Crossroads

As an artist you face infinite possibilities when it comes to creating your art. These possibilities can be limited by a number of things; content, intent, style, material, all of which may already be set and some that may not be. Either way, when you encounter a situation where you can go left or right. Just go. Make a decision and proceed. 

In other words...

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"  -Yogi Berra

Donato Giancola had a great post about this over on Muddy Colors, you can read it here.

From Color to Sound

The following was taken from an account of a sitter being painted by John Singer Sargent in 1902:

My husband came several times to the sittings. On one occasion Mr. Sargent sent for him specially. He rode across the Park to Tite Street. He found Mr. Sargent in a depressed mood. The opals baffled him. He said he couldn't paint them. They had been a nightmare to him, he declared, throughout the painting of the portrait. That morning he was certainly in despair.

Presently he said to my husband: "Let's play a Fauré duet." They played, Mr. Sargent thumping out the bass with strong, stumpy fingers. At the conclusion Mr. Sargent jumped up briskly, went back to the portrait and with a few quick strokes, dabbed in the opals. He called to my husband to come and look: "I've done the damned thing," he laughed under his breath.

What appeared to interest him more than anything else when I arrived was to know what music I had brought with me. To turn from color to sound evidently refreshed him, and presumably the one art stimulated the other in his brain.

References: I found the information in this post from the accounts of Sargent's process and methods by some of his students, Miss Heyneman and Mr. Henry Haley. A collected PDF of these compiled notes can be found on Craig Mullins' site here.

Faithful Portraiture

Below is an excerpt from some notes on John Singer Sargent. They have been compiled from a multitude of sources and can be found at Craig Mullins' site here.

It was a common experience for Sargent, as probably for all portrait painters, to be asked to alter some feature in a face, generally the mouth. Indeed, this happened so often that he used to define a portrait as "a likeness in which there was something wrong about the mouth." He rarely acceded, and then only when he was already convinced that it was wrong. In the case of Francis Jenkinson, the Cambridge Librarian (painting below), it was pointed out that he had omitted many lines and wrinkles which ought to be shown on the model's face. Sargent refused to make, he said, "a railway system of him."

While it is true that Sargent would almost never change his subjects features at their request he did exaggerate those features required for the most faithful likeness. In this way he certainly did not paint exactly what he saw but rather captured the essence of his sitter.

Below is the compared photograph and portrait of Coventry Patmore. The portrait having been done from life (not from the photograph) both dated to the mid 1890's.

Patmore thought very highly of Sargent having wrote of him: 

“He seems to me to be the greatest, not only of living English portrait painters, but of all English portrait painters; and to be thus invited to sit to him for my picture is among the most signal honours I have ever received.”

He was so impressed by the likeness that he wrote of the painting: 

"It is now finished to the satisfaction, and far more than the satisfaction of every one - including the painter - who has seen it. It will be simply, as a work of art, THE painting of the Academy."

Feedback Part 2

While they were all encouraging and they all held some bits of information that would help guide me in the coming years there was one email I received back in 2008 that would do more to influence my growth than all of the others.

It came from Todd Lockwood.

For those of you who don't know of Lockwood's work, please go check it out. He is an amazing painter and in many's eyes his is the last word when it comes to dragons.

Following are some excerpts from his email...

"Use good reference when you draw. Drawing out of your head can be fun, but if you want to learn and draw well, life-drawing is a must. It's an invaluable way to learn the subtleties of the human form (something that few can ever really master entirely), so have a regular place to draw. At home, if you have a camera, take photos from which to draw. A digital camera can be a wondrous asset if you have access to a computer and printer. I also strongly recommend a book called 'Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain' by Betty Edwards. It contains some amazing exercises for stimulating the part of your brain that sees things as they really are, and can help you break some bad habits that you have taught yourself when you were learning the standard, over-simplified symbols of How Things Look. Every first grader knows that a nose is an L-shape, or upside-down 7, for example. It's not true, obviously, but even talented artists will have set routines that they run when they are drawing an ear, say, or an eye, that may contain inaccuracies that escape the casual observer. The result is a face or figure that is drawn according to a list of symbols rather than a detailed observation of the reality, complete with light effects, shadows, perspective, and so on. Accurate observation is essential to a good drawing. If you always draw from your head, you will not exorcise those flawed routines."

"Art is far more about knowing what things look like and why than it is about media, but digital media offer too many temptations that can blunt your learning ability. I recommend highly that you draw with a pencil, kneaded eraser, and a paper blending stick or stomp and concentrate on making the best black & white images that you can for now."

"There is a good resource available online: you can view the art texts of Andrew Loomis, for FREE, here: http://www.fineart.sk/photo-references/andrew-loomis-anatomy-books. Loomis was an illustrator and teacher of art in the forties and fifties. What most distinguishes his career is the legacy in these books. He was a master teacher, and covers all the basics thoroughly, with terrific illustrations to boot. He's an amazing teacher"

He then gave me a mini lesson on light and shadow. These points as well as some others that Todd touches upon in his class at the SmART School can be found in his recent blog post on Muddy Colors here: http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2014/01/narrative-illustration.html

LIGHT & SHADOW

"Here's a tip for shading: light acts like ping-pong balls. A particle of light hits a surface and bounces off at a predictable angle, like a billiard ball banking off of a side-rail. I'm attaching some little jpegs that demonstrate this..."

