Drawing 1 – Summer Session 1, 2009
Heather D. Freeman
Homework
By the beginning of every class, post your previous in-class works to your blog.
By the beginning of every Monday, post the indicated sketchbook home works to the blog.
Day 1
Thoughts and Definitions
Objective Drawing - Conveys information and can also
overlap with subjective drawing.
Informational Drawings – objective, diagramatic,
architectural, mechanical
Schematic – objective, also called conceptual
Pictoral Drawing – objective, includes photorealism
Subjective Drawing - emphasizes artist’s emotions.
Audience – For whom is the drawing intended?
Subject and Treatment - What is the artist going to draw
and how is he/she going to draw it?
Documentation and Sketches
Blogs – a Public diary and/or sketchbook – Post photos of
your in-class works every day to your blog!
Documentation – the practice of photographically recording
your finished and/or in progress artworks. Good quality
documentation is critical for all professional creative
development.
Artist Statement – an artist’s self-evaluation of their own
work, generally exploring their conceptual concerns and
interests.
Sketchbook – an artist’s best friend; the place in which
he/she explores concepts, records ideas and developes
themes.
Day 2 and 3
Gesture
Gesture Drawing – “Gesture - Applies to a bodily motion
or posture intended to express or emphasize expression.”
Exploring Materials – Explore your materials with a
variety of gestures. (long, short, soft, hard, heavy, thin, etc.)
Make a list of the qualities. Use other hand and repeat
exercise. Hold two different materials (additive and
reductive, for example) and once and draw with both.
Drawing Warm-Up – Stand, do not sit unless physically
necessary. Stand at arm’s length. Keep eyes on subject
(only glance at paper when necessary), keep drawing tool
in contact with paper (keep marks continuous). Fill the
WHOLE page with the drawing, lines should extend off all
four edges. Avoid outlines and draw loosely through the
forms. Look at subject in entirely for a moment before
drawing.
Other Drawing Approaches
Continuous Line – Unbroken and continuous line. (can cut
through forms)
Organizational Line – Generally geometic lines, horizontal,
vertical to establish heights and widths.
Contour Line – A continuous line tracing the outlines and
generally shapes of forms without cutting through the
forms and yet is spacially descriptive.
Assignments
Subjects for gesture drawings – Animals, People in public
places, musicians, sports events, children in parks, cafés,
people dancing, bus stops and train stations, landscapes,
people performing chores, interior scenes, clothing hung on
chairs, in piles on floor or draped fabric.
Continuous line and organizational line drawings – Choose
static subject matter, with defined special relations such as
a group of objects on a table or a landscape scene.
Drawing Warm-Up Cont. - 15-second gesture drawings, 30
second gesture drawings, 1 minute, etc. up to 3 minute
gesture drawings.
Spend at least 15 minutes at the beginning of each drawing
session doing gestures to warm up. Jumping jacks help
too!
Mass Gesture – broad marks rather than narrow line.
Line Gesture – using narrow line rather than broad.
Mass and Line Gesture – combines two.
Scribbled Line Gesture – tight network of lines. Looser
networks at edges, tighter network at areas of heavy mass.
Sustained Gesture – Begin as with the other gesture
drawings, but then gradually make corrections so that the
form matches the proportions and volumes of the subject.
The sustained gesture takes longer, 5, 10, or 15 minutes to
complete.
Blind Contour Line – Often a slower mode of drawing. A
contour line drawn of a subject without ever looking at the
paper. The eye traces the subject and the line marks, in a
continous line, the movement of the eye.
Blind contour line drawings – Any subject is good, but
spend more than 5 minutes on a drawing to get more
interesting results. Also choose a subject that does not
move at first, then try another subject that moves. Try
hands, feet, plants, fruit, tools, desktop articles, vehicles,
toys, people, self-portraits, etc.
Self-portrait – Create a blind-contour self-portrait. Then
create a contour-line self-portrait while glancing
periodically at the paper.
Drawing 1 – Summer Session 1, 2009
Day 4 and 5
Types Spacial Relationships
3-Dimensional or Illusionistic Space – Walton Ford
2-dimensional or Flat Space – Franz Kline
Shape
Geometic Shapes – Forms defined my mathematical laws
and, dominantly, angles and regular curves (squars,
rectangles, ovals, elipses, etc.) Kandinksy
Modeling – changing the light to dark over a form to
suggest 3-dimensional space.
