I’d chosen Venice as a destination because I wanted to study the Tintoretto’s, gaze in admiration at the Titian’s and see the fabled light for myself - light captures my attention every time.   I returned with 160 frames on my camera, admittedly many of these are more memories than potential subjects but the master of Venice Rio stood out as a composition for me simply because I liked the overall effect, temporarily overlooking that perspective drawing is my least favourite ’subject’.  It wasn’t until after it was begun that I began to grasp more fully the complexities in the underlying structure. 

The aspects that were obviously appealing to me were the dramatic contrasts of the deep shadows and brightly lit boats.  The shadows were challenging in themselves because they could easily degenerate into a dull and boring surface.  It was important to the overall feel that they retained an interesting texture without appearing to be just walls that were a darker colour; they needed to seem ‘unlit’ but visible, to contrast and frame the bright highlights in the middle ground.  I like the way there are small highlights in the plants and details that are picked out in a way that encourages a visual route around the surface that echoes the more dominant route of the shadows.  The challenge of these lights was that they needed to be subordinate to the very dominant highlights of the boats and parts of the bridge.  The bridge in itself was intriguing because it appeared at first glance to be square across the Rio but is actually at a rather irritating angle as far as perspective is concerned.  

One aspect that I hadn’t noticed initially was the tendency for the buildings to be slightly wonky (technical term).  This created quite a dilemma for me over the degree of accuracy to aim for and settled on my favourite solution of ‘near enough’ as being about right.  Another significant aspect discovered along the way was how the whole composition seems to depend on the right hand side of the bridge; there are a number of elements that keep aiming towards this area of the picture.

One of the discoveries I’ve made from this particular visual exploration is how using a variety of marks can create a quite separate element of composition.  For instance, the dark areas in the foreground are built up to suggest the various textures, then overlaid with more vigorous pencil work to create a subtle sense of energy and this is balanced against the more controlled and precise areas of pencil work that create areas of calmness and these form a counterbalance to each other. 

Venice Rio was finished around midnight the night before I submitted my portfolio to become an Associate  member of the Society of Graphic Fine Artists, so I haven’t actually sat and had a good look at the finished drawing yet.  That reminds me - I need to have the ASGFA initials added on my title page!

When I’m on a subject expedition, I’ll take photos of anything that grabs my interest and if it looks promising as a composition, I’ll take loads more around the subject exploring the potentials - if that’s possible.  There are dozens of ‘almost, nearly and not quites’ on my hard drive that I can’t quite bring myself to delete.  But I never really know whether it’s going to work until I’ve seen it on the monitor; and more usually it’s a question of what needs emphasising or repressing to get the composition to work.  These adjustments are only vaguely discerned at this stage usually - just a ‘bring that up a bit’ or ‘push that back’.

There have been precious few frames that were instantly felt to be good subjects - Dayboats is one example of this.  And oddly enough it was the only frame taken of that subject because I  became engrossed in the almost perfect clarity of the reflections, ignoring the background.  But this aspect on it’s own would have been insufficient to keep the eye interested in the picture for very long; the eye needs to flow around a composition to keep it ‘interested’ or it will look away. 

There are a number of elements that can be drawn on to create this journey, whether these be singled out or used in partnership.  The strongest element of the journey in Dayboats is the balancing of the strong white on the left boat which acts as a pause against all the surrounding busy surfaces and textures.  There are a number of routes around the picture that follow along the ‘architectural’ structures.   If you look at it for a while, notice how your gaze travels around the different items but will invariably return to the white boat - then off it goes again when it’s had a brief rest, trying out a different route perhaps.

It would be inaccurate to think that I am always conscious of a full understanding of how or why a composition works right up until it’s completed.  Usually, I see something that I find striking because of one aspect of the image (like the reflections in Dayboats)  and discover the reasons for it working, for me, whilst I’m getting it on paper.  I was aware of how the overall building and features contributed to the flow of Dayboats before beginning it but inconspicuous details like the shadows cast in the left hand side or the rope hanging down from the scaffolding - quite minor details, almost ignored visually - are integral to keeping that visual flow going.  I was totally unaware of the significance of the white boat until it was finished.

So drawing is my way of finding out what it is about a view that interests or intrigues me; it’s pulling the elements apart to find out how it works, what makes it striking to me, discovering why it appeals.

Apart from Pine Trees that is; I’ve never come up with a satisfactory explanation for that one - yet.

I’ve included a link to ArtLex as an additional treasure trove of information about art terms.  It includes more than 3600 terms used in discussing art and visual culture, along with thousands of supporting images, pronounciation notes, quotations and cross-references.  Linked with kind permission of Michael Delahunt.

I have been asked what is the difference between a drawing and a sketch and started thinking how to explain, then decided that perhaps I wasn’t qualified to even try.  So, I’ve done some searching on the Web and found a link to a site, which states that it is a free resource (although I couldn’t find any Terms & Conditions or a contact for permission - so I hope it’s accurate) that has a comprehensive explanation with plenty of other links for further clarification.

If it’s still working correctly, it should link to a search page; type the term you’re interested in in the box and click ‘go’.  When I tested this out with ‘drawing’ as the search term, it navigated to an index to scroll down to the term and opens with a double click.  It did the same when I searched for ’sketch’ - so I’d just put an initial in the search box personally.

Brief definition of ’sketch’ is a quick drawing that loosely captures the essentials  of the subject. 

 ’I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realise how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.’  Frederick Franck (1909-) art writer - ‘The Zen of Seeing’. 

I received a notification this morning from MyArtSpace, that they are featuring me on their Home page.

You may have to wait a little while for the slideshow to get to it but Pine Trees is amongst them.

There’s a link to My Art Sapce Home Page in the sidebar for my Mum and Dad (they have #1 hanging at the bottom of their stairs).

The Jerwood Drawing Prize submission date has been announced (details at http://www.jerwoodvisualarts.org/ for further info).

I’ve had a look at what I can find out about the 3 curators and 2 definitely seem to have a strong bias to ‘modern’ - I’m not sure about the australian art critic; I’ve read some reviews about other shows he’s been involved with and they weren’t consistent in praise or blame. I get the strong impression that my type of work will not go down well with them.

One of the purposes of the competition is described as wanting to discover the scope of drawings that people are making (to paraphrase). Now, I know there is an audience for representational subjects and techniques. And I know that people are making this type of art and some of it is to a very high standard. So, the questions I’m asking are, where is this represented? And what doesn’t ‘the establishment’ like about it that they ignore or overlook it?

It used to be, around the turn of the 20th centuary, that if you were avant guarde, you couldn’t get exposure; now it seems to be that avant guarde is mainstream and traditional, representational scenes are too avant guarde for ‘the establishment’.

I would welcome your thoughts.

regards,
Janine

…well sort of :-) eventually found and fixed the problem so that the comments box comes up and it seems the links are working or at least finding something.  It was another example of someting fairly straightforward to do - once the solution was found.