ROBERT FAWCETT'S PATTERN OF LIGHTS AND DARKS

In the 1950s, Robert Fawcett visited the instructors working at the Famous Artists School in Connecticut and talked with them about his method of constructing pictures.  He sketched three examples of how one might depict "a knock at the door":

Original size: 4" x 6"

  

He told the instructors that when designing a picture, it is important to focus on the pattern created by lights and darks.   He suggested that students use a tissue paper overlay to block out the geometric shapes which form the abstract pattern: 

He told the instructors that students should not try to redraw the underlying drawing on their overlays, but rather "outline mechanically" to separate the form from the content. 

He made handwritten notes for the instructors to use:

 

 Among his advice: to keep the pattern lively, use a "quick, nervous, spotty method" when outlining the key shapes:

 

He also urged, "wherever possible, use angular forms and emphasize differences of direction":

 

The materials from this long ago lesson were taped together on an illustration board (along with his separate lesson on creating "interior atmosphere"-- apparently they couldn't spare a separate board.) 

 

Worthwhile advice from a smart artist.

ONE L0VELY DRAWING, part 44

I feel this blog performs a public service on days when I can share close ups from an original Robert Fawcett drawing.

 This drawing had everything going against it:

1. It's a tiny, low budget spot illustration for an industrial brochure...
2. drawn from a photo...
3. of a deadly dull topic: a middle aged, anonymous instructor at a correspondence school, working at his drawing board.

Yet, for Fawcett even a boring subject could be like working in a firecracker factory.  

He starts out working fairly tightly on the head, even using a little white paint to sharpen his focus...

... but from there, he quickly gets wilder:

 

 

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In the next few days, I will be  posting more unpublished original work and some of Fawcett's handwritten notes about his approach to drawing.

COMIC-CON 2013

This year's Comic-Con in San Diego was like the ancient bazaar of Constantinople teleported to the third moon of Zarbtron. There were charlatans and geniuses in abundance, hawking their wares from platforms that ranged from a cardboard box on the sidewalk to a glittering Hollywood extravaganza on the stage of the huge convention hall.  (Of course the platform was no predictor of quality, so you had to check out everything.)

Comic-Con provides a true kaleidoscope of popular culture.  Where else could you find Neal Adams competing with Sergio Aragones-- his artistic opposite-- in a "quick draw" competition?  Where else would author Neil Gaiman discuss the merits of Jack Kirby's different inkers? One of my favorites: 20th Century Fox, promoting the new blu-ray edition of The Predator, used 3D copiers to scan the heads of the first 500 customers and create an action figure of the Predator holding up the customer's severed head.

The loud, pounding base line from amplifiers in some of the booths made your lungs compress as if you were in the front row at a Metallica concert (yes, the band Metallica was at Comic-Con too).

 

But Comic-Con is governed by the same laws of physics that apply to the rest of the universe, so many of the most interesting things took place quietly at the subatomic level.  This year's lesson in quantum mechanics comes from these tiny preliminary sketches by illustrator Saul Tepper, found in a quiet corner of the exhibition hall:

For scale, those holes are staple holes.

Each one is about the size of a postage stamp, yet they have all the DNA necessary for a larger, more elaborate image.

Tepper has worked out all the fundamental creative choices.  His composition is settled, his priorities are established, his lights and darks are in place, he has decided on the gestures and the movement of each picture. 

From tiny acorns such as this grew finished drawings, then big oil paintings on canvas, then pictures that moved and talked, and then 3D digital animation on IMAX screens.

(Detail) Note how Tepper has decided when to dig in hard with the point of his pencil (as with the hand raised to this woman's face), when to cruise along lightly and when to apply the flat of the pencil for tone.

In their rush to get to the flashing lights and big screens at the LucasFilm and Sony Pictures displays, I'm not sure many of the participants recognized the seeds from which those mighty oaks grew. But the genetic code starts right here.

