On Dec 8, 2008, at 10:40 AM, armando baeza wrote:
I go back to the cave paintings 30 and 40 thousand years ago,plus the
pre columbian sculpture from Nayarit for some of my nourishment for
form,
It was a cardinal point often repeated by *all* my life drawing
instructors in art school to draw as often as possible from life and
NOT to rely on photographs except for references to the position of
the model. All the professors (including drawing and painting, not
just life drawing) repeated the point that the photo is flat, so when
the student copies the photo, he or she is copying a flat image, not a
three-dimensional object.
I read a very interesting show review in Arts magazine, way back in
the 80s, about a figural artist. The writer made the point that
drawing from the model consists of many many acts of memory, of
looking at the model, turning to look at the paper or canvas, and then
drawing from memory what the artist saw. The drawing was comprised of
a multitude of these small acts of remembering, and the resulting
drawing or painting showed the development of the image over time (in
contrast, btw, to a photograph, which is instantaneous and total).
This accumulation of discrete acts formed a more vivid and "living"
image than a mechanical transcription.
Drawing from a photograph does away with effect of building the image
over time, not to mention the loss of the third dimension.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
