Category Archives: Figurative

Many of the pieces listed here are full on live figure studies. Others are pieces of deconstructed realism based on a photograph. Relative to the live studies, in 2011 I was lucky enough to find a regular figure drawing session in the studio of a local artist in Bruges, Belgium. Bruno cranks up the jazz and off we go with short or long poses. The four minute poses are great for capturing the gesture quickly and decisively; the fifteen minute poses allow for more refinement. The photo-based studies shown here are alternate ways to explore the human figure.

Figure Drawing, Brugge, May 15, 2024

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Fifteen minute figure study. Charcoal pencil on toned recycling paper. 35 x 50 cm

After a looong hiatus from Bruges but also from live figure drawing, I’m very happy to be back. During this particular interim I’ve been concentrating on studying the anatomy of the human figure: bones (skeletal), muscles, tendons, ligaments; but also differing schemes for abstracting figurative essentials in an accurate way. Mostly, these studies were done at the Watts Atelier in Encinitas, California – and most were done by using photo references from books. Tedious, perhaps. Uninspiring, well, yes; so you just had to supply your own. Which I did.

Fifteen minute figure study. Charcoal pencil on toned recycling paper. 35 x 50 cm

My own inspiration then, my own questions, after drawing from the figure on and off for about forty years, were and are very specific. I have or have had no difficulty feeling the figure or expressing my feelings on paper but I certainly have noticed that I don’t always get the proportions right and, relative to anatomy, I have felt myself to be quite ignorant. In the world of Modern/Contemporary Art, neither of those things are a problem so long as you say something “personal” and that was what I was taught back in the day at my liberal-arts-college art department. Personal distortion is more or less expected. But there, for whatever reason, my temperament begs to differ: I feel awkward if things are off while my body tells me with a distinct sense of relaxation when I get it right.

Fifteen minute figure study. Charcoal pencil on toned recycling paper. 35 x 50 cm

Descending into these “left-brained” studies then has been deeply frustrating. I’ve had to retrain the dog so that, at least temporarily, I became ignorant and uncoordinated. My movements were slower and unsure, as analysis replaced intuition. My drawings were incoherent. Some instructors assured us that there was light at the end of the tunnel. I certainly hoped so. The good news was that I was instructed to use cheap and simple charcoal pencils. Nothing fancy or expensive, so any attempt was easy to throw away, but also no high-end crutch to rely upon. 😉

Fifteen minute figure study. Charcoal pencil on toned recycling paper. 35 x 50 cm

So here tonight, after returning to Brugge, I can feel and see some progress being made. My three minute gestures are currently trash (I am still moving too slowly) but all of the fifteen minute studies were “keepers”. Before I began my studies my batting average was maybe 50%? So my proportions are improving and I experienced great joy in discovering the various skeletal protrusions I had studied. Even the final pose of the night, a five minute energetically expansive one, fell into place quite quickly. Ha!

Five minute gesture study. Charcoal pencil on toned recycling paper. 35 x 50 cm.

I can imagine that over time I will be able to return to the chiaroscuro I used to enjoy so much. That is, placing highlights and shadows quickly – but accurately. For now though, placement on the page with proportional and gestural accuracy is improving so I’m happy.

Pieces of Me/Pieces of Eight/Pieces of White

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Pieces of Me/Pieces of Eight. Titanium white over silverpoint. Final size: 106.5 x 168 cm or 42″ x 66″

I’ve recently been able to complete this silverpoint inspired project – which is intended as a mix of realism and abstraction.

The underdrawing stage illustrated and described here consisted of sixty four panels rendered in silverpoint over a terre verte toned acrylic ground, highlighted with titanium white. After applying appropriate fixative, the overlaying layers consisted primarily of titanium white (there was also a tidge of zinc white) – either sprayed or thrown – in alternating sessions until I was satisfied with the result.