"I'm showing you two things: the light that bounces directly into your eye, as a highlight (solid lines), and the light that doesn't, which is the ambient light (dashed lines). You can think of ANY surface as a mirror which throws light back. That's easy with a flat surface, because mirrors are flat. Round surfaces are otherwise no different. Light strikes the surface and bounces off most powerfully at an IDENTICAL, but OPPOSING angle. Just like a billiard ball. So, the light bouncing toward your eye- the only light you will see, obviously- will be strongest where it is coming off of that kind of bounce. It's relative to the placement of the light source and the location of your eye, in space. A highlight IS NOT strongest where the surface is closest to the light source. It is strongest where the angle of that surface is MOST LIKELY to bounce the light straight toward your eye. That is the red lines. The ambient light is the light that is bouncing off of irregularities in the surface, and it goes in every direction. There is light bouncing everywhere, all the time. We only perceive the light that happens to be bouncing to the exact spot where our pupils are. Some of it will bounce back toward another surface, then off of that second (or third) surface and into our eyes. That's reflected light, or fill light (the solid purple line)."

There will be a tendency for a surface to appear brighter toward the light source, but that is different than the actual highlight. Look at the drawing of the brick to see what I mean. There is a point of demarcation on the corner edge of the brick where the highlight is most likely, but the light that strikes the face of the brick as it falls away from the light is doing so at an ever increasing angle. This will be especially true where the light source is close. The more extreme that angle becomes, the less likely it is that the surface irregularities will bounce some of that ambient light toward your eye, thus the light appears to "fall away".

"If you think of a surface as a mirror, the highlight will appear wherever that spot is that would have been a reflection of the light, were it an actual mirror. Make sense? Some surfaces are great at reflecting, like mirrors. Some aren't, like walls. But walls are still flat enough that there will be a 'hot spot'. Look at the walls where you are sitting right now and find the hot spot"

"That's all you need to know about how light works to start studying it. Everything you draw or paint is either a flat or curved surface, and the rules will apply. Even water works that way, though transparency is another issue. Your job as you draw is to see the light bouncing. The better you know the volume and construction of the forms of the objects, the better you will understand how light bounces off of and onto those objects, so that is important too."

While I never did read Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain, the books by Andrew Loomis (especially Figure Drawing for All it's Worth) and Todd's excellent mini lesson jump started me on my quest. Thank you Todd.

UP NEXT: Paul Carrick

Feedback Part 1

As a young artist just getting into art school you live and die by the feedback of your teachers and peers. Some is good, but most is bad. It is up to you to weed through the endless critiques and comments to find those choice moments that strike a chord with you. This three part series will highlight some of my own choice moments. I hope some of this may resonate with you like it did with me.

After my first year of art school I was stricken by something a professor had said to me. At my final critique he asked me what it was I wanted to do after I graduated to which I replied fantasy and science fiction illustration. He asked me to look out at what the fine art seniors had done for their thesis show that year and said to me that you should just leave and go to a different school because no one is doing the type of work that interests you here.

I was a fine art major at a very small school and there really wasn't anyone doing the type of work I wanted to get into. He was absolutely right and maybe I should have taken his advice, but I stayed for a multitude of reasons, not least is the caliber of teachers I had and would come to have. I was there first and foremost to learn how to draw and paint but what he said stuck with me throughout, and in conjunction with meeting Paul Carrick (I'll get to that meeting later in this series), made me hungry for knowledge outside of my schooling.

Thank you Steve Novick for giving me that initial push to learn what I needed to learn.


My first big step came in 2008 during my first summer break. I felt that the feedback of my professors wasn't enough and that what I really needed was the opinions of the people whose work I admired and followed closely. Professionals in the field of illustration, the very people who drew me to it in the first place. I compiled a list of my favorites and sent out my portfolio in a shotgun blast of emails hoping for the best. Surprisingly enough I got several responses within the next few weeks and they were invaluable to me in my artistic growth over the next few years. To the artists both named here and not, that took time out of their day to send me these, I am extremely grateful. You encouraged and continue to encourage a young artist finding his way in this business. Below is a selection of quotes from those emails...


 RANDY GALLEGOS
"Drawing is the blueprint of painting--without great drawing, color can't do its job."

MATT WILSON

"Focus your portfolio. Pick the genre of artwork you're going to focus on and do lots of that. A good portfolio should have 8-12 pieces demonstrating different subject matter within the same basic genre. No more, no less, and no weird, out of left field stuff. If you want to do fantasy book covers or Magic cards, don't show your prospective clients celebrity portraits. The reverse applies as well, naturally. You don't send a picture of a dragon to Time Magazine in order to score editorial art gigs. And of course, ditch the school work. People know it when they see it, and they won't hire you if they think you're a student or don't have professional experience. It's your job to create the illusion that you are the consummate professional...until you are."

 MARK ZUG

"You never outgrow the need to learn. The MAIN thing is to get your hand very much at home with the language, and the only thing for that is gobs and gobs of practice."

DAVE KENDALL

"When you paint, really concentrate on the textures and feel of the different materials in the image. Skin, metal etc. The best way I found was to imagine the feel of each material as you paint it. It's tricky but you'll know when you get it. it's really like a light turning on in your head."

"Post your work on a site like conceptart.org in their sketchbook section. You will get a lot of honest critiques from professional and amateur artists alike. Many artists have made huge leaps through this site. Be humble and take constructive criticism to heart."

"In the end you just have to practice and make each piece of work better than your last. be aware of your weaknesses more than your strengths and work on them. Recognize what makes other artist's images work and try and introduce it to your compositions."

UP NEXT: Todd Lockwood gives me my first lesson on light and shadow...