Student Work - Lesson 1

This blog contains student work for a previous session of "Drawing at the Edge of Representation." The next session of this class will run at City College of San Francisco starting on March 8th and meet for three evenings on Tuesdays

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For the first class session we worked with the still life. Students were encouraged to explore expressionistic mark-making while maintaining a sense of proportion and accuracy with regard to the still life. I call this the "Van Gogh" exercise for his ability to maintain accuracy while exploring a range of different mark-making styles - while also edging toward abstraction.

As you can see in this Van Gogh drawing, he maintains a sense of proportion while creating a lively rhythm through the intensity of his charcoal markings. Note, also, how the rhythm of the mark-making extends into the surface and background. This activates the surface of the entire page and helps to embed the shoes in their spatial surroundings:

Here is the still life which we worked with:

Below we can see how one student (Sara) approached the still life as a similar set of problems. Her first drawing was good, but you can see how (with some encouragement) she freed up her style and really attacked the page. By working sequentially and experimentally, in this fashion, she went from making a simple restrained still life drawing to a series of lively expressionistic drawings.

The drawing below was made on a larger sheet of paper than the previous quick sketches and given a more extended period of time. You can see that she really loosened up and delighted in the fast-paced  mark-making.

In the final ink wash drawing she went full abstract. Although the subject is nearly obscured (you can still see the teapot!) you can tell that she maintained a sense of discipline - even as she experimented with painterly brushwork. 

That is, the previous exercises obviously provided a sense of structure and launchpad for her abstract explorations. Likewise, she maintained a sense of concentration and attention to negative space (the white areas between the brushstrokes.) This helps to hold the drawing together and give it a sense of coherence - in addition to its free-wheeling energy!

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This student, Kelsey, went on a similar journey with her work. The first drawings shows an attention to the objects proportions, in particular, to capturing their contours and proportions. 

By the second drawing you can see, however, that she really loosened up and found creative ways to capture the objects with her energetic pencil-work. You can also see that she mostly avoided the mistake (from the first drawing) of over-emphasizing the contours. This gives drawing a greater sense of consistency and therefore unity.

In her final drawing Kelsey explored ink wash drawings. This was her first attempt to use this medium and she did a great job! While less abstract than Sara's ink drawing above, she achieves a rather lyrical style while also capturing the essence of the objects and textiles in the still life.

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Sam's work followed a similar pattern. She started with this restrained and accurate still life. and then ventured toward a more experimental approach to capturing the objects.

Though unfinished, this drawing shows that Sam is experimenting and is clearly on her way to finding her own style of expressionism. The vigorous scribbling on the fruit bowl, the lyrical markings of of the pillow, the variety of marks on the teapot, and the loopy lines on the pineapple all show a searching and experimental attitude toward the process of drawing.

The next session of this class will run at CCSF starting on March 8th (soon!) 

Click here to register.