Non-Digital Drawings

Not all of my drawing practice is digital, even though every day brings a digital drawing or two. No, I draw with graphite and with metalpoint, and sometimes with charcoal. Over the past few days my thoughts have turned to traditional media, and here are a couple of the results.

"Silver Spring," silverpoint, 2020

"Silver Spring" is silverpoint on a gesso panel. These little panels are part of a lot of several dozen that I bought when a producer quit business. This one is 5x7. The gesso takes metalpoint very nicely, so that you can draw with even the lightest pressure. In this case, the lightest marks were made by simply allowing the stylus to rest on the support without any pressure. The resultant image seems more mysterious and evanescent, to my eye.

Although many of my digitalia these last few months have been done in a format very much like the chiaroscuro method, there haven't been that many comparable drawings in traditional media--graphite and charcoal. Those I've used mostly for layout or rough sketching. But the discipline required for traditional drawing in three values is important to reinforce so this portrait drawing of the famous artist Louise Bourgeois was great practice. 

"Louise," graphite and chalk on paper, 2020

Ms. Bourgeois lived into her 90s and died in 2010. She was a major force in art during the 20th century, and today is probably best known for her series of enormous spiders. (One is in the Sculpture Garden here in Des Moines.) She was born in Paris, studied at the Sorbonne and Ecole des Beaux Artes and eventually moved to the United States in the late 1930s. This drawing is from a reference photo made when she was in her 90s.