It was fun doing this second phase yet also challenging: it’s my first experience with throwing paint since my college days. So I had an internal image, but didn’t know exactly how to get there. It was a case of trial and error. My guiding principle was “circulation de la lumière” (the circulation of light). Naturally, that circulation had to take into account the highlights, quarter-tones and half-tones of the underdrawing. But the throwing itself involved a certain kind of chaos which I couldn’t really control, but rather at best, guide. The final size is approximately 3 1/2 feet x 5 1/2 feet. Basically, life size.

The final version displayed here is (of course) a photograph. As such it is a kind of compromise, not only because of my photography skills (but possibly anyone’s) to adequately represent this piece. The silverpoint layer reflects and resonates depending on the lighting conditions (and your position in the room) while the overpainted layer of titanium white, as a very opaque pigment, simply reflects.

With ambient lighting conditions more of the underdrawing softly comes through, while with strong overhead light the overpainted splashes become emphasised. My intention is/was to achieve an alternating balance between the two so that the viewer can receive alternating impressions. For all these reasons it’s important to cut this digital image some slack. So no, there will be no NFTs made available of this anywhere on the internet. 😉

With luck I hope to exhibit it somewhere, sometime in the relatively near future. TBD.

Figure Drawing, August 22, 2022

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Three minute gesture study. Charcoal on tinted sketching paper. 35 x 50 cm.

Fifteen minute study. Conté crayon tightened with pastel on tinted Canson paper. 32 x 50 cm.

Last night I was happy to see our beautiful young man there again. He has slowly become more relaxed and creative as he learns the posing ropes. Nice. But indeed it was to be his last evening modeling for us, as the summer winds down and soon he will be off to school. But I did discover his name, Kobe, like the Lakers’ famous basketball player. Ha!

Additionally, I had also heard that last night was going to be our last evening at the kasteel (!) but in fact, that’s next week. 😦 Turns out, is was only a summer lease as there is no heating in the place and barely enough electricity for some spot lights, so we will have to go elsewhere. Apparently a new location has already been found – and with a year’s lease. Though sessions will not begin again until the end of October. OK.

Fifteen minute study. Conté crayon tightened with pastel on tinted Canson paper. 32 x 50 cm.

Three minute gesture study. Charcoal on tinted sketching paper. 35 x 50 cm.

Back to tonight. It was one of those evenings where for some reason it took me awhile to warm up. The first half did not yield any keepers but the second half did. I had purchased some new Canson paper in a grey-brown hue which I was eager to try out. The two fifteen minute studies displayed here are from that batch. Since it is a lighter tonality than the sepia I have been using, I can see that in the future I will want to leave enough time to zap in some shadow accents, too. As it is, I feel these two displayed here are quite successful though a little too light overall in tonality.

As the evening progressed I found myself repeating an artist’s mantra that a friend of mine who studied at the Ecole de Beaux Arts back in the seventies once shared with me:

mise en page (placement on the page)
circulation de la lumèire (circulation of the light)
ne tombe pas dans les détailes (don’t fall into the details)

The first one is appropriate for any two dimensional drawing (like the three minute gestures) but the second two are especially useful for the fuller development of any drawing (for example, the fifteen minute poses included here). Also, you do not need to restrict yourself to figurative work to apply these rules. They apply to abstraction and can help you to evaluate why a good abstract piece actually works – when it does. And, as I think about it, I would add a fourth: the appeal of texture. En français: l’attrait textuel?

Figure Drawing, August 8, 2022

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Fifteen minute study. Conté crayon on Canson pastel paper. 30 x 50 cm.

Fifteen minute study. Conté crayon on Canson tinted paper. 30 x 50 cm.

Tonight we had another new model. New to us but also new to being a model for figure drawing. So, besides setting the length of the poses, Patrick, our new co-ordinator, does not tell the models what to do. (Bruno our last maître didn’t either) It’s always best to let the model sit, stand or lay in ways that are comfortable to them. Then we figure out how to make that interesting.

All that being said, there are models who intuitively understand what makes for a good pose. In that context, our new guy seemed to possess a comfortable bodily solidity so that the poses he took, though extremely simple and without any contrapasto or inner movement, were quite interesting to draw. That was my experience at least. These are a few fifteen minute studies as well as some three minute gesture drawings.