Positive and Negative Space
Picture Plane – the surface on which you are drawing
Positive Space – the shape of the object drawn
Negative Space – the space surrounding the positive forms.
Figure/Ground – Interchangable terms for
Positive/Negative Space.
Interchangable Positive and Negative Shapes – A drawing
where depending on what the viewer is observing either the
“positive” or the “negative” space and be the dominant form.
Plane and Volume
Volume – The 3-dimensional equivalent of 2-dimensional
space. Volume also defines mass which is the weight and
density of an object.
Assignments
Line vs. Tone to Create Volume - Draw a box or brick using
only lines to create planes (where by the connection of the
planes create volume. The create a drawing of the same
subject that uses primarily tone (shades of gray) rather than
line to create volume.
Altered Picture Plane – Draw a long horizontal, a square, a
narrow verticle, a circle and an oval. These will be the
picture planes for five different thumbnail sketches of the
same subject. Change the composition according to the
picture plane.
Day 6 and 7
Value
Value (also Tone) – the gradation from light to dark across
a form (achromatic). Squint to see your subject more
tonally (in terms of value), than chromatically (in terms of
color).
Uses of Value – Primarily, helps create volume in shapes,
describes objects, the light striking them, their weight,
structure and spatial arrangement. But value also can add
emotive and expressive appeal.
Value Scale – A drawing/painting of a series of tones, from
black to white, to understand value.
Heather D. Freeman
Ambiguous or Combination 2- and 3-D Space - Romare
Beardon
Organic Shapes – Forms which are biomorphic, amoedoid
or free form.
Suggested or Implied Shapes – Shapes that the viewer
conceptually completes based on a limited about of
information (such as three dots form a triangle).
Shape of the Picture Plane – Although conventionally
rectangular, to form a “window” into the world in which
the drawing exists the picture plane itself can be an
“object”, either a positive or negative space.
Planes – When 2-dimensional shapes become volumentric
when read as planes. (Drawing of a cube as an example)
Positive and Negative Space – Do six contour line
drawings (not crossing into the form, therefore silhouettes)
of five subjects that interest you. The outlines should be
recognizable. Choose your favorite two. In one, fill the
positive space with drawing, in the other, fill the negative
space. Examples include filling the positive or negative
space with organic, natural forms, machine parts, abstract
patterning, collage, text, etc.
Leaves – draw in blind contour the negative space of leaves
in trees.
Time-lapse – Sit in a public spot and draw the activity as it
happens on the same piece of paper.
High Contrast – A drawing using primarily black and white
and very little mid-tone gray.
Creating Value – Line weight and width, line spacing,
smudging, rubbing, erasing, washes (wet media), stippling
(many tiny dots and very short marks), cross-hatch
(diagonal lines, overlapping in different directions to
increase value).
Arbitrary Use of Value – use of value that ignores laws of
nature and observation in order to create a focal point
within a composition.
Value to Describe Weight
Use of value that ignores laws of nature in order to create a sense of relative weight or lightness to part of a drawing.
Value to Describe Light
Categories of Light on a Form – highlight, light, shadow, core of shadow, reflected shadow, cast shadow.
Value Reduction - Reducing all the values of light to just black and white, creating a high contrast image.
Drawing 1 – Summer Session 1, 2009
Heather D. Freeman
Value to Describe Space
Use of value (either ignoring or adhering to the laws of nature) to descibe the layout of feeling of a space.
Expressive Use of Value
Value can create pathos, joy, loneliness, quietness, rage,
claustrophobia, anxiety, and an enormous range of
emotions within a drawing.
Value Reversal – Instead of creating a dark subject on a
light background, a light subject on a dark background is
created.
Value used Subjectively – Instead of paying attention to the
laws of nature to create realistic space, value is used to
emphasize a particular emotive or conceptual concern.
Value to create Abstraction – Value alone can create
abstract, non-objective or representational shapes.
Assignments
Thumbnail Sketches – Draw three picture planes on your
page of different shapes and sizes and then create ten pages
of these (use front and back) so that you have thirty picture
planes. Create 30 thumbnail sketches of different
subjects/landscapes. Use both value and line to define the
compositions you are creating.
