DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt

2014/04/29

In Memoriam

Prophet, 2002, by Fred Hatt

Prophet, 2002, by Fred Hatt

Yizroel Meyer (1944-2013)  was an intense and deeply eccentric man and an artist’s model who inspired me with his spiritual presence. As he posed, he prayed or chanted silently, his eyes fixed and his mouth moving ever so slightly. He embodied the human – mortal, frail, vulnerable – reaching out towards divinity. The quality of yearning was so powerful it could not help but manifest in drawings of the man.

Prophet study, 2002, by Fred Hatt

Prophet study, 2002, by Fred Hatt

I didn’t know him well. He was selective about who he would open up to. With me, he always spoke about great literature, refined music, serious cinema. In his last years he was involved in a deep reading of Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, comparing English and German translations with the French original. Earlier obsessions included William Faulkner and Gertrude Stein.

Spring Studio, Minerva Durham’s beehive of seven-days-a-week open life drawing sessions in New York, where Yizroel modeled frequently over a period of twelve years, is hosting a memorial exhibition, with thirty-three artists’ depictions of this unique soul. The remainder of this post is Minerva Durham’s remembrance of Yizroel. Details on how to visit the exhibition are included at the end.

Yizroel quick pose, 2009, by Fred Hatt

Yizroel quick pose, 2009, by Fred Hatt

Minerva Durham writes:

“A secret compulsion to touch strangers, sometimes realized silently, sometimes caught out, came perhaps from his having been born in December, 1944, in Heidelberg as the Allies advanced into Germany. He soon became an orphan. He could not have easily thrived, as is the duty of every infant, without parents and with little food.

Yizroel quick pose, 2009, by Fred Hatt

Yizroel quick pose, 2009, by Fred Hatt

Young Hans Meyer, original photographer unknown, photo of old photo by Kyunghee Kim

Young Hans Meyer, original photographer unknown, photo of old photo by Kyunghee Kim

“He was perhaps brought up by a perhaps Christian grandfather who had perhaps killed a relative with an axe years earlier. He was certainly bullied by more robust boys during his youth. A photo of him as a child shows his delicacy and intelligence and sensitivity.
Yisroel quick poses, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Yizroel quick poses, 2010, by Fred Hatt

“As a young man he came to the United States  to work in a publishing house. Years of heavy drinking and smoking ended suddenly when a friend took him to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. He converted to Orthodox Judaism and lived in an Orthodox community in Brooklyn, wearing the curls, hats and costumes of the community that he had adopted. But he was homosexual and he couldn’t really be himself there, and the clothes alone could not make him fit in. He slowly distanced himself from that community, but he still prayed as a Jew until he died.

Nigun, 2003, by Fred Hatt

Nigun, 2003, by Fred Hatt

“When he found nakedness working as a figure model he was at last content. How poignant that this man, born Hans Meyer in war-torn Germany, having been born again as an Orthodox Jew, could only become whole by stripping down and peeling away to the state of his original existence, unclothed and vulnerable. And no wonder that artist Jean Marcellino always felt happy when she saw that the model for the long pose was Yizroel.
Standing torso, 2004, by Fred Hatt

Standing torso, 2004, by Fred Hatt

“His last illness was brief. A year of liver cancer ending in pancreatic cancer and three strokes, each increasing in strength. His friend of many years, George Bixby, saw that Yizroel was taken care of in and out of hospital. Yizroel Meyer was given a proper Jewish burial by the Brooklyn Orthodox community shortly after his death on December 17 last year.
Bicameral, 2006, by Fred Hatt

Bicameral, 2006, by Fred Hatt

“Yizroel’s poses, as drawn by thirty-three artists, can be seen at Spring Studio at 64 Spring Street through May 11, 2014. The fifty drawings now on display show the intensity of his spirituality. Artist Pat Tobin called him, “my Saint Francis.” You may see the drawings on display Monday through Friday from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm or by appointment with Minerva Durham, Director of Spring Studio, 917-375-6086.
Temps Perdu, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Temps Perdu, 2010, by Fred Hatt

“Artists included in the exhibition are: Akiva AKA Ken Sandberg, Anonymous, Robert Bassal, Lynn Cooper, Robert Dunn, Minerva Durham, Janet Fish, Robert Forte, Audrey Cohn-Ganz, Lyle Gertz, Dan Gheno, Dinah Glasier, George Grammar, Kevin Hall, Susan Haskins, Fred Hatt, Jerilyn Jurinek, Karen Kaapcke, Robin Kappy, Gary Katz, Kimchee Kim, Kyunghee Kim, Mark LaMantia, Berryl Mallory, Jean Marcellino, Rebecca Odin, Denise Ozker, Eleni Papageorge, Alan Schlussel, Pearl Shifer, Jonathan Soard, Diane Van Court, and Bruce Williams.”