(Thanks to Comic-Con exhibitor Taraba Illustration Art for these sketches.)

A PICTURE'S PHYSICAL DELIGHT

 "Wildness can be the picture's better part, its physical delight."  -- Gordon Parks

 In the 1960s, American illustration entered a wild, expressive phase.  Many illustrators employed vigorous, slashing strokes to convey the new mood (and speed) of the country.

 

Bob Peak

These pictures had an energy and virility that still stands out, fifty years later.  Bob Peak was one prominent example of that style, but there were dozens of less well known illustrators who helped to visualize the mood of the '60s.

For example, the talented Harvey Schmidt worked in a similarly robust, vigorous style:

 

Another talented illustrator, Jim Jonson, made expressive, high velocity illustrations of figures stretched to the max:

Here, Neil Boyle applies this same energetic line to inanimate objects:

 

The Society of Illustrators annuals from the '60s contain a great deal of art in this dynamic spirit; lots of slashing lines and lightning bolt scribbles back and forth.  In later decades illustration might adopt a more conceptual approach.  Later audiences might grow to prefer a more controlled look.  Yet, these pictures from the '60s retain a potency that is undeniable.

One reason these pictures feel good to look at is because they felt good to make.  They exemplify what Parks called the "physical delight" of picture making-- something that seems less evident in the era of Wacom tablets.

Robert Weaver

Al Parker

Joe Cleary

Like Parks, I believe that the wildness in a picture can be the picture's "better part," and that in the right circumstances it can hold up against anything else a picture has to offer.   

MAKING PEACE WITH THE MACHINE

The great illustrator Frank Frazetta proudly wrote his personal credo: "I work purely from my imagination, no swipes or photographs."

But this Frazetta drawing...

...was taken directly from a Life Magazine article on a day at the beach:

The great illustrator Robert Fawcett warned his fellow artists against becoming dependent on photography: "photography has been abused, to the point where many illustrators are afraid to put pencil to paper without first photographing their subject exhaustively."  Yet when he needed to draw a south sea island native...

 

...he relied on this photo from Life Magazine:

Norman Rockwell was one of the most successful illustrators in America when he secretly began using photographs.  When his peers asked if he used photographs, he lied:

At a dinner at the Society of Illustrators, William Oberhardt, a fellow illustrator, grabbed my arm and said bitterly, "I hear you've gone over to the enemy." "Hunh?" I said, faking ignorance because I realized right way what he was referring to and was ashamed of it. "You're using photographs," he said accusingly. "Oh...well... you know...not actually," I mumbled. "You are ," he said. "Yes" I admitted, feeling trapped, "I am." "Judas!" he said, "Damned photographer!" and he walked away

I am interested in why some of the most confident, successful illustrators felt ashamed to use photos.  And why, despite their shame, they thought the benefits were worth it.

Since those early days, attitudes about using photos have changed but the role of photos has changed even faster. 

What started as using photos for reference evolved into projecting photos directly on the page, which then developed into light boxing, which changed to scanning photos, later altered with increasingly subtle filters that transform scanned images into a pastel drawing or a watercolor painting or a mezzotint.  To make a caricature today, we have only to apply the Photoshop "liquefy" tool to a photo of a face.  To improve a composition, we have only to employ the "divine proportion" tool.  Technology has played an increasingly vital role in picture making, encroaching more and more on what was once the human core.  It remains to be seen whether artists are following in the footsteps of John Henry.

Far from being resolved, the question "how much dependence on a machine is acceptable?" becomes a new question with each passing decade.

In this context, I think it becomes incumbent on each of us to make our own peace with the point along the spectrum where the role of the machine becomes too great.