Arbitrary Value - Choose a subject or still life. Create a
gesture drawing and then refine it as a line drawing, but
then creating volume using value only on a single part of
the drawing.
Value to Describe Planes – Draw an organic subject
(person, animal, or plant) using planar analysis. Then use a
range of value to additionally mold these planes.
Value as abstraction – Divide your page 3x3 (nine planes)
and in each plane, just using shapes and value, create
abstract expressions of the following words: anger, love,
fear, guilt, greed, joy, sadness, confusion, illness.
Four Divisions of Value – Coat your paper with charcoal to
a medium gray. Draw your subject using only four shades
of gray, white, the gray of your paper, a darker gray and
black.
Glass – Set up a glass and a shiny mug in a still life with
sunlight are another high-contrast light source. Use six
tones (from white to black) to describe the shadows. Use
only value, no lines other than gesture lines to set up the
composition.
Crumpled Paper – Crumple up a piece of paper. Using a
graphite pencil, draw wad using primarily value and
minimal (or non-existant) line.
Self-portrait – create a self portrait using value and volume,
of any part of the body, but not the head.
Black Paper – using only white charcoal on black paper,
draw a small still-life. Try to light the still life with harsh
abrupt lighting for best results.
Stencil Light – Do a sketch of a high contrast public space
such as a coffee shop on black or white paper. Make a
contour light and carefully note highlights and shadows.
Then take an exacto-blade and cut out either the highlights
or the shadows from this drawing. You may also choose to
cut thin lines from contour forms that exist primarily in
middle gray. Place this against a another piece of paper
(white or black) to see the results.
Day 8 and 9
Line
Automatic Drawing – drawing shapes and images which
emerge unconsciously (such as doodeling while talking on
the telephone or when in class, for shame!)
Experimental Line – Lines created using non-traditional
media, sometimes on non-traditional surfaces. (tape on
cardboard, lipstick on fabric, branches nailed to the wall,
etc.)
Line Quality – The sensitivity and “personality” of a line.
This often leads to a drawing “style” which is often defined
as much by the personality of the artist as by the world in
which they currently live: See Paul Klee (“Taking a Line
for a Walk”), Pablo Picasso, George Grosz, Philip Guston,
among many others.
Minimalism and Reduction – Paring down the line element
to the bare basics and single/double element. (Sol LeWitt)
Process Art – Art which is created by a process the artists
creates and then performs, generally repetitively, to create a
distilled result. The viewer then creates for themselves,
intellectually, the process by which the artist created the
work.
Neo-Naïve, Bad Painting and New Imagist – Polar opposite
of minimalism and reduction. Often defined by crude
figuration and expressionistic handling; reject norms of
“right” way to draw.
Overlaid Images - Images in which forms are overlapped
yet simultaneously visible and recognizable.
Types of Line
Contour Line – Can be both representational and abstract.
Cross Contour - Lines which describe an objects horizontal
contours rather than its verticle edges, emphasizing the
objects volume in space (similar to contour maps).
Mechanical Drawing – Objective, nonpersonal line that
maintains its width.
Structural Line – Lines which indicate planar direction and
reveal planar structure.
Lyrical Line – spontaneous, relaxed and playful line.
Constricted and Aggressive Line - Incising a line, or
creating a ragged or abraded line can achieve this.
Implements such as knives, rasps and razors used as
scrapers can all be experimental tools.
Drawing 1 – Summer Session 1, 2009
Handwriting, Cursive and Calligraphic Line – Generally
using calligraphic pen and ink, or sumi brush and ink, but
the gesture of hand-writing can also be achieved with any
dry media and on any material (consider graffiti, cy
twonbly, etc.)
Implied Line – A line that stops and picks up again,
suggesting it’s continuation.
Assignments
Slow Contour – Create a contour line drawing of a plant or
old shoe through very slow and careful observation. Avoid
distortion as best you can.
Exaggerated Contour – Create a contour line drawing of a
subject deliberately distorting some part of it.
Quick Contour Drawing – Using pen and ink or small
brush and ink, create a series of very quick contour
drawings of people and/or animals.