2013/11/07

Naked Singularity

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Models — Tags: , , , , , , — fred @ 21:19

 

Haruspex, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Haruspex, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Every body is unique. There is a strain of figure drawing study that aims to modulate every model toward a Platonic ideal anatomy. There are valid reasons for such an approach, and it’s a necessary phase in learning anatomy to comprehend the universal underlying structural patterns of the body and the norms around which the variations vary. Most artists pursuing the practice of life drawing, though, notice that the diversity of individual bodies and faces is a far more compelling focus for ongoing study than abstract archetypes of male and female anatomy.

Wistful, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Wistful, 2013, by Fred Hatt 

Something I love about the culture of life drawing studios as I have encountered them is the appreciation they show for models of all ages, colors, shapes, sizes and types. Contrast the majority of most “fine art nude photography” you’ll find on the web or in print, where both male and female models conform to a narrow range of age and body type, or even worse, the commercial glamour industry’s images of models and celebrities Photoshopped into an utterly unnatural simulacrum of perfection. (Check this link for a revealing example of the latter.)

Nobility, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Nobility, 2013, by Fred Hatt

There are types of figurative visual art that are centered around abstract musical or mathematical qualities like harmony and repetition, and idealized figures are part of the vocabulary of such art. There is narrative art, often religious or civic political art, that deals in archetypal figures such as saints and heroes, abstracted characters that represent values and virtues – it wouldn’t do for such figures to have flawed, complicated individual bodies.

Spent, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Spent, 2013, by Fred Hatt

I have no interest in creating perfect harmonies, and yet I think my work has musical qualities. I have no interest in distilling ideals into bodily form, and yet I think some of my drawings convey a strong sense of character.

Vendetta, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Vendetta, 2013, by Fred Hatt

This exercise of sustained looking at naked strangers who are paid to hold still while we study them is more an art of responsiveness than of composition. Our drawings are portraits, but often we don’t know much about the models as people in the world. Our drawings are anatomy studies, but no surgeon could use them to plot her cuts.

Odist, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Odist, 2013, by Fred Hatt

How much can you get, just by looking? Every model has differences in bone structure, muscularity, skin, energy, and expresssion. It is the individual qualities that fascinate.

Memorious, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Memorious, 2013, by Fred Hatt

A clothed model portrays a social role and a historical and cultural milieu. A nude model expresses more essential, timeless qualities of a human: physical/animal nature, spiritual life force, and the utterly particular combination of qualities that gives each one a singular identity.

Grounding, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Grounding, 2013, by Fred Hatt

I find it amazing and wonderful that out of hundreds or thousands or millions of people we see, we rarely mistake one for another, particularly among those familiar to us. If we know them well, even identical twins can be told apart. This shows the power of Nature’s principle of variation, and also the importance the human mind gives to observing individual difference.

Columnar, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Columnar, 2013, by Fred Hatt

I want the viewer of my drawings to confront the living reality of my models. It is not necessary to know the back stories, why this or that model has a certain facial expression or a certain scar. I want the viewer to feel what it felt like for me to encounter this person in the studio.

Unbridled, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Unbridled, 2013, by Fred Hatt

A photograph of a person is evidence that that person exists. A drawing of a person is an artifact of an individual encounter with that person, scratched out on paper through the struggle and experience of the artist.

Discursion, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Discursion, 2013, by Fred Hatt

I try to follow the forms of the body as one part flows into another, to keep my marks responsive to the energy that the model manifests while holding the pose. In stillness there is great movement!

Sitting, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Sitting, 2013, by Fred Hatt

The model is paid to pose for the artists in a class. He gives us his image to study and to use as the subject of our art. This image should not be confused with the identity of the model himself, which contains complexities the artist will never know. The titles I have given to the drawings in this post should not be seen as descriptions of the models, but only of some qualities I have found in the drawings.

Empath, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Empath, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Thanks to the professional artists’ models who posed for the drawings in this post, Donna, Eryn, Esteban, Fly, James, Kuan, Leticia, Marisol, Marlo, Pedro, Rebecca, Regina, Terry, and Vadim. All drawings were made in the second half of 2013, most at the Monday morning long pose session at Spring Studio in New York, of which I am the moderator (supervisor). All are drawn with aquarelle crayon on paper, approximately 19 3/4″ x 25 1/2″ (50 x 65 cm).

