"Vegetables Are All Your Body Needs", advertisement for the International Vegetarian Union

Most figurative artists spend some time studying human anatomy – basic musculoskeletal structure, often just enough that your Spider-Man doesn’t come out looking like Popeye.  But of course the study of anatomy is a vast edifice, with wings and annexes, great halls and obscure corridors, constructed by physicians and yogis, gymnasts and psychiatrists, animators and masseurs, mystics and coroners.  Let’s call this imposing monument the Anatomium.

For an artist, the body is more than just a physical structure.  It is an instrument for experiencing and portraying realities beyond the physical plane:  emotions, energy, spirituality.  We need to understand structure, but we also need to go beyond structure.  Your teacher may have urged you to spend most of your time studying in the great hall of bones and the gallery of muscles, but there is much to discover in the more obscure rooms of the Anatomium.  Let’s look at some curious specimens found in many different parts of the labyrinthine palace, from the viewpoint of the artist.  (All of these images were found on the web, and clicking on an image will take you to the page where I found it, and where, usually, more pictures and information will be found.)

The brilliant ad that leads this post tells us that if we are what we eat, we can construct a healthy body from a vegetable diet.  In folk wisdom, it’s often been thought that various plants and other substances support the functioning of the body parts they resemble, so for instance walnuts are supposed to be good for the brain, and tomatoes for the heart.  This way of seeing the anatomy arises from a metaphorical understanding of the body as a garden or landscape, a popular image since the time of Arcimboldo, at least.  Here’s Aurel Schmidt’s beautiful contemporary rendition of body as garden, a teeming but unsettling garden full of insects, snakes, birds, and cigarette butts.

Super Natural, 2006, mixed media on paper by Aurel Schmidt

Since the industrial revolution, the metaphor of the body as a factory or machine has been common in the culture.  A lot of medical practice, especially orthopedics, is essentially based in this mechanical metaphor.  Perhaps the ultimate realization of the industrial view of the body is Woody Allen’s depiction of the internal sexual functions as a military-industrial deployment in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask.

Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace), 1926, by Fritz Kahn

The technology of the industrial and digital era has given us countlesss new ways of seeing and studying the human body.  X-rays, MRIs, and endoscopes have become essential tools in medicine.  The National Institutes of Health and the National Medical Library collaborated on the “Visible Human Project”, high-resolution 3D scans of real bodies for anatomical study.  The bodies were sliced in razor-thin layers and scanned, the data assembled into a 3D image that can be viewed in any cross-section or in the round, or even “flown through” in a digital animation.

Coronal cross-section from the Visible Human Project of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health

Controversial physician and showman Dr. Gunther von Hagens invented a technique for preserving human tissue by replacing the water  with plastics, which enabled him to prepare real cadavers for public display in his “Body Worlds” exhibits.  Von Hagens’ figures follow the renaissance convention in anatomical illustrations of posing flayed figures as though alive and active.  These exhibits are educational, fascinating, and more than a little creepy.

The Walker, plastinated from Body Worlds exhibit, from Gunther von Hagens' Institute for Plastination

Therapists, athletes, dancers, and others who study movement, posture, and fitnesss experiment with the living body, which can reveal dynamic aspects of the structure that may be missed when you’re cutting up cadavers.  This illustration from Thomas Myers’ Anatomy Trains, a study of the fascia and connective tissue in bodily movement, looks like a bit of couture in the outré style of an Alexander McQueen.

The Back Functional Line, illustration from "Anatomy Trains", by Thomas W. Myers

The illustration below shows the dermatomes.  Most of the nerves of the body are wired to the spinal cord, and the dermatomes are the areas of the skin divided according to the particular vertebra where each area has its nerve connection to the spinal cord.  The different areas of the spine are color-coded, cervical (neck) nerves in white, thoracic in yellow/black, lumbar in blue/black, and sacral nerves in red/black.  This too looks like a bit of latex fetishwear or a high-tech superhero costume.

Dermatomes (Spinal Innervation Map), artist unknown, from the website of New York School of Regional Anesthesia

Within the field of anatomical studies, there are many ways of dividing the body into regions.  Here’s a diagram for doctors with named regions on the surface of the body, for the purposes of clinical description.

Anatomical Regions of the Body, illustration from David Darling's online "Encyclopedia of Science"

“Surface Anatomy” is an interesting field for the artist who works with live models, as it’s all about learning to identify underlying structures based on what can be seen or felt at the level of the skin.

Surface Anatomy of the Abdomen, from "The Anatomy Lesson", a website by Wesley Norman, PhD, DSc, professor at Georgetown University

Seeing beneath the surface shows that the beautiful reality of the body conceals even more beautiful hidden realities.

Pregnant Anatomy, illustration found on Ed Merritt's Flickr photostream (may not be original source)

These back muscles look like the head of a goat – cool.

The Back,iIllustration by Phrenzy84

The illustration below shows a method of analyzing the structure of the face by geometrical analysis of a series of identifiable points.  This kind of analysis was invented for forensic use, but it’s also the basis of computer face recognition and other forms of digital biometrics.

