Planar Analysis: Portrait

The homework assignment that you'll be given tomorrow will be to execute a portrait of a sitter using planar analysis. I thought it fitting to go ahead and give you a look-see at what past students have done with this assignment:

Another of My Art Heros: Raymond Pettibon

This is an episode of Art:21 featuring Raymond Pettibon. You can certainly feel free to watch the entire show (it is interesting) but you can also jump ahead to about the 15:00 mark for Pettibon's interview.

Art Happenings This Weekend

Nuts! Over Art

September 26

Overton Park

Join the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis College of Art, the Levitt Shell, and River Arts Fest in celebrating the first-ever Nuts! Over Art festival presented by Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center. Held on Saturday, September 26, 2009 from 11 am to 6 pm, Nuts! Over Art is a family festival celebrating great art in Overton Park.

The mission of Nuts! Over Art is to help broaden exposure to the visual and performing arts in Memphis through education, demonstration, and performance, and to ensure Memphians' awareness of Overton Park's significance as an arts locale.

This one-day festival will be held on the “Art Plaza” adjacent to the Brooks, MCA and the Levitt Shell in Overton Park. With the galleries of MCA and the Brooks open and a full day of performances at the Levitt Shell, visitors will enjoy a variety of activities that introduce them to some of our city’s most dynamic artists and arts venues. Families will delight in hands-on art projects, demonstrations by local artists, live music and dance performances, and a chalk art competition. Nuts! Over Art festival admission and activities are free for everyone.

Nuts! Over Art, a deciduously fun family festival celebrating great art in Midtown’s beautiful Overton Park, is generously sponsored by: Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, Harvest Creative, Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects, Bosco’s, Huey’s, Midtown Yoga, Minglewood Hall, Montgomery Martin Contractors, Park Friends, Inc., and Toof Commercial Printing.

For more information, visit www.nutsoverart.com

The Selected Works of Lauren Coulson And Jason Miller

Showcase of alternative presentations for photographic works.

Opening September 25

Jack Robinson Photography Gallery

44 Huling

Memphis, TN 38103

Christian Kuras and Duncan MacKenzie: Drawings, Graphics and Some Well Laid Plans

Opening September 25

Material

2553 Broad Ave

Memphis, TN 38112

Material is excited to announce its forty-eighth exhibition: Christian Kuras and Duncan MacKenzie: Drawings, Graphics and Some Well Laid Plans.

Duncan MacKenzie will be presenting a lecture on his work in Blount Auditorium at Buckman Hall at Rhodes College on Thursday, September 24th at 7 pm.

The exhibition will run for one night only on Friday, September 25, 2009 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.

Please note: the exhibition is at Material and the lecture is at Rhodes.

Christian Kuras and Duncan MacKenzie have been collaborating on art projects since 2003. Kuras is based in London UK while MacKenzie lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. Their practice involves working in diverse media to produce objects, installations and images. For the duo, the work of art is an opportunity to reflect upon aspects of the human experience, upon the lives they live next-to and through each other. They are drawn to reflect on the confusions and conflicts inherent in our everyday engagements. After all, even friendship and our most basic family relationships have their mechanisms and machines.

Duncan MacKenzie is a multi-platform Artist, Critic, founding member and Producer of Bad at Sports Podcast. Bad At Sports is a Chicago-based, weekly podcast and blog about contemporary art. Founded in 2005, the interview series focuses on presenting the practices of artists, curators, critics, dealers and various other arts professionals through an online audio format. Some of his interviewees have included Rodney Graham, Kerry James Marshall, Francesco Bonami, David Robbins, Carol Becker, James Rondeau, Jeff Wall, Hamza Walker, Lane Relyea, James Yood, Michelle Grabner, Gavin Turk, Mary Jane Jacob and Dominic Molon. Duncan has also worked as a correspondent for the Boston-based art journal Big, Red and Shiny, the Los Angeles Critical Studies journal Octopus and Chicago magazines Lumpen, New City, Proximity, Con)Temporary Art Guide:Chicago and Time Out .

