Saturday, August 03, 2013

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In the next few days, I will be  posting more unpublished original work and some of Fawcett's handwritten notes about his approach to drawing.


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13 comments:

  1. FlatClem8/03/2013 3:55 AM

    Inspiring post! Very.

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  2. MORAN8/03/2013 9:21 AM

    I used to not get Fawcett till I read your book. Now I understand why artists talk about him.

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  3. tozo8/03/2013 4:06 PM

    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

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  4. Tom8/03/2013 7:53 PM

    David

    Did Fawcett use himself as a model?

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  5. David Apatoff8/04/2013 9:05 AM

    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.

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  6. Bag-iw Art Society8/04/2013 10:00 AM

    eagerly waiting for your next post on robert fawcett's approach on drawing! thank you for sharing your knowledge!

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  7. chuck pyle8/04/2013 11:45 AM

    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.

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  8. अर्जुन8/05/2013 3:42 AM

    Bastard…I knew you were holdin' back!

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  9. Wallartidea8/22/2013 3:50 AM

    Fantastic,Love always!

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  10. Mahendra Singh9/11/2013 11:31 AM

    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.

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  11. d-vallejo12/08/2017 1:20 AM

    Loving your posts...

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  12. Unknown4/10/2023 6:07 PM

    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!

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  13. David Apatoff4/10/2023 7:44 PM

    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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