My Own Aesthetic Realism

I like to chop heads off when I only have two or five minutes to complete a sketch from a real life model. I don't even bother accounting for the model's head, for the most part. It's just too much detail, but also, the body has more form to offer in an architectural sense. Its myriad shapes and sizes give me so much more to play with. Plus, I like to work fast -- churning drawings out like a factory on overtime. If I can help it, I try to avoid detail as much as possible in figure drawing. I save that stuff for later.

At my last figure drawing session though, I noticed that most of the artists were working in the traditional/formal sense. There was a lot of graphite and charcoal use, creating very detailed and representational figures on large paper held by board on easels. This old school splendor brought me back to art school. Proportionality, compositional balance, realistic shading and accurate lines dominated all the drawings I saw. The apparent skill all around me was intimidating. Quite the contrast to the creatures I was bringing to life on my sheets of paper: sloppy monster-like figures with garish colors and messy lines. Some terrible; some not so bad - but I had a lot of them to choose from.

I go through phases with styles of drawing. I do find extreme satisfaction from a sketch resulting in an uncanny likeness to the subject - almost like a carbon copy. There's nothing quite like this feeling. Drawing is a cathartic process, and doing so with a discipline akin to the old masters like Da Vinci provides an almost Buddhist-like experience I think. Not everyone has the motor skills to pull it off; nor the patience or the thirst for this kind of aesthetic investigation.

My investigation through drawing is not quite of this nature. I try to shake it up as much as possible -- like beheading the figure, removing other limbs, or adding a third breast for that matter. Instead of a human body, I see fragmented shapes, layers, colors and forms. I take the life out of the figure and replace it with scribble and scratches.

Every now and again I will return to representational drawing. I have the utmost respect for it, as it has everything to do with how I am able to take the opposite direction. I am always in awe when I see a picture crafted so carefully, so detailed, so realistic and precise. Especially if they are in large-scale -- I am blown away. Some of Chuck Close's portraits come to mind. One day, perhaps I will attempt something similar. But for now, I'm quite content with my monster-like figures.

All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.

-Eli Siegel (1902-1978)