As an Artist, Duncan has had exhibited in Canada, Australia, The United States of America, New Zealand, Estonia and England. He has given lectures and participated in panel discussions at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, The University of Illinois Chicago, DePaul, The University of Calgary, The University of Western Sydney, Chicago Public Radio's Third Coast Festival, The Pond Gallery Chicago, Three Walls Gallery Chicago, Articule Gallery Montreal, Gallery 400 Chicago, and The University of Calgary. He has
been written about in Flash Art, Time Out Chicago, New City, the Chicago Reader, F News, Coterie Magazine, Iconoduel.org, Chicagoist.com, Regulator Magazine, The Chicago Reader, absoluteart.com, FFWD Magazine, The Calgary Herald, The Calgary Straight, Where Magazine, and several catalogs published in Canada, Australia, and the United States of America.

For additional information and images please visit their website http://bathosphere.org/kurasmackenzie/ and their documentation of their residency at BANFF http://www.theculturalarchive.com

Homework Due Monday, September 28

Reminder:
o Ruler drawing: Drapery
o Create a still life using a sheet or other non-patterned material
o Work from observation
o Include the full space
o Line only
o Materials
• Charcoal pencil, hard eraser, good-quality white paper (22”x30”)

BLOG: Post photos of your drapery still life (the actual still life, not your drawing of it) and write notes on your experience completing the assignment. Share the good, bad, and ugly.

Click HERE if you have forgotten how to upload photos onto Blogger.

Memphis Mayor Gives The Dali Lama a Fist-Bump

Here's a clip of the video I told you guys about yesterday.

Luca Cambiaso (Planar Analysis)

Luca Cambiaso was a the 16th-century Renaissance painter of works like this one:

But look at how he often chose to analyze his compositions on paper before executing the paintings themselves:

This is an extreme example of planar analysis. Cambiaso here is breaking down his subjects into VERY simplified planes that allow him to see how the subjects will spatially relate.

Reminders About Class On Monday, September 21

What to bring with you:

1. Your completed homework assignment (free hand perspective interior drawing) along with the 1-point and 2-point assignments so you can hang all three together for comparison.

2. 18"x24" white bond paper, CHARCOAL pencils (2B, 4B, 6B), metal yardstick, hard & kneaded erasers, sharpener.

3. An analytical mind.

What to keep in mind:

We'll be working on something completely different this week. We've spent 4 weeks on perspective, line variation, and creating a realistic representation of depth and space on a two-dimensional picture plane using only line. As we move on to the next problem, don't forget any of the lessons you learned or skills you picked up during the past four weeks. They are all related and cumulative. You don't leave one behind merely because you're learning something new. So, as we begin this week to explore the interpretation of three-dimensional objects onto a two-dimensional surface using planar analysis, don't forget proportion, composition, line value, and the observational skills you've developed.

Zak Smith Studio Visit

Examples of Planar Analysis Drawings

Here are some examples of what others have done with the planar analysis problem. This is a very new idea to many of you so I wanted you to have an opportunity to see what you'll be doing in the upcoming weeks.

Videos To Help You With Free Hand (Intuitive) Perspective

To help get you ready for drawing in free-hand (intuitive) perspective, here are a couple of useful videos I came across in my searches:

The first video outlines some tips to keep the objects in your composition in proper in proportion and to establish guidelines to keep the composition organized well on the page. Notice how the instructor here holds the pencil correctly up until the very end. I groaned when I saw him switch how he was holding it.

In this video, the instructor is using a finished drawing to point out all the considerations he put into its construction. Everything he mentions, with the exception of value (which we just don't deal with in this class) applies to everything you will be doing in this class.

Remember, however, that--unlike the instructor in these videos--you will continue to use your ruler for a while, even now that we're moving into intuitive perspective. I hope by now that you've come to see that the ruler isn't the constricting, limiting thing you originally thought it would be and that you have, instead, discovered just how loose and free this tool can allow you to be.

Some Good Sketchbook Examples

Since we'll be reviewing grades and sketchbook progress next Wednesday (9/16/09) and since so many of you have been asking what should be included in the sketchbook, I thought I'd post a few good examples. Now, you are your own, individual, creative human being, and I shouldn't see you mimicking what you see here in these examples. Rather, these images will allow you to see how others have made good use of their sketchbooks, and from that you can perhaps glean ideas of your own. (For whatever reason, Blogger isn't letting me shrink down these images, so some of them are cut-off. Just click on them to see the full image.)