Three minute sketch, charcoal on tinted sketching paper. 35 x 50 cm.

Figure Drawing August 1, 2022

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Fifteen minute pose. Conté crayon highlighted with pastel on Canson paper. 30 x 50 cm.

We were so lucky to have the same model again tonight. I smiled to see him and could observe over the course of the evening that he was a little more relaxed this time. He even brought his girlfriend and the two of them modelled together during the second half.

All that being the case (the first half or the second) I did not feel that I had a very successful catch for the night. The double session drawings did not play out for me. (Both were very sweet but unsure how to make such a venture interesting for us to draw.)

Three minute pose. Charcoal on toned sketching paper. 35 x 50 cm.

Displayed here then are a few that made the grade.

Figure Drawing July 25, 2022

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Fifteen minute figure study. Conte crayon highlighted with patel chalk on Canson paper. 30 x 50 cm

A new model tonight. A classically beautiful young man. Strong, healthy. He reminded me of a young puppy that is now growing/becoming a big dog. So his head, hands and feet were slightly larger proportionally than the rest of his body. At maybe 17 years old, he appears to be on the cusp of catching up. A wonder to behold. Shy, actually tense: this was his first time.

Fifteen minute figure study. charcoal highlighted with pastel chalk on sketching paper. 35 x 50 cm.

I really enjoyed drawing him though, allowing even his tension to reflect through. As it turned out, I think the fifteen minute studies were the more successful. This is because a three minute pose is all about gesture. And it took him awhile to get gestural, to relax. With one exception, his short poses were not very interesting (to me). I had difficulty getting a quick read. But the longer ones allowed time for roving and searching and because he had such a solid figure there was plenty of material to feel my way through.

Fifteen minute figure study. Conte crayon highlighted with patel chalk on Canson paper. 30 x 50 cm

Three minute gesture study. Charcoal on sketching paper. 35 x 50 cm.

A few fifteen minute studies. and one three minute gesture.

Figure Drawing, July 18, 2022

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15 minute pose. Charcoal on toned sketching paper.

Rear entrance to Kasteel Rooigem in Sint Andries, Belgium

After a very long hiatus (2.5 years!) the open studio figure drawing sessions here in Bruges have finally resumed. Hooray!!! During this interim, while the pandemic raged, Bruno Van Dyck, our resident artist-host, moved to a new studio in an old castle. Thanks to him, we now have a lovely setting for drawing in an outbuilding of the (former) Bishop’s Palace, on the outskirts of town. A great setting: some clouds do have a silver lining.

3 minute pose. Charcoal on toned sketching paper.

15 minute pose. Conté crayon on toned Canson paper.

So the place is new but the crew and the set-up is not. Bruno too, has passed the baton to a new “master of ceremonies”, who now collects our coins and instead of delicious jazz or fantastic guitar licks plays Piaf and French chansons. For a Belgian castle it all seems quite appropriate. Maybe next week we’ll get Jacques Brel? As the session began I wondered how rusty I would feel but as it turned out, there were a few keepers for the night. Included here are a few – plus the castle’s back door entrance.

Silverpoint underdrawings, batch #4

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Perhaps because I haven’t posted in awhile, a number of friends have asked recently if I am still working on my silverpoint drawings. The answer is emphatically: “Yes!”. Since I’ve had a few other projects on my plate, I just haven’t done a post. So here is batch #4.

Actually, I am coming down the home stretch of these sixty four (underdrawing) panels (there are still twelve left to do). Each is a jewel in its own right, though clearly some are more interesting compositionally than others. I had about thirty panels to sort through in order to select these five to showcase here.

As you’ll see, the panels that contain body parts with differing textures and conditions of light make for the most interesting compositions. It’s important to recognise that the silverpoint can never create a really dark line. The best that’s achievable is a 50% warm grey (which is drawn on a panel already tinted with a terra verte toned ground). So after transposing the basic form-describing lines, I fill in the dark values with silver cross-hatching. Through this process, the three quarter tone, deep shadow information inevitably gets lost however the composition does come to life when I introduce tints of (acrylic) titanium white.