Wherefore, 2013, by Fred Hatt

Wherefore, 2013, by Fred Hatt

(By the way, the term “naked singularity“, which I have used as the title of this post, comes from the field of astrophysics, where it is used to describe a theoretical point in space where gravity becomes infinite, yet without the light-swallowing “event horizon” of a black hole. Even physicists can’t say for sure whether it’s a real thing or not.)

2012/09/21

Statuesque

Grief, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Figure drawing sessions are back on at Figureworks after the late summer hiatus.  Randall Harris books great models in his home-like gallery space.  Each session has eighteen poses ranging from two minutes to twenty minutes, an ideal range for me to try out different approaches in my ongoing core practice of studying nature, energy, and expression through the human body and the act of seeing and drawing.  Our models for the first two sessions of the season were Colin and Susannah, both of them tall and strong, with long limbs and elegantly curved bones and muscles.  All drawings in this post are from those two sessions at Figureworks Gallery.

Colin in Light, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I think of drawing as closer to sculpture than to painting.  The eyes are the organs of touch at a distance.  With light and shadow I feel the form, and my markings are the strikes of the chisel and the strokes of the rasp, carving a form out of the block of paper.

About to Rise, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The sculptor’s model and work are on rotating platforms, to check from all sides.  Of course I don’t do that in a 20-minute pose, but the light striking the subject from different angles has different colors and qualities.  By differentiating these various lights and by observing how they fall across the contours of the figure, the form emerges in apparent depth.

Ovoid, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Tall Grass, 2012, by Fred Hatt

A ten minute pose is just enough time to “rough in” the form of the body, its major curves and its relation to the airy space surrounding it.

Holding Over, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The major curves are cut with swoops and swerves, the subtler undulations suggested with scrubbing scribbles.

Side Torso, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Form is energy, and it is the movement of the drawing hand that captures this energy.  There is a pattern of energy that causes matter to grow into the intricate form of a living body, to animate it with tides of breath and streams of blood and electricity of sense and impulse.

Structure of the Back, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The body contains the fire of creation, the dust of stars, the salt of the ocean, and all the memories of life’s evolution.

Above, 2012, by Fred Hatt

A living being is a bubble that rises from the sea of potentiality, floats free for a moment or a century, then falls to merge again into that sea.

Piano Bench, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Earth is our cradle and our crucible.  We grow out of it, walk upon it, and return into it.  We make our Eden or our Hell of it.

Grounding, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The body is a tube, and what passes through that tube is transformed into animal life.  The consciousness is also a tube, and what passes through it becomes a person.

Core, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The mind goes on these philosophical journeys while drawing a ten or twenty-minute pose.  Through the human body I contemplate the nobility and the fragility of being human.

Queen, 2012, by Fred Hatt

These are just sketches on paper, ephemera of an artist’s practice, but while making them I think of them as towering monuments, heroic statues to tell the beings of the future:  we were here, this we saw, this we made.

Resting Power, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The drawings on gray paper are 18″ x 24″.  The ones on white paper are from an 11″ x 14″ sketchbook.  Drawings are made with watercolor and gouache, aquarelle crayons, or a combination of those media.  All images in this post made September, 2012, in open figure drawing sessions at Figureworks Gallery, Brooklyn, New York.

2012/06/21

Partners in Art

Andrea, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I try to put up at least one post a month based around my ongoing practice of drawing the human figure from life, and this is one of those posts.  But instead of discussing drawing techniques or formal concerns, or relevant knowledge about anatomy or visual perception, I want to speak, as an artist, about our often unsung partners in this practice, the models.  Beyond a statement of appreciation, I want to raise some questions that I hope will start a discussion, and I urge both models and artists to offer their thoughts.  (The pictures are in random order and not directly related to the adjacent discussions.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.)

Kneeling Over, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Drawing the human figure from observation of the live nude model has been a staple of art schooling for centuries, and today open life drawing sessions are available in many places, so that a sort of subculture of the art world has arisen among artists who make a study of the human body the focus of their relaxation or their struggle.   It’s a world beautifully described by naturalist and author Peter Steinhart in “The Undressed Art“, and it’s the world I fell into back in the mid-1990’s when I decided my creativity needed to be anchored to a regular discipline – a discipline I found at New York’s Spring Studio, which offered twenty open figure drawing sessions a week.

The human body and face contain as much depth as any creative subject one could choose.  Studying the human animal, we are seeing ourselves, and all the wonderful variations Nature can work on a form.  We are seeing energy and structure, power and vulnerability, character and emotion.  In trying to depict what we see, we can challenge ourselves in the direction of spontaneity or refinement, speed or endurance, realism or abstraction, knowledge or pure impulse.

