Spirograph on steroids

A few weeks ago I saw Nancy Blum's artwork at Reynolds Gallery here in Richmond.  I am crazy about her work - it's huge scale pictures of gorgeously graphic flowers with patterns abounding!  It struck a chord in me, and I would have bought several if I'd had the necessary $45K each!  They're wonderful.  I was tickled to notice that she uses Spirograph images behind the work, just barely, tantalizingly noticeable.  I asked her about it and she confirmed that that is what she does.  It's her first step.

I have always loved Spirographs!  As a kid, it was one of my favorite toys.  I would sit for hours playing with it.  So I decided to get myself one!  I'd seen a set at Barnes and Noble one day but hadn't bought it then.  I went back and got it the day after the show.  Sadly, disappointingly, it just wasn't any good.  Darn!  There were too few gears, no pins, no pens, nada, nothin'!  I took it back.  I looked online to see what was up.  Apparently I'm not the only fan!  On eBay and Amazon.com I found lots of comments about various versions of Spirograph and found that only the original Spirograph is super-cool.  Eventually Kenner had to use magnets rather than pins to hold the wheels in place - so toddlers don't swallow the pins, I guess - and other modifications that took away from the super-cool factor.  I looked through what was available.  Sticker shock kicked in immediately.  $75 was a cheap one!  Yikes!  I didn't do anything for a couple of days then I decided it was worth it to me, so I held my breath and ordered one.  I figured it was about the cost of a really  nice dinner on the town with Chris, and I'd enjoy this for a lot longer!

And boy, have I!  I've already spent 10-12 hours playing!  There's an instruction booklet that comes with it to show different patterns a person can make.  As an adult I can appreciate the complexity of the mathematics involved in it.  I do not remember understanding anything about it as a kid.  I'm pretty sure I didn't look at the booklet - I think I just dove in and played.  What I'm learning is that there are ways to line up the wheels inside the larger wheels to make the patterns vary.  There are so many possibilities!  I decided to take a very nerdy approach to it and am going through everything systematically to figure out which wheels do what.  

Here are a couple of designs I did following the instructions in the booklet.  I went inside the wheel and outside the wheel and used several different gears on the left hand one.  The right hand one is using the elongated bar, believe it or not!, and turning it 45 degrees each time with each different color. 

fig 1.

fig 2.

fig 4

fig 3

 After going through all the ones in the booklet, I started my own studies to see if i could discern the math and logic behind the system.  The notations connote which wheel and gear I used and how I lined each up on the other.  I had a really good time changing colors and sizes and holes, etc., to see what effect it would have.  I still haven't finished going through all the different sized gears.  I'm about 1/2 way through.  

fig 5

fig 6

Figure 6 shows what happens when I pinned the smallest gear down and used larger gears to go around it.  Fig 7 is more of those.  They remind me of geodesic domes or Celtic knots somehow.  I have so much fun saying "I wonder what will happen if I..." then trying it out! 

fig 7

Sometimes I berate myself a tad bit and think I should be painting or doing something serious, but I am having so much fun and am so absorbed in what I'm doing that I can only figure it is leading somewhere interesting.  I want to incorporate these into my paintings and drawings.  This morning I dreamt very clearly of a drawing of a figure with a spirographed image over top of it.  I plan to work on doing it tomorrow in figure drawing session.  I'm very excited to see if I can capture what I saw in my dream.  It was very clear there.

Now I want to figure out how to make the designs larger.  I think I'm limited by how large the plastic wheels are.  I wonder if there are other things I can use for wheels to make these designs.  I can't think of anything, but I figure a trip to the hardware store is in order to see what they might have there.  You never know!

It's delightful giving myself permission to play like I have been lately.  It makes me feel so happy.  I feel like the luckiest woman on earth.  I get to do what a love for a living.  I get to teach people who are excited about learning to do what I love to do.  And I get to play all day, asking, "I wonder what would happen if I..." then find out!  What a life!!

