Cast drawing: small sketches first. Getting to know the angles. Thinking hugs and kisses–you know, forms and angles. I naturally draw small so small was easy for these. Turning the cast to the light and way from the light changes the look of it in interesting ways. Other’s drawings of the Homer cast looked sad or even demented to me. Maybe he was by the time this sculpture of him was done, but I bet not. So I looked for expression as well as form and angles. The position I like is a near profile pointing into the light. It looks to me as if he is interested or about to speak. After all, we have much to say to each other.
Actually, I have no idea why I have to make things difficult for myself. I could just have chosen the easy button and done the pose others have done. Sigh.
Yesterday I started the first full sized drawing of the Homer cast. If I don’t loose weight from this it won’t be Homer’s fault. Back up to see both paper and cast, forward to mark the paper and back again. Measure, mark, measure, mark. Since agonizing over the Bargue drawing of Homer and now the cast means I’ll have to marry him when this is done, I guess this is practice for our wedding dance. Boogie on.
I will let you know if cast drawing turns out to be the next weight loss plan. Look for me on Oprah!
On another subject, last week, I showed a drawing I did in portrait class (live model) to an instructor. The critique was rather cool. OK, she said, but not “art” yet….Then she said: If you’re interested in portrait, I have a skull if you want to do a crochet of it. “What next,” I thought, “She wants me to knit a skull?”
It turn out that Ecorche (a-cor-shay) is the name of a the very old practice of making a model of bones and muscles in clay. Lots online to see if you are interested. I’ve also been to see two different “Bodies” exhibits and found them facinating. God’s Ecorche. To see what is under the skin, all things in place, gives a very different understanding of the body. So. Ecorche I shall.
Meantime, I am hunting through boxes for the duck skull I found when living in Florida and drawing sketches of the squirrel one in the Ecorche room at the studio.
All along the way, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing but just keep going. But a few ah ha moments are like cheese in the maze. For instance, the whole group met at a small museum one afternoon last week. As techniques and styles were pointed out and compared, I understood. It is so easy to look at something done by a master looking so simple, it is another to go do it. So just understanding the compare and contrast conversation was “cheese.”
Many of you have heard me say that the light reveals the object and also that the object reveals the light. Now, the objects I draw have also become my teachers. Not so bad to have Homer as a teacher. So tomorrow, back to the studio. “Did you miss me, darlin’ Homer?”
Namaste, y’all.
Wilder