Illustration from "Geometric Morphometric Analyses of Facial Shape in Twins", a paper by Demayo, et al.

This kind of geometrical analysis of faces and bodies is also important to artists working with digitally generated 3D graphics.  Some of the most interesting anatomy illustrations, from an artist’s point of view, are found in CGI tutorials.

Illustration from Phung Dinh Dzung's "Realistic Human Face Modeling", a guide for 3D computer graphic artists

Here’s a look at the different typical patterns of fat distribution on the male and female body.  It’s a fine illustration, although that male figure looks disconcertingly like me!  These sketches derive from works by Prud’hon and Rubens.

Fat Distribution in Women and Men, illustration from an online anatomy and figure drawing tutorial by Nocte

This one compares the basic skeletal structure of a person with that of a four-legged animal such as a dog.  I think the best way to grasp anatomical realities is to see how the same basic structure manifests with variations in different individuals and even different species.  You can learn a lot about anatomy just petting an animal!

Comparison of Human and Quadruped Skeletons, source unknown

In this illustration, an artist shows how different arrangements of the shoulder girdle express different emotions.

Shoulder Movements of Psychological Description, source unknown

The brain contains its own models of the body.  The sensory cortex and the motor cortex are bands of the human brain devoted to the senses and to movment, respectively.  When the image of the body is projected to correspond with the appropriate parts of the brain, the resulting distorted figure is called a “homunculus” (latin for “little human”).  The homunculus, the body in the brain, has huge lips and hands, since those areas are so important for sensation and action.  Note that the hand area is right next to the eye area – perhaps this facilitates the connections a visual artist makes.  And the genitalia area is right next to the feet – an explanation for foot fetishism?

Somatosensory Homunculus, artist unknown

Many forms of traditional therapy use this kind of mapping of the whole body onto a part of the body.  Auricular acupuncture, for example, is a form of acupuncture in which the ear stands in for the whole body, and practitioners believe that any part of the body can be treated by needling the corresponding parts of the ear.  Reflexology massage of the feet and hands is another treatment that uses similar charts.

Indian Hand Reflexology Illustration, original source unknown

Of course these aren’t anatomical studies in the scientific sense, but the ancient energy arts, including qigong and tantric yoga and many kinds of martial and healing arts, are based on extensive experiential study of energy flow in the body.  Understanding the immaterial but dynamic aspects of the body should interest any artist who strives to capture the feeling of aliveness.  Here’s an unknown artist’s attempt to represent the human aura, the field of energy clairvoyants say they can perceive around the body.

Human Aura, artist unknown

Chinese Traditional Medicine, martial arts and practices of “internal alchemy” aimed at physical or spiritual self-transformation, use a highly developed system of subtle anatomy to understand the movement of many different kinds of energy within and around the body.  For a visual artist, but even more for a performing artist, this way of visualizing and projecting emotions and forces can be a powerful tool.

Psycho-Emotional Aspects of the Liver Channel, from a website on the energy channels of acupuncture theory, by Lieske

Going back to scientific medical imaging, but keeping the emphasis on energy flow, we have thermographic imaging, which shows patterns of heat radiating from the body.   (Check out a brief excerpt from a dance film made with high-resolution thermographic cameras.)

Thermogram of the Breast, original source unknown

For an artist, the most subtle part of the human form, the most difficult thing to capture, is the spark, the life force, the flow of energy.  It’s important to understand structure, but it’s also important to see the dynamism and tension within that structure.  Anatomical studies of all kinds can open our eyes to the amazing tornado of different forces that is the human body.

I’ll conclude this post with a traditional medical anatomical illustration, but one of great beauty.   This is an abstraction, not a visual transcription of reality.  Of course the veins aren’t really blue and the arteries red and the nerves yellow – this is just a convention to aid in a functional understanding of what is going on.  But the life force in all its explosivenesss expresses itself here.

Thoracic Anatomy, 2006, illustration by Patrick J. Lynch

In researching on the web and my own archives for this post, I found such a wealth of incredible anatomical images that I think there will be many posts to come on the general subject of human anatomy.

Nearly all of these images link back, if you click on them, to where I found them on the web.  If any of my readers has further information about the sources or artists behind these images, please let me know.  It is often frustrating to me that so many great images on the web are published without attribution.

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?

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).

Claudia, the Museworthy blogger, has posted “The Museworthy Art Show”, a collection of artwork by her regular readers and commenters.  One of my large-scale multi-figure drawings is included, a piece that hasn’t yet been seen on Drawing Life.

This is a kind of group show I like.  The artists are diverse in media, style, approach, and level of training.  Simple sketches appear alongside elaborate compositions.  The virtues of spontaneity and simplicity shine, as do the accomplishments of refined craft.  And Claudia has fostered a feeling of community among her far-flung readers, since now we’ve all been in a group show together.  Museworthy tribe, represent!

Click to visit The Museworthy Art Show.