I really enjoyed this week. Rather than just line drawing studies I challenged myself to be more creative, working with negative space, one line drawings, reducing pictures to strips etc. I was looking forward to working with watercolor to create color studies, and I tried (and mostly succeeded) to not stress about making them ‘perfect’. The line drawings were much more enjoyable than I thought they would be, as I just let myself go and had fun with them.
Artist Research
Mark Flood’s works interested me in their use of the space around the subject, such as the blue in Deer and the interior of the ‘frame’ in Respite. I made negative space the focus of a few of my line drawings, and surprisingly really enjoyed the result. I think exploring this in the next few weeks will lead to some really interesting paintings.
Bartek Materka’s gestural lines and reduction of subjects into two shapes like in Untitled is more inspiration for the following weeks rather than this week. Reducing a subject into such harsh light and shadow isn’t really something I’ve tried before as I more often create a range of shades, but I’d like to try emulate that of Materka’s work.
Lucas Arruda’s sky studies are a masterful use of gesture and will continue to be a constant point of reference in my mind from now on. The rough brush strokes of both Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series) and SEM TITULO work wonderfully to blend in a way I didn’t register was possible, and I hope to create a larger range of marks like these.
Joseph Grigely’s collages may be read to some as words rather than line drawings, but the way in which these pieces work together is right up my alley. I have always been interested in this kind of doodle-style making although I never really see it considered as “real art”, but Grigely’s work has helped to validate this idea and I hope to integrate more of this style into future pieces.
Silke Schatz’s architectural studies are mathematical, methodical, and visually striking. Abstract gestural art seems to be what is favored right now, and I think Schatz’s work is wonderfully abstract in it’s own way. Working with rulers and ‘perfect’ly straight lines isn’t something I considered would be smiled upon when creating line drawings/studies, but I am glad to see art like that which helps me to believe the opposite.