Bench, 2012, by Fred Hatt

While some artists think of the model as an object of study, fundamentally no different than a plaster cast or a bowl of fruit, I think most artists that devote themselves to the life drawing practice value it as an interactive experience.  The model offers not only their body, but their attitude and their aliveness.

Pedro, 2012, by Fred Hatt

An artist’s style reflects her experience.  The understanding of things like light and anatomy show her knowledge and her innate way of seeing.  The quality of the marks show her energy and the particular quality of her movement.  The model also shows his life experience.  His body may be trained by dance or athletics, or it may show the marks of age or experience.  His face and the poses he choose reveal something about his attitude and adaptation to the world.

Anguish, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Many of the professional artist’s models that work in the studios of New York are creative people in their own right.  Some are dancers or actors, and they may approach the task of modeling as a performance.  Others are writers or musicians, people with a rich interior life who appreciate a job where they can be still and quiet, composing in the mind.  Others are lovers of art who find their own creative spark manifests most strongly in inspiring others with their presence and openness.

Double Back, 2012, by Fred Hatt

When I work with models privately in my own studio, I think of it as a kind of collaboration.  I choose models that have an energy or style that I find exciting, and I try to allow them to manifest that style in a way that enters into my artwork.  But even when drawing models in an open session with multiple artists, where the model chooses her own poses without any input from me (as is the case for all of the works pictured in this post), my drawings clearly draw a great deal from the model’s contribution to the experience.

Lie Down on Black, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Historically, artists have usually been of a relatively privileged class, while models were often prostitutes or laborers, exploited or objectified by the artists, and certainly never accorded any respect or credit by the art world arbiters who could elevate the artists to positions of fame and honor.  The great model and writer Claudia (pictured below) has written many stories of historical artist/model relationships on her blog, Museworthy, and most of them are tragic tales.

Claudia, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I truly respect the models I work with.  My work depends upon them completely.  I have only been able to do what I do because these men and women have offered me the opportunity to “draw from” their bodies and their spirits.  All of them have fed me, and the greatest of them have inspired me and prodded me to exceed my own limitations.  In the best moments, I have gazed upon some of these models and felt what I can only describe as love, a rapture of being connected to another through the gaze.

Conversation, 2012, by Fred Hatt

In my intellectually formative years, feminists and cultural critics were offering a strong critique of the “male gaze” of figurative art, particularly the art of “the nude” as an act of objectification, an attempt by the male ruling class to claim ownership of the female, the cultural “other”, the working class.  The sad history of the way so many artists treated their models certainly makes this more than just an abstract theoretical argument.

Vassilea, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I always felt, though, that there was something prudish in the condemnation of nude art.  I loved the body and the tradition of the nude in art, which often expressed both eroticism and spirituality – a combination I found particularly compelling.  So I was drawn to devote myself to the art of the nude.  But as a white male, I felt I could not just ignore the critique of the “male gaze”.  My solution was to attempt to depict the body not as an object, but as a pattern of living energy, and to treat my subjects not as ideals, but as individuals, with unique characters and authentic personhood.  I would not look down upon my models from a position of power, I would look up at them with an attitude of adoration and wonder.

Sidewise, 2012, by Fred Hatt

When I work with models, privately or as the monitor (supervisor) of public sessions at Spring Studio, I try to treat them with respect and compassion.  I’ve worked as an art model myself, so I know the pain and discomfort it can often involve, and the vulnerability that is inherent to getting naked before others and keeping still.

Head on Hand, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Many of the models I have drawn love to see my depictions of them, and I”ve always been willing to send images and even sometimes give drawings to models.  I feel the models are my greatest fans – I’ve certainly received more praise and appreciation from models than I ever have from art world figures like dealers and critics.  There is nothing sentimental or idealizing in my approach to drawing them.  People who specialize in portrait commissions will complain of the vanity of their clients, but artists’ models don’t seem to have that kind of insecurity.  The nature of the job pretty much requires you to give that up.  Sometimes I feel I am doing the work for the models.  I so appreciate the opportunity to look at them that I want to show them all the wonderfulness that I see in them.

Plans, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Still, they remain mostly anonymous.  When I have a show, or even when I put drawings up here on the blog, I don’t individually credit the model for each work.  Sometimes I talk about individual models, but often I don’t.  I keep the models all mixed up, which keeps the focus on the artist.  I’ve done that even in this post.  I write the model’s name on the back of every drawing, but if it’s framed, no one sees it.  Since I see work with models as essentially collaborative work, should I credit the models individually?