Silverpoint underdrawings, batch #3

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Silverpoint underdrawing #38 on toned ground highlighted with acrylic.

After a long hiatus (at least from here) I’ve got another batch of silverpoint underdrawings to publish. These were created during our recent trip to California – in my new studio there. The new studio is in our garage, so besides the new working-space, I envision that I will have more room there to create larger pieces (who needs cars anyway?). My current working-space here in Belgium measures about 4 x 10 feet but since Euro-compression-design rules the day I have been able to pack many useful features into it. Still. it’s cramped.

Underdrawing in silverpoint #57 on toned ground highlighted with white.

When I began this project I knew of course that the silverpoint pencil nib is quite restrictive, so the challenge in these panels is how to render various highly textured, amorphous and abstract shapes with a very fine, low in value line. Mostly impossible. For many of these compositions then, if I were to use just silverpoint, I’d have only very flat uninteresting underdrawings to offer. But since they are executed on a toned ground, the addition of the while highlights (using tubes of titanium white in acrylic) allows for greater manipulations. Washes quickly establish the tonality, texture and gesture – things which are otherwise difficult to achieve in silverpoint alone.

Underdrawing in silverpoint #36 over toned ground, highlighted with white.

The silverpoint then establishes the basics of the design and hints toward the darker values, while the white moves the image forward. I enlisted the help not only of brushes but also sponges, hands and fingers. And since each panel is about the size of a standard book, I could rotate the panel to get my washes to drip in whatever direction I needed. Nice. That’s really hard to do with a big panel or canvas. 😉

Underdrawing in silverpoint #58 over toned gesso, highlighted with white acrylic.

All in all I created fourteen panels during this recent time. They are still resting in their little beds in California, however I was able to take some photographs of them before leaving. I’m hoping to put the whole series together during our next trip, where I will have enough space to throw some paint at the final assemblage. As ever, we’ll see.

Silverpoint underdrawings, batch #2

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Silverpoint underdrawing #05 on toned gesso ground. 13.3 x 21 cm or 5 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.

I’ve completed six more panels, so I figure it’s time for an update. Illustrated here are a few of those that I that have found to be particularly interesting/beautiful for various reasons. The most evocative appear to be those whose compositions include human beings or parts thereof. It’s as though each one is from some unwritten comic book – captions not included (Hergé would have understood). Additionally, the abstract panels cause me to wonder/admire anew at how the iconoclastic impulse of Islamic art continues to produce such interesting varieties of texture and pattern.

Silverpoint underdrawing #07 on toned gesso ground. 13.3 x 21 cm or 5 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.

Further, one very general note. I feel I am serendipitously creating 21st century daguerreotypes(!). (Who knew?) It’s as though by using silver to recreate images based on a digital photograph the mechanistic process has come full circle: human to machine back to human. And again, because the drawing stylus is silver it’s almost impossible to achieve a line that is darker than a 50% grey value. All values are compressed thereby, necessitating a multitude of small decisions. Adding in the white highlights makes each panel come alive – my own gevoelsmatig pleasure.

Silverpoint underdrawing #11 on toned gesso ground. 13.3 x 21 cm or 5 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.

The raison d’être for these remains as underdrawings. And I have no doubt that their beauty and subtlety will contribute to the whole in as-yet-to-be-experienced ways. However, some will be held back for individual display and appreciation. For this, I think I have a plan…

ellentrezevant

a portfolio of my artwork

Category Archives: Figurative

Figure Drawing, Brugge, May 15, 2024

Pieces of Me/Pieces of Eight/Pieces of White

Figure Drawing, August 22, 2022

Figure Drawing, August 8, 2022

Figure Drawing August 1, 2022

Figure Drawing July 25, 2022

Figure Drawing, July 18, 2022

Silverpoint underdrawings, batch #4

Silverpoint underdrawings, batch #3

Silverpoint underdrawings, batch #2