the early 1990s there was a vogue for using fiber optics to apply light selectively to commercial still life arrangements to get a painterly look.
The lightpainter can walk right through the frame during exposure, and as long as the light is not directed at him or her, the lightpainter will not be recorded, because the camera records only light, not darkness.
I first started experimenting with light painting in photography of models in 1990 or thereabouts, but the early ones haven’t been scanned yet, so I’ll post those some other time. I was interested in the process because it bridged the gap between photography and painting or drawing. As in painting, the image is created by manual gestures over a finite period of time, but instead of making pigment marks on paper or canvas, one makes light marks, through a lens, on a photograph.
The first three examples here were made in 1996. The model was Kristin, an ex-gymnast and one of my great muses of that time. In the image above, the technique is used simply to place light selectively to explore the form of a pose. Of course, I would never know exactly what I was getting, as you can’t see the result at the time you’re doing it. In those days I didn’t see the results until after I’d hand-processed the black and white film and made test prints in a rental darkroom. This aspect of working blind, and the surprise and delight at discovering the outcome, was something I loved about this work. The light streaks in the lower area of the “arch” and in the upper right corner of the image above, are made by the hand-held light passing through the frame.
In the example below, I suspended a micro-Maglite from a string and dangled it above the model while twisting the string to cause the light to spin:
Smoke, 1996, photo by Fred Hatt
And in this one, I used a long camping lighter to draw streaks of flame around the model:
Triangle, 1996, photo by Fred Hatt
Below is a series of four triptychs, made by mounting black and white lightpainting prints together in a frame. These were made in 1998. The models are Laurie and Heather. Some of these images are sideways, and in some the models are on mirrors.
Earth, 1998, photo tryptich by Fred Hatt
Water, 1998, photo triptych by Fred Hatt
Air, 1998, photo triptych by Fred Hatt
Fire, 1998, photo triptych by Fred Hatt
See more of my black and white lightpaintings here, and color lightpaintings here.
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