Carrasco Studio

Drawing Lesson 8, Scandalous Profiles and Classical drawing

 
These two profiles of women painted by Sargent are very telling.  The first is of Rosina Ferrara, a young girl of Capri, and the second, of course is of the notorious Madame X whose full length portrait resides now in the Metropolitan Museum. (see the full length portrait at the bottom of this blog.)

Ms. Ferarra modeled several times for Sargent when he was just starting out as a painter in his early twenties.  Rosina was a girl of Capri, and several painters besides Sargent searched her out as a model, and one, George Barse, eventually married her and brought her to the USA.  In all reports, she had a sweet disposition (read "compliant") and loved to dance. Her 43 year marriage was very happy, her husband adored her, and she raised 2 lovely children.  Madam Gautreau, or Madame X as she was later labeled,  had a very different life, and not an especially happy one.  When as a "professional beauty", her loveliness begain to fade and her notoriety grew, Madam X retired from society. 

I am entertained by the contrasts in the two profile/portraits.  Sargent was from a  conservative  social background, but because of his talent and youth, he was thrown in with a more raffish crew of artists and models in Capri.  His portraits of Rosina celebrate her earthiness and love of life. I doubt if his mother would have approved.  

Often Rosina is shown dancing or leaning insouciantly against a wall or branch of an olive tree.  Not at all the proper corseted young American woman. There is a  bit of class snobbery  and fascination with "exotic types" evidenced in Sargent's portraits of Ms Ferrera.

In contrast, his portrait of Madam X is as coldly seductive as much as it is formal.  Much, I imagine, like the model herself , and Sargent's professional ambitions are as much reflected in her portrait  as  is Mme Gautreau's social climbing.

Mme X  John Singer Sargent               Sargent painting in Paris

Lesson 8  Drawing the Profile from life.....and Drapery and Hatching

1.  Look at Drawing assignments for the profiles of Mme Gautreau in Drawing on the Right side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. Discuss Sargent and Madam X.

2. PROFILE.

Set up for doing a profile of me. Use the plexi view finder and bring out my profile diagram .

a.  MARK YOUR FORMAT!!!!
b.  Mark cross hairs on format....lightly
c.  CHOOSE YOUR BASIC  UNIT! (page 183...#6...Read it)  Show me.
d.  Transfor the basic unit to your paper....let me see.
e.  Using the basic unit as a measuring guide, mark the top of the head and the back of the ears and head.
f.   Go through pg. 184 to 186 step by step.  Compare angles of lines to horizontal and vertical sides. No shading
g.  Go thru 188 tips.

2  Hatching and Crosshatching

Here I include several examples from Anthony Ryder's wonderful book on drawing the figure...The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing, year 2000, Watson Guptil publishers.  Mr. Ryder has kindly given permission to scan portions of his book for some of these lessons, but I would recommend that interested students and artists purchase their own copies.  Also, check out his sites, : www.tonyryder.com and www.theryderstudio.com.  His drawings are exquisite and his writing is cogent and often funny.  A must for your library!

a. Softly, regular lines (show examples) for hatching...relatively short.  Cross hatching is hatching on top of one  another....softly!  Sharp point.

b.  Show examples in Ryder’s book, ...Look at pg. 208 in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Practice this your own hatching and crosshatching.

3. Drapery

a. Hold up your paper viewfinder....MARK YOUR FORMAT!

b. Lightly mark the cross hairs on your format.
c. Look closely at the drapery.  Choose your basic unit!  Show me! LIGHTLY draw the entire outer shape of the drapery. Draw the NEGATIVE SPACE on the example first.
 LOOK AT THE NEGATIVE SPACE of the actual drapery
 d. . Squint and draw the outer line of the entire medium and darkest values of the drapery.

e.  Hatch in the entire medium and dark shapes with a light, regular sewing machine like one directional  hatching. Now, LIGHTLY draw in the darkest value shape within each medium value shape.  Cross hatch the darkest shapes....regular, lightly.....until you have the right dark value.

4.  Dog or bird profile.....choose either.

a.  Hold up your paper viewfinder....MARK YOUR FORMAT! (ask the steps...cross hairs, Basic unit)  It soon becomes automatic.
b. Draw the NEGATIVE SPACE on the example first. Then draw the negative space on your paper.
c. Hatch and cross hatch. Both have directions and length in their hair or feathers.  Therefore, the crow’s hatching would be a little shorter than the dogs.  LEAVE THE LIGHTEST VALUE UNHATCHED EXCEPT FOR LINES BETWEEN HAIRS OR FEATHERS.

Assignment: Draw an animal of your choosing (a live one is best, but you can use a photo if none are available.)  Hatch and cross hatch.  Draw someone in profile.  Try hatching and cross hatching on the profile.  There are subtle changes in value all over the face.  Read 194 to 213

....and the shocking Madam X, who, after the display of this painting in 1884, was ridiculed and condemned for her "immoral" pose, and the artist, John Singer Sargent, was dashed of his hopes to become a sought after portrait painter in France. Sargent  had to withdraw this painting and fled to England.  Madam X, it is rumored,  eventually retired to her estate and draped cloth over all her mirrors to avoid seeing her aging image.

 Sargent said when he sold it to the Metropolitan Museum in l9l6, "I suppose it is the best thing I have done."

