Drawing from life

Abstract painters should never underestimate the importance of drawing from life. The rules for form, proportion, scale, composition are the same in every painting discipline.
There are various ways of making Paintings to recipes, each becoming a question of process and discovery, controlling chance, arranging colour with simple brush strokes, dragging or pouring paint across the surface to reveal a vast range range of effects. The act of painting can be reduced to its most simple and material elements, new materials can be discovered and played with……Is this really painting?….. what is the process/purpose of the creation? Behind the rheteoric and bullshit there must be a reason….otherwise YCRE8.

Tuesday 17th May 1977

“which will show me I can work from the landscape. This is something that I have felt is too over powering, too difficult for me to undertake but even after today I’m picking up little tricks. Tricks are I’m sure what landscape painting is all about.”

 

Going back to the basic skills of drawing is an interesting excursion – a journey I’m not sure I will complete. Drawing a life model for the first times in decades was a bit daunting but old tricks and shortcuts were soon remembered and in many respects drawing is a bit like riding a bicycle. Read more…
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About peter

'Death by Sushi' Fish can kill me. When I was very small (maybe 3 or 4 years old) my grandfather, who lost the sight of one eye from a bullet fired by a German sniper (fortunately not a very good one) during the Battle of the Somme in World War 1, wiped my face with the corner of his apron, an apron he had used to wipe his filleting knife on. He was a grocery shopkeeper who specialized in wet fish.