Contour with Tone – Create a contour drawing of a subject
and then selectively add value to a section to create volume
and emotive quality.
Conceptual Drawing – Write instructions for a drawing to
be completed at a later date (á la Sol LeWitt). Also,
perform the instructions given by classmates conceptual
drawings.
Heather D. Freeman
Blurred Line – Lines which are smudged, erased or
destroyed in some way, either by rubbing or by erasure; not
as precisely stated as implied lines. These create an
indefinite edge and therefore an undefined space.
Whimsical Line – appropriate for naïve, childlike subject,
both intuitive and yet deeply stated. (Paul Klee)
Exquisite Corpse – (Takes three people). Fold a piece of
paper in thirds, conceiling the parts. Using contour line
drawing, the first person draws on the first fold,
overlapping the lines over the edge just a bit, then folding
the drawing over and presenting the empty page to the next
person. This process is repeated until all three have drawn
and then open the paper to see the resulting image.
Old Shoes – draw three an old pair of shoes in the same
position from the same angle, three different ways. One
objectively, one subjectively, and one of your choice.
Self-portrait- Create three self-portraits, where the whole
body is gesture, except for the hands in one, the feet in the
other (no shoes!), and the body part of your choice in the
third. In each of these, the hands, feet, and other body part,
respectively, should be rendered with volume.
Day 10 and 11
Developing Your Stengths
Day 12 and 13
Texture
Texture – defined by both how the drawing materials are
used, what they are, and to what surface they are applied.
Window or Object – the picture plane is either a window or
object and texture generally is an illusion of a physical
property or a physical property itself (but can also be both).
Photo-realism – The surface of a photograph is conveyed
rather than the surface of the subjects.
Pattern and Decoration – use of repeated forms (motifs)
which as a whole create texture; often influenced by
textiles, folk art and some crafts. Patterns are not only
decorative, but convey conceptual and cultural associations.
Additive Materials to Create Texture
Collage – the additional of a flat material to the surface of
the work. (Romare Beardon)
Assemlage – the addition of dimensional material to the
surface of the work. Blurs into 3-d and even time-based
art. (Anselm Kiefer, Jim Dine)
Montage – developed by the Dadaists, this combines
photographs, posters and typefaces in a collage. (Kurt
Schwitters)
Book Arts – the use of the book format (covers or binding
and folios or pages) to explore a theme. Often crosses over
many media and disciplines,
Actual Texture – a distinct tactile as well as visual texture.
(Chuck Close)
Simulated Texture – imitation of a real texture (trompel’oeil); highly illusionistic.
Invented, Conventional or Symbolic Texture – These do not
imitate real-life textures, but are invented by the artist,
sometimes having symbolic references, othertimes
completely abstracted.
Papier collé – pasting paper to the picture plane
Photomontage – using photographs as the primary medium
for collage.
Décollage – “Unpasting”, the act and tearing down and
stripping away layers of collage, such as posters wheatpasted to a wall.
Transferred Texture
Frottage – rubbing of a textured surface (such as a grave stone)
Magazine, Xerox and Laser Transfer – use of acetone or wintergreen oil to transfer an image or text onto another surface.
Assignments
Actual Texture - Create a drawing using alternative
materials to generate an actual texture (may have to be
removed from sketchbook).
Simulated Texture – Take a well-lit organic object (branch,
leaf, flower, fruit, etc.) and create a trompe-l’oeil.
Drawing 1 – Summer Session 1, 2009
Invented Texture - Create a drawing using enclosed and
contoured shapes of a public space or landscape. Fill the
negative and positive spaces with different types of drawn
textures.
Papier Collé – Take several old gesture warm ups and
collage them together to create a new drawing.
Collage – photocopy several photographs of your own and
re-compose them to create a new drawing.
Assemblage – Choose a historical event, recent or very
distant, that you find fascinating, significant, horrible or
wonderful in some way. Using a variety of threedimensional elements, create an assemblage exploring this.
Logically, this will not be in your sketchbook but should be
no larger than 24” x 24” x 14”.
Assemblage Re-dawn – create a volumetric and textural
drawing of your assemblage in your sketchbook.
Rubbing – using the side of a drawing tool, take rubbings of
several different textures and combine them into a drawing.
