{"id":5008,"date":"2013-06-11T23:04:07","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T04:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fredhatt.com\/blog\/?p=5008"},"modified":"2014-12-15T00:31:54","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T05:31:54","slug":"the-penetrating-glance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fredhatt.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/11\/the-penetrating-glance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Penetrating Glance"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Clear<\/a>

Clear Sight, 2007, by Fred Hatt<\/p><\/div>\n

Artists who work from direct observation have a special way of looking at their subjects, a darting glance that picks up impressions the way a janitor’s litter spike snags trash. Nearly every action that builds up the drawing or painting follows from one of those quick looks. You look and make a mark, look again to refine the mark, look again to find the spatial relation of this to that, look for angles, look for curves, look for shades and colors, look to compare, look to correct. You’re constantly comparing your sketch to your model, translating perceptions into marks, trying to see better and capture better all the time, and racing the clock. In a classroom full of artists of mixed levels of experience, you can pick out the ones that know what they’re doing by watching how they look: how efficient and focused is their glance, and how frequently they look between their paper and the model.<\/p>\n

My friend and fellow figurative artist Karen Miles made a little film about this (email subscribers will need to follow this link to view the film on YouTube<\/a>):<\/p>\n