My journey to vital gesture drawings

I had a breakthrough in figure drawing class, our last one, a couple of days ago.  We were doing gesture drawings at the beginning of class, as always.  I've become fairly pleased with how mine are starting to look.  When I first started class, they were pretty unskillful and I would come home feeling disappointed and frustrated.  I would watch Tommy draw his and could see how he got there, but I couldn't begin to draw something that pleased me aesthetically the way his did.  I didn't like my line.  Eventually, gradually, they began to develop, and I stopped feeling quite so constantly frustrated by them.  Here are some from 2 weeks ago.  Certainly you can tell what position the woman was in.  I don't think they're gorgeous, but they're not bad.

That same week, a few later, I decided to draw larger to see how that felt.  I wanted to stop restricting my movement, thinking that if I gave myself more space, I'd move more freely and the lines might get juicier.  This is the result of that.  I like it much better.

This past Wed, I was working on getting into the groove again, still drawing a bit small.  I first draw with a large piece of willow or vine charcoal to get the basic form of the figure, then I go back and draw contour lines around the figure.  In these I particularly liked the articulation of her calf in the one of the left and of her right elbow and shoulder (our left) on the figure on the right.  As I was drawing one of these, I overheard Tommy suggest to the student behind me that she draw the figure as if it's all one continuous piece of wire and she's sculpting it.  I know I'd heard him say that before, but this time it stuck and the picture below was the immediate result:

To me, these have a completely different feeling.  They might not be quite as accurate proportionally, but then again, perhaps they are.  One thing I know they are is more vital feeling to me.  I love the lines.  They remind me of some drawings I've seen by Matisse.  I don't mean to give myself an overabundance of praise - it's just that I like the lightness of line and the looseness I was able to achieve.  It's a huge breakthrough for me since before these I always felt so verklemmt, tight, rule-bound.  With these I finally found some joy and pleasure in exploring her image.  

new method next to old

The next one I did, I tried the same method.  She was sitting in a more complicated pose.  I started to get lost and unsure of myself so I drew it again using the method I'd used before.  Even though the new style looks a bit bizarre, I prefer it.  It simply has more vitality, in my opinion.  For the next two images, I decided to work on the whole page.  These made me happy.  I so enjoyed running the very sharp charcoal pencil point across the page, imagining myself actually touching the contours of her body as I went.  And I love the looseness and lightness of the image!  THIS is what I've been trying to do all these years since I first learned to do gesture drawings.  Now I can't wait to go to figure drawing tonight to practice some more!

Figure Drawing by Matisse

When we started working on the first 30 minute pose, I began it the same way - full page, large, light touch with the pencil.  The image was more complicated since she was holding a guitar.  I notice it came out almost life size and left out her legs completely.  I was trying to figure out what to do next but couldn't decide so I flipped the page and started over in the manner to which I am accustomed. That result is the more realistic looking image above.  I'm thankful I'm finally starting to get some skill so I can represent the models with some accuracy realistically.  I have a long way to go for them to look good, but at least they don't look quite as gallywampus as they did at first.  BUT what I notice is that I like the first one I did better.  It's more interesting, more full of life.  

For the next long pose, Tommy suggested I start loose again but this time push it a little bit and see where it goes, be willing to "ruin" a gesture drawing I like just to see what's on the other side.  Good advice.  I drew the gesture drawing light and loose with some distortions (unintended).  Tommy came over then and suggested I try to draw the way Sargeant did - stand back from the canvas to get some distance, look at the model carefully, then approach the canvas and place the mark in exactly the right place.  I was yearning for color, feeling like I could approach it much better with color, but having just white and black conte crayons along with vine charcoal and charcoal pencils restricted my choices and helped me learn all I could from what I had.  I tried to be mindful of each stroke and to place it carefully and exactly.  

I am very aware that her face looks weird, but it doesn't bother me.  I kind of like it, in fact.  And I like the overall piece.  It keeps me looking and more intrigued than does the above realistic one with the guitar.  I wrote about the experience of drawing this one on my blog from 8/24/12.  

I'm excited to have found a different way of approaching the models and my drawings of them.  I feel like I pushed through some fairly substantial resistance and came out the other side.  Tonight I'm going to Figure Drawing Session and will bring my pastels and some good paper so I can play with yet another way of approaching the drawings.  Experimentation is the life blood of art.  I'm becoming more and more grateful for this time away from pressure when I can take chances and can learn more about materials, methods, and myself.