I think the talented Matt Mahurin is a prime example of an artist working interchangeably in traditional media, photography, and film:

I find his work, which blurs the line between photos and hand crafted images, imaginative, powerful and personal.  Mahurin writes:

When a client decides to call me, it's not because they are in love with my color palette or feel they can't live without my sense of composition.  I am hired for the way I think-- my ability to express clear thoughts and powerful emotions visually.  Often the technique or style I use to complete an image is merely an afterthought, no more important than the physical act of typing up what already flourishes in the writer's heart and mind.

But perhaps the real challenge to the boundary between art and machine-created images is posed by photographs that today seem to inspire more reverence and awe than more traditional hand made arts do. 

NASA's "pillars of creation"

Pictures adorning Renaissance altars and palace ceilings were valued as high art in part because they elevated viewers by giving them a sense for the sublime. It has been a long time since traditional, hand made arts have aspired to that role.

ROBERT M. CUNNINGHAM

Everyone talks about the importance of "restraint" in making pictures, but restraint is only meaningful if you possess something significant to restrain.  (If you have no talent, you're not actually restraining anything.)

Look at the restraint in this terrific painting by illustrator  Robert Cunningham.  How does he persuade us that his simple blobs of white paint are birds taking off, while the very similar blobs of blue paint right next to them are openings in the trees?

No eyes, beaks,  feathers, feet-- barely even wings-- yet these are lovely birds.

A lot of wisdom and an awful lot of drawing goes into Cunningham's ability to capture the essence of birds in such basic shapes

Cunningham was born in Herington, Kansas, where the flat plains stretch almost forever.  He grew up leading a simple life as the son of a railroad man.  Later, art critic William Zimmer observed, "His native ground has perhaps been an inspiration for the flat, bright planes of color that characterize his work."

Whatever the source of his inspiration, Cunningham never learned to hide behind a lot of frills.

Marvelous!

Cunningham got his first big break in illustration when the visionary art director Richard Gangel spotted his talent and put an 8 page portfolio of Cunningham's work in Sports Illustrated.  From that day on, he developed a long list of discerning clients.  He was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1998.

Small touches such as the sunlight through those fins show us that Cunningham knows exactly what he is doing.

It's hard to resist showing off our abilities--  our talent for drawing precisely, our eye for detail, our skill at making fine lines-- but restraint implies a power greater than all of these: the strength to harness our other strengths.  It shows that we are truly the master of our skills.

WARRING WITH TROLLS, part 4

"To live is to war with trolls." --Ibsen 

Talented illustrator Austin Briggs painted a NY Giants baseball game for the April 22, 1950 cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

This is not that painting:

Briggs' cover included  an African American woman in the crowd.  When he delivered the painting to The Post,  the editors ordered him to remove her.  Infuriated, Briggs refused.  He broke the painting in half over his knee and stormed out.

As reported in the Westport blog 06880, Briggs' model for the woman was Fanny Drain, a long time employee of the Briggs family.   Briggs' son recalled:

When the Giants were playing she and my father-- whose studio was at home-- would follow the radio broadcasts avidly and vocally; her pride and pleasure in being included in the cover painting were deep.

The Post quickly found another illustrator, Steven Dohanos, to repaint Briggs' cover, replacing the African American woman with a white male (the one with a handkerchief on his head).  That is the final version you see above.

The Post loved the result so much, they even released the all white version as a jigsaw puzzle for wholesome families to play.

Briggs' gesture of defiance was expensive for his family, but once the cover was destroyed, there was no going back.  Briggs never regretted his decision.

It is difficult to imagine such an impetuous act of conscience occurring today.  If he was painting today, Briggs would no longer be able to break his picture over his knee because the digital art would've been emailed to the magazine, with multiple copies on his hard drive at home.  The Saturday Evening Post would not have to ask Briggs to paint out the African American woman; they would Photoshop a white complexion on her without the artist's permission in 30 seconds. 

The wonderful efficiencies of Photoshop help eliminate some of the nasty moral choices that once confronted an artist.  We live in a much more efficient world today.  But in the words of Epicetus, "It is difficulties that show what men are."