Day 14 and !5
Spacial Illusion
Perspective – the convention of representing 3-dimensional
objects as they appear to recede into space onto a two
dimensional surface.
Linear perspective - system based on observations that
parallel lines appear to converge is they move into space at
a single point on the horizon.
Eye Level and Horizon Line – an imaginary horizontal line
parallel to the viewer’s eyes. This line coincides with the
horizon line.
Base Line – the imagine line on which the object sits.
Aerial Perspective – method for creating a sense of space
by depicting the effects of atmospheric conditions .
Vanishing Point – the point on the horizon at which two
parallel lines converge.
The Picture Plane
Form – the interrelationship of all the elements on the
picture plane as the way artists say what they mean.
Semantics – The branch of linguistics which studies
meaning and the relationship between signs, symbols and
what they represent.
Edge – the sides of the picture plane… need not be regular
or square! Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Elizabeth Murray
Continuous-Field – an image create as if the picture plane
could be extended and the image would continue
unchanged (Pollack, but also can be representational)
Assignments
Aerial Perspective – Create an imaginary landscape using
aerial perspective to create depth.
One-Point Perspective – sit in in a hallway or directly
facing a building so that you can create a 1-point
perspective drawing the scene. Use contour line.
Two-Point Perspective – position yourself as with the onepoint perspective exercise, but this take facing a corner.
Again, use contour line.
Three-point perspective - Create an imaginary city scape
where you will use three point perspective to create the
drawing.
Heather D. Freeman
Transfer – in a well ventilated space transfer several
Xeroxes or laser prints onto a picture plane to create a
drawing. Rework this using a variety of media.
Experimental material – In class, take the randomly
assigned substrate. Using the materials you have,
experiment with mark making on one copy of the material,
then create a drawing on the other. Next, take the
randomly assigned drawing material and create a drawing
from this after likewise experiementing on a smaller scale
with mark making.
Self-portrait- create an assemblage self-portrait. The focal
point of the self portrait, however, must be your hands and
feet.
Air – Close you eyes and imagine the air in the space
around you based on feel, smell and sound. Now open
your eyes and keep imagining this air, imagining what it
would look like. Draw you impression of this air.
One-point Perspective – Perspective using a single
vanishing point on the horizon. (a flat plane faces the
viewer)
Two-Point Perspective – Perspective using two vanishing
points on the horizon (a verticle corner faces the viewer)
Three-Point Perspective – Perspective using two vanishing
points on the horizon line and one on a verticle line. (a two
verticle corners face the viewer)
Stacked Perspective – Using multiple base lines and
multiple vanishing points within the picture plane.
Foreshortening – the representation of an object that has
been extended into space by contracting its forms (most
often applied to the figure).
Arrangement – the organization of positive and negative
spaces over the picture plane which often defines the
overall composition and even mood of a work.
Division of the Picture Plane – dividing the picture plane
into a grid or series of (generally) geometric forms to
reiterate the flatness of the plane, but also to introduce the
element of sequence.
Foreshortening – Lie sit before a familiar object, such as a
car or sleeping person, so that it is greatly foreshortened.
Using careful measurement to help you, create a contour
line drawing of this figure. Start with the form closest to
you, then move to the next nearest form and so on, using
the previous form to help you determine the relative scale
of the forms.
Multiple forms and horizon lines – using multiple forms
and horizon lines, create an imaginary landscape or still
life.
Drawing 1 – Summer Session 1, 2009
Flatness – Make a drawing that asserts the flatness of the
picture plane. (Alex Katz)
Continous-Field – Create a drawing, either abstract or
representational that implies the continuation of the image
past the picture plane.
Image Placement - divide your page into 3 x 3 (9 panes)
and in each pane, arrange an simple geometic shape and
then shapes in different parts of the picture plane to explore
how the arrangement creates dynamic space. Choose one
compositional arrangement and then create a drawing using
this compositional arrangement.
Filling the Picture Plane – Find a still life and take some
small detail of the scene and fill the entire page with it. Be
sure lines are going off all edges.
Composing with a Grid – Create three drawings, one using
a regular grid, another using a regular grid that is somewhat
overcome by value, texture and/or line, and a third using an
irregular grid.