Here's an excellent example of a student making notes on an artist he/she researched accompanied by a second page in which the student drilled him/herself on 2-point perspective.

This student designed something like a "title page" to introduce the section of the sketchbook that would explore perspective. On this page, you can see where the student pasted in a small article on the subject as well as wrote down definitions of key terms.

Here is an example of a student using a two-page spread of the sketchbook to drill him/herself by practicing drawing ellipses--particularly ellipses on several different types of cylinders viewed from different vantage points.

Here we have a student who took an article on 1-point perspective, photocopied it, and pasted it into the sketchbook. The student also added some visual motifs as a design element to unify the 2-page spread.

Here's another student dealing with ellipses and foreshortening. In addition to the student's own drawing and notes, illustrations and sections of an article have been pasted onto the page.

An interesting way of exploring 1-point perspective: a piece of tracing paper showing all of the orthogonal lines that fits over the finished drawing.

Pure experimentation that has nothing to do with the class. It's OK to do this.

Here's an example of a student using his/her writing in a creative way that becomes a design element in and of itself.

This student practiced drawing the interior in the sketchbook before executing it on the full-sized paper. Notice the article pasted into the book as well.

Again, pure experimentation.

And more experimentation.

Reminder About Homework Due September 14

On a sheet of 18"x24" WHITE bond paper, draw an interior (the same one you did in the last homework assignment) in 2-point perspective. Consider a different view this time around. Get adventurous if you want. Sit low to the floor or on a high platform. Just remember that whatever view you choose YOU MUST USE 2-POINT PERSPECTIVE.

Materials:

18"x24" white bond paper

Drawing Board

Drawing Pencils

Eraser

Metal yardstick

To give you a hand, click HERE for some good online instructions on drawing a 2-point interior. This example gives a third reference point in the center of the horizon. You don't need to worry about that.

You can also click HERE for a small (3 images) gallery of 2-point perspective interiors done by other classes.

Your Pencils May Be Worth More Than You Thought...

Since you guys are spending so much time with your pencils lately, I thought this article might appeal to you.

What To Bring To Class On September 9

1. Your homework completed, fixed, and ready to turn in.

2. 18"x24" WHITE bond paper.

3. 4B and 6B GRAPHITE drawing pencils.

4. Your drawing board, yardstick, and eraser.

5. A roll of artist's tape if you have it (I'll have some in the studio).

6. A positive attitude and a willingness to work (I know how much you all LOVE drawing white cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders).

We'll be continuing with 2-point perspective Wednesday, which is at least a bit closer to the way our eyes see the world than 1-point, so these drawings will be a bit more accurate to what your looking at. Therefore, I'll expect a bit more true-to-life proportions between objects this time around.

Some of My Own Work

It occured to me that if I'm contantly pushing you guys to show me more line variation, the least I could do is show you some of my own drawings so as to let you see that I practice what I preach. Again, I'm a mostly figurative artist, but examine (and, hell, even critique if you want) my own use of line variation and for what purposes. Click HERE for a gallery of my drawings.

How To Behave At a Gallery

Here's a little something I found that I thought everyone might find funny.

How To Behave At a Gallery on Howcast

Stuff To Do On Labor Day

We don't have class on Monday due to the Labor Day holiday. Many of you may be planning to go home and visit your families. However, I know there are many of you, as well, who will be staying put for budgetary reasons. For those of you who are sticking around, I found some stuff you could check out on that day or over the weekend.

1. The Chick-fil-A Labor Day Giveaway

Apparently, on Labor Day, if you wear your favorite sports team logo to Chick-fil-A between 10:30 AM and closing, you can get a FREE Chick-fil-A Original Chicken Sandwich.

Nearest locations: Oak Court Mall and Poplar Avenue FSU.

2. The Delta Fair and Music Festival

September 4-13, 2008

Admission is $8.00 for adults and $5.00 for kids.

The Delta Fair and Music Festival is the first big fair/festival of the season. The fair consists of rides, food, live music, and exhibits.

3. Memphis Music & Heritage Festival

September 5-6, 2009

Admission is FREE!

Downtown Memphis, 11AM-11PM each day.