Weekly Round Up 2 - Art Gleanings

On gesture vs. details

If it is outfits you are interested in, invest in a Sears catalog. I fit is gesture you are interested in, then look beyond those extraneous, sometimes gesture-destroying details.

Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 63.

What is a pose or gesture but an orderly arrangement of body parts to display a mood, demeanor, attitude, mannerism, expression, or emotion.

Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 64.

Somewhere I read, “Whenever a photograph contains the principles and disciplines of the artist, the better it will be; but the more a drawing looks like a photograph, the worse it will be.”

Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 69.

Draw verbs, not nouns. A noun is a thing that can be named; a verb is a thing given the breath of life.

Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 69.

While sketching from a model there is a tendency to think of the pose as a still life. For the sake of animation study, think of the pose rather as a part (or extreme) of an action.

Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 79.

Using reference photos:

On Drawing Gesture & Figure Drawing:

Thomas Fluharty speaks highly of Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth.

Inspiration

This last week, I’ve gotten inspiration from these various artists:

• Eyvind Earle - classic Disney artist. His whimsical forms!

• Mary Blair - another classic Disney artist. Style and color!

• Sarah Mari Shaboyan - color pencil illustrator/world traveller

• Oliver Jeffers - illustrator. Our family loves his books.

• Patrick Visser - illustrator tutorials. His exercises are nice.

• Irena Spector - illustrator. I love her children’s book look.

• Melissa Lakey - illustrator. Again, her child-like vibe is fire.

• Facebook groups - Sketchbooking, urban sketching in Chicago, Sketch in Travel.

Weekly Round Up - Art Quotes

On Illustration:

The word illustration come with the same root word: illuminate.

It means to shine light onto something other than itself.

Illustration is to serve something outside of itself

Marshall Vandruff, Developing An Illustration

On Stories:

A good movie starts with a good idea for a good story…

Good stories also have a good clear theme, like “don’t judge a book by its cover” in Beauty and the Beast…

Along with theme, good stories also have at their core a very basic action:

Lion King: “Go home.”

The Little Mermaid and Cinderella: “Get the prince.”

101 Dalmatians: “Find the puppies.”

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves: “Stop the wicked witch.”

Beauty and the Beast: “Break the spell.”

Don Hahn
Animation Magic, 10-11.

On Hard Work:

The nucleus of artists from forty or fifty years ago was no more talented than this class. They had to go to art school to learn to draw, they had to read, study, and search; they had to discover for themselves what they had to offer.

Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 57.

On Mental and Physical Preparation:

You must create. The injunction of life is to create or perish…I have a formula: “Impression minus expression equals depression.”

Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 47.

On Composition

People can be very forgiving if the composition speaks. A composition can grab people across the room. (Nathan Fowkes)

On Anatomy vs. Gesture:

Our interest is in the gesture, which is the vehicle used in fitting a character into the role it is called upon to act out…

So to approach a model with the idea of copying a human figure plus its clothing could be called a waste of time. Our interest is in seeing the differences in each personality and their individualistic gestures and, like a good caricaturist, capture the essence of those differences…

There are really only a few principles of drawing but an infinite number of personality traits and gestures. To “hole in” after learning the body structures is to miss the excitement and the satisfaction of using that information to tell the story of life through the nuances of gesture…

We cannot back off from our emotions—if we do the result will be a mere anatomical reproduction…

A drawing or a scene is not final when a material representation has been made; it is final when a sensitive depiction of an emotion has been made…Yes, there is anatomy, form, construction, model, and two or three lines of etceteras, but only as far as those things are expressive of the story.

Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 45.

More On Gesture:

If we go at drawing from the standpoint of anatomy or model we are less likely to achieve the expression we are after, whereas if we work out some symbols for squash and stretch and apply them to anatomy, we can achieve our sought after gesture.

Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 26.

Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield’s 7 Reasons for Drawing Consistently (page 34)

1. Interest in life will grow.

2. Ability to solve drawing problems will be sharpened.

3. Creative juices will surge.

4. Healing fluids will flow throughout your body.

5. An eagerness for life and experience and growth will crowd out all feelings of ennui and disinterest.

6. If you go on a trip, whether long or short, let your sketchbook take preference over your camera. You’ll find yourself looking and seeing more than ever before. You will find yourself searching out new things to see, new places to visit, and more varieties of people to “capture” in your sketchbook.

7. Your sketchbook will become your diary. Think of it as a graphic autobiography.

On Seeing Reality:

Seeing into the realities—beyond the surfaces of the subject.

Robert Henri
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 45.

What a horrible fate—to be just a drawing.

Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 29.

Bruce McIntyre’s 6 Rules of Perspective:

In Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 49.

Re: Meditation

I came across this a few weeks ago and can’t stop thinking about how helpful it is.

Eastern meditation, says Keller, is emptying your mind of all rational thought.

Christian meditation, he goes on, is the exact opposite. It is filling our mind with God’s word and speaking to your heart about that truth.

His quote from Martin Lloyd Jones hits the sweet spot:

Have you realized that so much of your unhappiness in your life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself rather than talking?

Los Angeles Painting

My brother lives in Los Angeles. During my visit a few years ago, he took me to one of his favorite surfing spots. He taught me to surf here at this beach.

This spot happens to be right off the road of the Palisades fires.

I snapped this photo of him then did a digital painting of it.

Sketchbook

The Blessing Of Exposure to Other Cultures

Traveling around the world does something to a person.

Seeing church done in other cultures stretches our paradigms.

“It’s not wrong…it’s just different” is a common phrase in the missions world.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ken - StradCopy (@stradcopy)

This post captures this idea wonderfully.

When our ideas are not challenged and sifted through the filter of Scripture, we can become numb to what is “biblical” and what is merely from our culture.

An Homage to the Bluey Theme Song

Bluey’s theme song might be one of my all-time favorites.

Our family has been a little late to the show’s bandwagon. But here is my curation of my favorite theme song variations.

Aside from these beauties, I enjoyed seeing this time signature, a guitar cover, and this dance.

Cheers (mate)

4 Reasons to Sing When You’re Depressed

William Plumer on Psalm 89:

Whatever our own state, or that of public affairs may be, les us sing of God’s glorious attributes. No darkness in our sky can excuse us from making known his perfections (Ps 89:1, 2, 14, 24, 28, 33, 49).

Here are his 4 reasons why “We greatly wrong our own souls when we decline the religious use of song”:

1. This is the fittest way to express joy for anything.

2. It will be best inculcated in this way.

3. It will be more easily remembered.

4. It will be more easily delivered to others, in order to be remembered.

Many a sorrowing child of God has had his gloom, like the evil spirit of Saul, quite removed by the hard of David.

When you think you should pencil…

I’m a detail-hog. A perfectionistic pamperer. A resident in the trees.

Details are my happy place. Don’t even ask how many tabs (nestled into how many Chrome browsers) are idly waiting my return.

For many years, this gift (trait, strength,…curse?!) drove my art-making. If you look at my corpus of lifeworks, you’ll see many hyperrealistic pencil portraits. But something felt wrong.

I didn’t realize how imprisoning perfection-seeking would make me.

In the last 5 years, I’ve returned to what originally drew me to art in the first place: play and joy. The fundamentals excite me again. The beauty of the rudiments enliven me. This season of parenting littles forces creativity within the limitations of interruptible 20 minute restraints.

For this reason, James Gurney’s advise has been a lifeline: learn to sketch by painting.

Instead of forcing the details of trees, live in the forest. Hang out in the bigger picture of life. Preach to my heart from the cliff rather than listen to it from the weeds.

Enjoy Mr. Gurney at work: