Artists Working "Loose-to-Tight"

We will look at these artists in class, but I thought I'd go ahead and post them here first, so you can take a look for yourself before lecture in class.

Edgar Degas
So, here's a guy with whom I'm sure you are all familiar. Edgar Degas, in his drawings, worked very similarly to how we are working now in class and in the homework assignments. Take a good, careful, analytical look at the drawings below. You will notice that underneath the topmost finished, confident drawing, there is evidence of more gestural work. In many cases notice how, in earlier steps, he often discovered that he had an appendage in the wrong place. Rather than erasing this screw-up, he just moved over and put it in the correct place. He was making his corrections right on top of the mistakes. There are areas where you can see that it took him three or four attempts to get it just right. Now, this man could DRAW, and look at all the mistakes that he made over the course of each picture. So when you, as a first-year college student, find yourself getting frustrated and concerned with making nice perfect lines while working in that first loosened-up underdrawing, remember Degas.






Alberto Giacometti
Here's some of Alberto Giacometti's paintings. His paintings are essentially drawings, not unlike Zak Smith's. Now, Giacometti definitely works "loose-to-tight," but he does one thing I don't want you doing. He places the same amount of pressure and emphasis on the lines of each layer he puts down. I always want you working very lightly in the first and second steps of your drawing process. But Giacometti is good to look at while you are working in this manner because, since he places just as much emphasis on his gestural underdrawing as he does on the more defined final step, you can really see the evidence of his entire process.

Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres
Ah, here's our old buddy Ingres again. I figured I'd just put one example of his work up here for you to analyze since you've spent plenty of time with him already. Since Ingre saw these drawings as studies for finished paintings (and I've always loved his drawings so much more than the paintings) he wasn't worried about having every area of the drawing perfectly "finished." When you examine his work, you can see that he first blocked out the figure in gestural lines, then came in and gave a bit more finish to areas with which he was mainly concerned, and then came in with the final coup de grace of finished, confident linework (mainly around the face). Now, yes, Ingres' gestural lines still feel rather defined and close to perfect, but that because he's INGRES. This guy trained like a madman for many years to be able to do that. I would never expect that kind of polish from you at this point in your education. What is important, however, is that you look at artists like this--artists who were doing what you are now doing long, long before you--and see what there is to learn, to glean, to adopt from their work.