Day 16 through 19
Contemporary Art
“In is generally recognized that art forms are inscribed
within the social context, so art is the most direct doorway
to the Zeitgeist or spirit of our time… Since today’s world
is multicultural and pluralistic, we must aknowledge other
ways of seeing, speaking and thinking….” Drawing: A
Contemporary Approach. Betti and Sale, 1997. Pg 284.
Modernism – A term describing art (and other cultural
products), generally indicating a diretion toward abstraction
and reduction; it deals primarily with process by which art
is made and the pictoral space; formal properties dominant
(examples Analytical Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism,
Constructivism, Purism, Abstract Expressionism and
Minimalism).
Post-modernism - Formal qualities secondary to
conceptual concerns such as why the art was made, how it
is received and the underlying ideas behind the art; focuses
on the relationship between content and representation and
categories, unlike in modernism, very often over-lap. Also
very evident in architecture, music, design, literature, etc.
Pop Art – Pre-curser to PoMo (Post-Modernism) and a
reaction to modernism’s restriction on connections to
historical and social contexts (Warhol, Lichtenstein)
Minimalism/Reductivism – apex of Modernism
Earth Art - in some ways, an off-shoot of minimalism, the
use of the earth itself for monumental space works (Spiral
Jetty)
Conceptualism – another off-shot, it pushed reductivist
ideas to the extreme by advocating the primacy of idea over
form, in some cases eliminated the object all together
Photo-Realism – deals with the mode of representation, that
is, the manner in which a subject is “seen” by a camera.
Early PoMo – 1960s, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper
Johns saught to bridge a gab between abstraction and the
incorporation of life. Philip Gutson, an important
minimalist, began to re-introduce the figure and complex
iconography.
Heather D. Freeman
Divided Picture Plane – Make a picture plane exactly twice
as wide as high, and divide in half. Make two drawings,
one half completely unrelated to the other half.
Inset Image – Create a drawing with an inset image; this
can be a blow-up of some other part of the drawing,
something totally unrelated, or something in a very
different media, etc.
Linear Sequence – Break up the picture plane using a
regular or irregular grid and create a linear or cinematic
sequence; does not need to be representational.
Crowding the Picture Plane - Start by crowding the picture
plane with as many shapes as possible, overlapping them
and avoiding any kind of order as best you can. Once
you’ll filled the picture plan, come back and try to create
order by connecting shapes and using value and pattern to
define a composition.
Mouse or a Fly – Draw a 3 point perspective drawing of
your desk, kitchen table or some similarly interesting
location from the vantage of a mouse or a fly.
New Imagists - regarded pop culture as a well-spring of
ideas, images and styles and saught to investigate them.
(Jonathon Botofsky, Niel Jenney, Jim Nutt)
Feminism – devoted to the idea of art as a direct experience
of reality; challenge the concept of a single, dominant
“right” view of experience (Guerilla Girls, Miriam
Shapiro, Barbara Kruger, Judy Chicago) also often
extended into new media and transmedial works.
Neo-expressionism – in large part started by Joseph Beuys
who was also heavily involved in performance and
installation as a means for healing and ressurection. Many
artists were German or Italian and themes were often epic,
heroic-scale, apocalyptic and vigorous (after reaction in
many ways to the world post WWII – Anselm Kiefer,
Georg Baselitz, Maro Merz, Francesco Clemente, etc.)
Appropriation/Recontextualization – artwork that
appropriates or “quotes” images or styles from other
existing sources; this removes the quoted images from one
context and recontextualizes them in a new one. The
images both sheds and maintains some of its original
meaning and the new artwork gains some of the old
meaning and recontextualizes it for new meaning. (Jane
Hammond. Sigmar Polke)
Myth and Allegory – representation is a symbolic system
that changes with culture. The sacred and secular symbols
can likewise be rejoined. (Mario merz, renee stout)
Humor and Irony – Irony is fitting for a project whose role
is disclose and criticize, and allows an ambivalent stance.
Humor and irony, are, in this way, intertwined. (Takashi
Murikami, Raymond Pettibon)
Popular and Commercial Tactics – Text and advertising as
a medium for expression and also a context for expression.