I also work as a photographer and have often attended the Photo Plus Expo, a trade show at the Javits Center in NYC, so I can check out all the amazing gear I can’t afford.  The booths for major manufacturers like Fuji, Canon and Epson always feature big beautiful photographic prints, and I recall once, maybe a decade ago, seeing there a huge shot of my friend, performance artist Amy Shapiro.  In the photo, Amy was wearing a fantastic costume she created, including a hat with live grass growing on it, and her face was decorated with a grassy paint motif by me.  The picture was taken at one of the Earth Celebrations pageants, public celebrations with revelers costumed as nature spirits, that sought to save the endangered community gardens of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  The label of the photograph proudly credited the photographer, but there was no mention of Amy, me, Earth Celebrations, Felicia Young (Earth Celebrations’ director) or anything else.  This photographer had just attended an event (one that attracted lots of photographers) and took a shot.  Everything that made the shot interesting depended on others’ creativity, but they weren’t given their due.  Seeing that made me conscious of how much photography really is about “taking”.  There’s a bit of that in drawing, too.

Side Curve, 2012, by Fred Hatt

My friend Kristin, a dancer/choreographer, who has also been a creative collaborator of mine on video projects and has worked with me as an art model, recently sent me a link to this very interesting blog post (by Sarah Maxfield) with extensive discussion in the comments section.  The beginning of the discussion here is about choreographers and photographers failing to credit dancers, but questions about artists’ models also arise in the discussion, as many dancers have done such work.  The author and commenters really raise a lot of issues that are important, and rarely considered, and the level of the conversation will surely disabuse you of any notion that dancers are airhead bunheads.

James, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The currently prevailing convention in the subculture of life drawing sessions and classes, at least here in New York, seems to be that artists’ models go by first names only.  They are generally listed that way on the model schedules, and if you ask a model’s name, you’re generally given just a first name.  Many artists make recognizable portraits of professional artists’ models, and often title them with the model’s (first) name.  I usually do that myself when the works are basically portraits – calling a portrait something else would seem an unwarranted judgment or definition of the person.  But Minerva Durham, the director of Spring Studio, once criticized that practice.  As I recall, her point was that the model is paid to let you use their body, not their identity.

Undresser, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I once worked with a female model who had been born in modesty-obsessed Afghanistan but grew up in body-positive Western Europe, who was upset that another artist from Spring Studio had posted online a portrait (not nude) of her tagged with her real name.  She was afraid her Afghan relatives would find it and be upset.  I suggested she should come up with a “nom de muse”.  I suppose there are many reasons nude artists’ models (who often also have other careers) might want to remain anonymous, and if I don’t know, I hesitate to credit them all with full names.

A few years ago when I put up my current portfolio website, I emailed all the models I could to let them know I was putting drawings of them on my site, to thank them, and to ask them if they wished to be credited as model.  I think only one model actually asked to be credited.

Lying Awake, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Here on Drawing Life, my usual practice has been to title drawings with the model’s professional first name when it’s a portrait, and to give drawings that are less specifically portraits descriptive or poetic titles.  In this post, I’m crediting all the models with first names at the foot of the post.

I want to honor and thank the models that contribute so much to my work.  I’m not sure how best to do that.  I would love to get comments from artists or models about this issue.  Let me know what you think and how you feel!

All the drawings above were done at open figure drawing sessions at Spring Studio in Manhattan or Figureworks Gallery in Brooklyn (where there is a current show drawn from 12 years of life drawing classes there, with two of my drawings included).  All are in the size range between 18″ x 24″ and 19.5″ x 27.5″.  Models and media for the above drawings are as follows.  “Crayon” means Caran d’Ache aquarelle crayons.  In case of mixed media, first listed is predominant.

Andrea,  crayon and watercolor/gouache

Kneeling Over (Eric), crayon

Bench (Claudia), watercolor/gouache

Pedro, watercolor/gouache and crayon

Anguish (Eric), crayon

Double Back (Claire), watercolor

Lie Down (Amy), crayon

Claudia, watercolor

Conversation (Eric), watercolor/gouache

Vassilea, watercolor/gouache

Sidewise (Adam), watercolor/gouache

Head on Hand (Amy), watercolor

Plans (Adam), crayon

Side Curve (Amy), crayon

James, watercolor/gouache and crayon

Undresser (Adam), watercolor

Lying Awake (Claudia), crayon

 

2009/07/03

Alabaster & Obsidian

Filed under: Color,Figure Drawing: Models — Tags: , , , , , , — fred @ 14:49
Tragic Alley, 2006, by Fred Hatt

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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