DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt

2010/09/03

Faces of the People

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Portraits,Movement Drawing,My Past Events — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — fred @ 22:50

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

New York City is a magnificent environment for people watching.  On the streets, manual laborers mingle with capitalist big shots, celebrities blend in with the masses, and economic refugees share the sidewalks with tourists on spending sprees.  I know of no other city that compares with New York for ethnic and cultural diversity.  If you love humanity for its endless variations, New York is a sumptuous banquet.

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, performance photo by April Panzer

Of course, once you leave the street or Subway and step into a culturally specific environment, most of that diversity disappears.  Unfortunately, that is true in the galleries and performance venues of the art world.  The art world in New York is not all white or all American, but it is almost entirely populated by people with a certain kind of education and upbringing, with certain well-defined ways of speaking and acting and dressing.

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, performance photo by April Panzer

Those who work in arts administration are united in proclaiming the value of diversity and have been trying for years to reach out to “underserved audiences” and “underrepresented populations”.  Their efforts have been somewhat successful – I think art audiences in New York, especially for large, well-publicized events, are clearly more diverse now than when I moved here two decades ago.  Still, it doesn’t begin to compare with the diversity on the streets.  Art galleries in New York are all free to enter, but the vast majority of people never do.  Unfortunately a lot of art is pretentious and unfriendly to the uninitiated.  This attracts an audience of initiates, whose aura of exclusivity tends to deter those who do not see themselves as art world insiders.

“The Active Mirror”,2003, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

A few years ago I took advantage of an opportunity to use my art to connect with people on the street.  Chashama is an arts organization that has special access to the asset that is most problematic in the dense and expensive city – space.  Chashama’s founder and artistic director, Anita Durst, is a member of a legendary real estate dynasty family.  The Durst Organization develops skyscrapers in Manhattan.  Properties that are condemned or transitional are made available for the arts through Chashama.  I’ve been involved with Chashama events since the mid-1990’s.  They have a great track record of supporting all kinds of artists, including some that most of the institutions would consider too underground or outsider or offbeat to present.

“The Active Mirror”,  2002, by Fred Hatt, performance photo by April Panzer

During the early 2000’s, Chashama had a whole block of storefronts on 42nd Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, while the Durst Organization was constructing the Conde Nast Building at the corner of Broadway and 42nd, the southern end of Times Square and the Theater District.  They hosted a huge festival of theater and dance, performance art, visual art and installations called “Windows on 42nd Street“.  In April, 2002, and again in July, 2003, I presented a drawing performance called “The Active Mirror.”

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, performance photo by April Panzer

A sign on the window read: “A reflection is the view of a virtual eye behind the glass.  Look at your reflection in a storefront window, and you see yourself and your surroundings, superimposed over the merchandise on display.  But in this window, on this day, the view you see in the window is that of another subjective eye, an artist who sketches what he sees through the window, on the window.  Stop to watch, and your portrait may appear there on the window.”

“The Active Mirror”, 2003, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

I lined the inside of the window space with white fabric and the inside of the plate glass with clear acetate.  I hung some of my portraits in the window space, to prove, I suppose, that I was a qualified portrait artist.  I stood at the window with my black Sharpie and sketched the urban landscape until I could attract passersby to stop for me.  If anyone paused to watch, I quickly began sketching a likeness, starting with a recognizable detail of attire or hairstyle so the subject would know that I was drawing him or her.  I had to work quickly, as I couldn’t expect anyone to have the patience to give me a prolonged pose.  Other passersby would stop to watch the action, and I would quickly move on to the next subject, since if my audience would disperse I would face the difficult challenge of gathering a new cluster.

“The Active Mirror”, 2003, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

Visual art is usually considered an indirect form of communication.  You make a painting or whatever, and later, people look at it and try to imagine what you were thinking or feeling in the act of creating it.  For a long time I’ve had an interest in the potential of visual art as a more direct way of relating to another person.  This interest has been explored through a highly collaborative way of working with models, through the idea of art as a ritual or experience (such as body painting), and through treating the act of drawing or painting as a dance or performance, for an audience.

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, performance photo by April Panzer

In “The Active Mirror”, my offer to strangers was to share with them my way of seeing them.   I could not speak to my subjects, nor they to me, through the thick plate glass.  My sharpie sketches were my only way of relating to people.  Around the corner in Times Square, there are portrait and caricature artists who make a living sketching the tourists.  My sketches were not for sale, just for public display, and I think many of the people who stopped for me were not tourists, but New Yorkers who would never think of sitting for a street caricaturist.