(Jenny Holzer, Joseph Kosuth) (Walter Benjamin – “the
medium is the message”)
Social and Political Themes – uses a common basic
methodology that includes a call to action and a recognition
or reading of the stance present; can be confrontational,
comic, poignant, etc. (Leon Golub, Kara Walker)
Drawing 1 – Summer Session 1, 2009
Peformance and Body Art – connected to social and
political art, but in some cases has a closer relationship to
sculpture or dance (Orlan, Ann Hamilton, Janine Antoni)
Multiculturalism/New Inclusiveness – artwork which
embraces inclusiveness, dialoguing on race, ethnicity,
indentity, gender, generational concerns, class concerns,
political debatea and aesthetic standards. Cultural
dislocation/assimilation, “outsider-art”, often lumped
together, are clearly different concerns, however.
Collaborative Art – A pair or collection of artists who shed
their individual creative intensions in order to create a more
complex work or series of works drawing on multiple and
diverse talents.
Heather D. Freeman
Semiotics – Words and images, and narrative content;
postmodern art is primarily concerned with content,
signification, a sign or evidence of something beyond the
image manifested, something in the world of ideas. That is,
the relationship between language, image and idea.
Landscape – melancholic, frquentlyn elegiac, loss or
absence rather than presence is significant. (Robert Gober).
Abstraction – Often based on appropriation and then
abstracted, abstraction often magnifies the meaning rather
than excluding it as in modernism. Process, is likewise still
important, and feeds into the read of the subject. (Ellen
Gallagher, Terry Winters, Jognathan Lasker)
Thematic Development
Thematic Drawing – series of drawings that have an image
or idea in common. Basis for a “body of work” that builds a
portfolio.
Shared Themes – the same images or subjects used by
different artists over a period of time
Individual Themes –images/subjects used by an individual
artist rather than a group.
Group Themes – images and/or subjects developed within a
movement or style (such as Cubism or Impressionism)
Variables to help develop a theme – subject matter,
imargery or motif, media or material, technique, style,
compositional concerns, use of space, scale – but focus on a
theme that is important to you!!
Assignments
Word and Image – unify a series of five drawing by media,
technique or idea using both words and images.
Frames of Reference – randomly choose a word from the
dictionary then randomly choose a tourist postcard or
similar postcard (if it’s not truly random, it wont work).
Pair them up and then, after Xerox the art history image,
rework the image to address and recontextualize the world.
Art History series – Choose a work from art history. Do
four drawings using the artwork as the point of departure.
Opposites/Transformation – Choose one object that will
appear in each drawing. In a series of four drawings,
juxtapose the image with four other images so either
amplify or cancel the first object’s meaning or function.
Motif - choose a single motif, a recurring thematic element,
a repeated figure or design that will be the dominant image
in each drawing. Use nonobjective imagery. Vary this
motif through four drawings (scale, placement, etc.) Use
the same media for each work.
Abstraction-enlargement – take a small organic object
(seed, flower, bone, etc.) and draw it very large, at least 18”
x 20”, but the larger the better. Have the object take up the
entire picture plane, either be enlarging it, or repeating it.
Abstraction – Expansion – Draw a small familiar object.
Fine a 4” x 5” section of the drawing, and re-drawn it,
stressing the parts of the drawing you find most interesting.
Then take a 4” x 5” section of this new drawing and repeat
the process. Do this two more times.
Self-portait – Research one of the movements/genres
mentioned above and choose an individual artist within a
movement that interests you. Try to understand their style,
media, concepts, etc. Then create a self-portrait in the style
of that artist.
24-hour drawing – Work on one drawing, for 24 hours
(you can take a sleep and eat, etc., of course, but otherwise
work on the drawing for an entire 24 hours).
Text inspired – Imagine if your life had a soundtrack or a
motto. Choose one short sentence/brief phrase that
resonates in this way. Then research the imagery of the
words in the phrase, being sure to look for both metaphors,
analogues and polarities. Using these researched images as
a jumping off point, create a drawing that evokes the
feeling of this phrase. (Do not use an image of yourself).
Digital Photos – take a series of 20 photos of an object or
location that interests you. Print these in black and white
and taking the 16 most interesting images, create drawings
over them. You may place these images in a grid or as a
sequence.