 

The Only Fish in the Sea (Not) Water color Lesson #2

This is an example of glazing, not in watercolor, but in acrylics...I started with laying out  the  simple shapes in the LIGHTEST value ....pale browns, olive greens, pale reds, etc. , and to keep it simple (I was on a tight budget and of course, needed it done yesterday), I used a MEDIUM value next of all the colors, and then used the darkest and most intense values (sparingly) last.  The reason I bring this up in a watercolor class is that IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME STEPS I USE IN TRANSPARENT WATERCOLOR....with the exception, as you can see....where I used an opaque blue white for the fish and the guy's shirt (as a little dash of seasoning on a beige background)  This is one of a series I did for Tommy Bahama's flagship store in Vegas.

It's acrylic paint on Roclon canvas that has been primed with beige gesso.  My first layer of paint was the glazed "bloom" of orange for the background, and then I went from light to dark in my values of paint.

Here's the black and white version, so you can see the value change.

So many people tell me they hate acrylics because the medium is "garish".  It's not, if you glaze, and make your colors your own...cool down that shrieking green with a little red, chill out a magenta with a little ochre, and GLAZE a complimentary transparent green over that shocking orange.

OK.  Next week please bring a tube of Lunar Black from Daniel Smith.  If you can't make the trip, let me know and I can either pick up one for you or make arrangements with another student to get a tube.  You can also share!

Yep. You guessed it.  The next lesson is about VALUE.  Don't miss it!  And I must say, I was so proud of the way you toiled away at your apple rendering in the last class.  Most of you got it by the end of the lesson, and I have to tell you I was thrilled.  I promise, after the next "basic" class, we are going to get a little more wild and crazy, and your lovely individual style will find more expression.

Water color Lesson #2, Fall 2009

 

2 .Watercolor Class, Fall C and P   Contour drawing.  Using only secondary and tertiary colors. Fruit and and fish.  Warm and cool colors.  Structure.

Look at leaves!  Color samples...warm or cool...guess what combination of primaries.  Secondaries or tertiaries?

1. Contour drawing....mountain ash, boston ivy.  Why? It centers you and slows you down.....gives you focus and a quiet meditation.  SLOW....find an edge and start SLOWLY...back up on shared edges, don’t lift from paper...turn away from.paper.  This is an exercise in looking that happens to use the physical skill of drawing. Focus entirely on the object you are drawing....let the world and your internal “edit” fall away.  (ten minutes)

2. The difference between Hansa yellow and A. yellow, Manganese ,pthalo,  and cobalt, alizarin crimson, cadmium red and earth red.  Notice degrees of staining, granulation and opaque quality.
Mix some secondary and tertiary colors in your pallatte wells.  Make them fairly intense.

On two small pieces of watercolor paper...Draw very lightly (1) Three apples  (1) three fish.
Notice the structure of the fruit and the fish.....this is what drawing can show you.   Put a pale wash of yellow on all six shapes.  Work quickly.
On the second and third apple and and the second and third fish drop in while still wet,  secondary colors and tertiary colors. Let dry.

Show how to make shadows of cobalt and umber (or manganese and umber)  (I don’t like stains for shadows.)
Put shadows to the side of the apples.

Glaze some stain color patterns (dots, stripes, zig zags )on your fish.
 Use red and green (which is what primaries?!!) (mix each with a bit with a complement) to do the curving stripes on your apple and mix a brown from red and green for stems. 

When fish are dry, try wetting all of # 2 fish and using a blue/umber wash on the bottom to show shadow.  Then use  Lunar black for shading on the last fish. (with a light hand!)

Assignment.  Reread 1-15 in Jan Hart’s book.
On a quarter sized paper, lightly draw arrangement of  five fish of different sizes and shapes and angles, or 3  fruit and  branches, leaves or vines. Spend only 20 minutes sketching out your arrangement. Think of the negative space.  Don’t get too complicated.  Use large size or group shapes for a focal point.  Start light, paint shapes with water, then add a pale wash and then let colors bleed into the shapes.  Work from top to bottom.  Use some of the cobalt/raw umber or lunar black to show modeling or shadows.

Using a cool color to create modeling....letting a blue "bleed" into a wet warm colored shape to create a shadow below.

 

Or, using Lunar black to create shadows or modeling....paint area with clear water and then paint with a glaze of lunar black, letting the granulated black pigment "fade" out as it approaches where the light hits the form.

As you work with the paints, I think you realize that the blog entries, while giving you some information and also as a definite reinforcement for what you did in class, are not a real substitute for being in class.  It's a commitment, and I know how our lives are so tangled up with other people and other promises, so the combination of the blog, your efforts and all my support will contribute your feeling of success in this class.  I just hope you will end up loving painting as I do.

Last, but not least, I want to emphasize that I am NOT teaching you splinter skills!  You can use the concept of glazing with watercolor, wash drawings, acrylics and oils. When I was taking lessons on trompe l'oeil (fool the eye) painting and my still life looked too "jumpy" or full of unrelated objects, a GLAZE (over dry paint with oils) of raw sienna, dioxide purple, cad red, or hookers green...(lightly, lightly!) made everything unified...until I punched a bunch of stuff up  and had to glaze it again!

If you have a chance to go to the Vancouver show of Dutch painters, take a look at Rembrandt's lace collars and cuffs...he calmed down that blinding flake white with a swish of umber glaze that puddled deliciously in the impasto valleys.

I'm no Rembrandt, but I was amazed at how a glaze could calm down a rowdy bunch of grapes or day glow oysters! (you should have seen my lobster before I washed him down with a tint of purple)

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 9/17/09  All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.