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

Everyone is comfortable looking at something in a store window, even people who would never enter an art gallery or performance space, so by the end of five hours of sketching, the windows were covered with images reflecting the wondrous diversity of the New York street.

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, view from inside the window, drawings and photo by Fred Hatt

Here are some more details:

“The Active Mirror”, 2003, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2003, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2003, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2003, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2003, by Fred Hatt, detail of acetate drawing

“The Active Mirror”, 2002, by Fred Hatt, view from inside window, drawings and photo by Fred Hatt

2010/08/13

Profile View

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Portraits — Tags: , , , , — fred @ 14:50

Kika Eyes Closed, 2002, by Fred Hatt

The profile or side view of the face has been a standard for coin portraits since ancient times, probably because it remains recognizable even when worn smooth.  The contour of the front of the face, and of the head and neck, conveys the individuality of the subject even when it lacks such significant interior details as eyes and ears.

A couple of decades ago, the side view of the face would probably have been the first meaning of the word “profile” to come to mind for most people.  Now the word is more likely to evoke a Facebook profile, a company profile, “racial profiling” or some such more informational expression of identity.  Facebook profiles include profile pictures, of course, but hardly anyone uses a side view.  It’s just not the way people see themselves.  But the side view can be a distinctive and highly expressive aspect of the human face.  In this post I’ve gathered together a variety of my own drawings of faces in the profile view.

Daniel Eyes Closed, 2003, by Fred Hatt

The subject of the drawing above has bold, prominent features, but his energy is turned inward as though in meditation.  The one below has a similar facial contour, but the pale eye and the shadows and wrinkles around it, give it a completely different expression.

Scott, 2008, by Fred Hatt

In the drawing below, the primary light source is behind the subject, making the facial contour both a bright line and an indicator of the more complex three dimensional structure of the face.

Che, 2002, by Fred Hatt

Below, the internal contours of hair and beard and brow wrinkles add a lot to the feeling of the personality of the subject.  As in the sketch above, you can see part of the eyelid of the hidden side of the face, which gives a clearer direction to the gaze.

John, 2002, by Fred Hatt

The angles of nose, jaw and brow help to define the individuality of the face.  The eyelids and the usually shadowed area where brow, eyelid and nose meet are also significant forms.

Izaskun, 2006, by Fred Hatt

Alley, 2009, by Fred Hatt

The way a person arranges, or does not arrange, their hair, and the way the neck carries the head atop the body, are other distinctive aspects of the body that convey personality, and that can be observed in most of these examples.

Patrick, 2006, by Fred Hatt

The arrangement of the neck and jaw in particular can give a profile a more sensitive or a more aggressive appearance.

Vinnie, 2009, by Fred Hatt

In the side view of the face, the ear is a central element.  The human ear is a wonderful convoluted shape, with considerable variation in size and overall shape among individuals.

Tram, 2008, by Fred Hatt

Hair can alter or emphasize the shapes of the head, as in the jutting beard above or the haircut below that reinforces the rectangularity of the model’s head.

Robert, 2004, by Fred Hatt

Marilyn, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Sometimes the neck and collarbone and shoulders are nearly as expressive as the face.  When I am drawing I often feel that I am exploring a landscape of hills and valleys, ridges and chasms.

Tanya, 2005, by Fred Hatt

Rios, 2010, by Fred Hatt

On a hairless head, the face and the skull are unified.  Hair often frames the face and disguises the shape of the rest of the skull.  This can make the face look larger or smaller in relation to the head.

Theresa, 2010, by Fred Hatt

In the drawing below, I knew I hadn’t captured the contour of the face accurately in the full upper body sketch.  Projecting the face in a larger size made it easier to capture this model’s distinctive profile.

Corey Two Profiles, 2009, by Fred Hatt

In the drawing below, I did the face large, and the full body smaller, from the opposite side.

Ivanhova Two Views, 2010, by Fred Hatt

And in my final example, two models posing together show very different facial structures.  The female figure in the foreground has prominent cheekbones, shallow eye sockets, and a relatively flat nose.  The male figure behind her has a prominent brow ridge and a more pointed nose.  Both models are sitting back, resting on the elbows.  The female settles her head into the shoulders, while the male’s head is slightly more lifted.  In drawing from life, capturing a likeness relies very much on observing the subtle differences that make each person physically unique.

Sasho & Tin, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The drawings in this post are in the range of 18″ x 24″ to 20″ x 27″, drawn in aquarelle crayon on paper.  Most of these were done during life drawing sessions at Spring Studio or Figureworks Gallery.  Some other side view portraits are among those in this earlier post.

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″.

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