This drawing had everything going against it:
- It's a tiny, low budget spot illustration for an industrial brochure...
- drawn from a photo...
- of a deadly dull topic: a middle aged, anonymous instructor at a correspondence school, working at his drawing board.
He starts out working fairly tightly on the head, even using a little white paint to sharpen his focus...
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With energy and integrity, it's possible to overcome even the most uninspiring subject matter.
In the next few days, I will be posting more unpublished original work and some of Fawcett's handwritten notes about his approach to drawing.
13 comments:
Inspiring post! Very.
I used to not get Fawcett till I read your book. Now I understand why artists talk about him.
you're right- you deserve a medal for these posts!
thanks again for sharing these, and the insight. each post is truly a treat.
best,
tonci
David
Did Fawcett use himself as a model?
FlatClem-- I share this material in the hope that others will find it as inspiring as I do. Thanks for writing.
MORAN-- Fawcett is definitely not as easy as many other illustrators, but I do think he is worth the extra effort. To understand what he was doing, it helps to see details from the originals.
tozo/tonci-- Many thanks, I appreciate it.
Tom-- No, this was one of the real instructors at the Famous Artists School. I have a batch more FAS pictures that I will be posting in the future.
eagerly waiting for your next post on robert fawcett's approach on drawing! thank you for sharing your knowledge!
And THAT really is the illustrator's job: take the most prosaic of subjects and impart even a small touch of majesty and grandeur, if only to make the viewer stop for that millisecond to decide. RF was the very top, and I think, underlying that necessity, he was driving himself to find those moments for him inside each work. THANK YOU DAVID, again, for another little masterpiece.
Bastard…I knew you were holdin' back!
Fantastic,Love always!
There is no substitute for good draftsmanship … it will power you through any job, no matter the assignment.
Also, that other post about patterbing, excellent! Pattern is a powerful tool … when done right, the eye is attracted no matter how heavy the surrounding visual clutter on adjacent pages.
Loving your posts...
fascinating post!! if you're still active, do you have the link to the photo of the star ceiling in the Egyptian tomb? thank you!
I'm still here. Do you mean the star ceiling I posted in my little essay about "patterns"? Because that was from the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut ca. 1479-1458 BC. Deir el Bahri, Egypt. But I've posted a few others, including the astral ceiling with the goddess Nut, painted in Tutenkamen's tomb. Nut swallows the sun every night. The painting gave me chills; it was worth a trip to Egypt all by itself.
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