Continuing on from last week, here are some more horse drawings. I’m looking for interesting gestures and angles other than from the side.
Next week I plan to do some sketches of various combinations of horses to see how they look.
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Here’s a link to a story that was on CNN last week. It’s about an autistic boy whose father and mother take him to Mongolia, both to be healed by shamans and to spend extensive time on horseback.
And, as it happens, a dear artist friend of mine just sent me an autographed copy of the book that has resulted from the trip, The Horse Boy. I’m only part of the way in, but it’s a facinating book on a number of levels- the treatment of autism, Mongolia, its horses and shamanism. I’ll do a review once I’ve finished it. Suffice to say for the moment that the author experienced the same patience, tolerance and good will that I have during my travels there.
For more information or to bid, click here
It’s one thing to see and appreciate how other artists use techniques like “lost and found” when viewing their finished work. But I thought it might be useful to show a couple of step-by-step demonstrations of how I go about it. First, one in charcoal and then a second in oil paint.
Here’s a selection of my drawing stuff. I used a 6B Extra Soft General’s charcoal pencil for the following study, which I think just might make an interesting painting. The “stumps” on the left are used for blending. I’ll be sharing a book on sketching next week that really showed me what the stumps are good for.
Also, here is my computer set-up. My husband, bless his heart, built the platform it all sits on to my specifications. We fastened it to the IKEA desk with an office chair swivel to ensure that it could easily support the off-center weight of the iMac, which has a 24′ glossy monitor.
Using the image on the monitor, I did this value study-
The drawing is done and now I’m starting to lay in the shadow shape on the left as one mass.
All the shadow shapes are done. Notice that I haven’t put in any detail or features in the shadow, except an indication of the nostril and some of the mouth.
The finished study. The shadow area is treated as one big shape and I’ve “lost” all the rest.
Here is a second demo done in paint. The same principles apply.
The starting image; a white rhino I photographed at the Lewa Downs Coservancy, Kenya, in 2004. The light side and shadow side are very distinct.
The initial drawing. Why red? I could make up a really cool explanation, but actually I picked it up from Scott Christensen. Sometimes I use other colors depending on what I have in mind for the painting, but I tend to fall back on the red for these quick studies. One less decision to make.
Once again, I’m laying in the shadow as one big shape.
I’ve added color to the light side and also used the same tone for the background. Notice that I have left brush strokes showing for visual texture and that there are four different color temperatures in the shadow.
I’ve now covered the background with paint and picked out the lightest areas on the rhino.
The finished study, which took less than two hours. I lightened the background to pop out the shadows, added a darker tone on the left to pop out the side of the head and added some final brushstrokes at the bottom to suggest grass.
A little tired after all this? You’re not the only one:
I had an idea for a painting the instant I saw this scene on the way back from the Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve in 2006.
I love the colors, the clouds, the Mongol horses grazing, but compositionally it’s a long way from a painting. My plan is that this will be a major work, as in large, maybe 3’x4′ or more since I want the horses to be big enough that I can really paint each one individually. I learned this approach in art school when one of my teachers showed our class a painting he did of the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence. Why so big, we asked. Because I didn’t want to paint the heads any smaller than an inch high, he replied. Oh, we said. Taking that as a beginning, he knew how big the painting would end up being. I’m thinking each horse at 3″ to 4″ from the back to the ground. This could change, but it is a starting point.
The process I’m going to demonstrate is the one taught me at art school when I was studying to be an illustrator. I don’t always do all the steps, but this time I probably will, both because it’s a large piece and because other artists might find all or part of it useful in their own work.
The next step was to do a small thumbnail to get my initial vision down.
This took about 30 seconds, but it has the essential information: low horizon line, mountains in the background, clouds stacked up picturesqually, one large and one small group of horses grazing. The proportions aren’t right yet, so I’ll be doing more thumbnails, as many as it takes.
In the meantime, I’m also doing fairly quick drawings of horses grazing and moving to see which ones I think will work in the painting.
To Be Continued…..
There was a full page ad in a recent Southwest Art for a retrospective show at the Telluride Gallery of the art of legendary illustrator/artist Bernie Fuchs. At one time, he was one of the most imitated illustrators in the country due to the popularity of his “lost and found” style. There was a color catalog available and it arrived a few days ago. I was transported back to my time as an illustration student at art school, remembering how blown away I was by his work- the draftsmanship, the design and how he said so much with such simple shapes.
As I poked around my files and illustration books in my library, I was reminded of how many illustrators have made the move to “fine art” over the years, quite a few into wildlife and western art. My sister-in-law, an illustrator, and I used to play a game when we’d visit a gallery with representational work, which we thought of as “Who has illustration training?” We could generally nail it with no difficulty. Why? Impeccable draftsmanship, excellent design and a sense that the piece was done with utter confidence. Think of Bob Kuhn, Guy Coholeach, Richard Sloan, John Schoenherr, John Clymer, Howard Rogers, Kenneth Riley and Howard Terpening, to name a few who come to mind. They all had successful careers as illustrators, which meant they made a LOT of pictures, often on very tight deadlines, so they became extremely efficient; no wasted motion. And then they brought all that experience to “easel painting”, creating work that really stands out from the crowd.
I thought I’d occasionally share some of the things I learned back when I was an illustrator which have influenced and inspired me as a painter.
“Lost and found” describes a way of seeing shapes and then only adding detail where you need and want it. You “lose” and “find” edges. It’s a way to think about making a picture that can free you from painting every leaf, every hair, every blade of grass. But it takes practice and training, maybe re-training, your eye. It’s worth it because it opens up a whole new range of options for expressing yourself. Here are some examples I found, starting with Mr. Fuchs:
Notice that he hasn’t rendered a single individual leaf. But you know by the shape that it’s a tree. He’s “lost” all the leaf edges, but has “found” the backlighting. This design has only three major shapes: the tree, the background and the ground at the bottom. When you can simplify this way and see the big shapes, you gain so much control instead of letting detail control you.
Ludwig Hohlwein was a master of shape design. Too bad he was happy to do work for the Nazis. In any case, here is a camel, done in two values and mostly in shadow. Add the rider and you have three values total. Nothing more is needed. As my Illustration 2 teacher said, “The simpler statement is the stronger statement”.
Bart Forbes was working at the same time as Fuchs. He had his own take on “lost and found” and this is one of his best known images. Once again, very limited values. No excruciating rendering of the folds in the pants, but you still know exactly what they are, what color they are and that the light is coming from the left. The figure is fully defined and separated from the background by the shapes.
David Grove came along and pushed things a little farther. Now most of the edges of the figure are lost. Or you could say that the light side of the figure is found and pulled from the background. Either way, you won’t miss that plaid shirt.
Then Robert Heindel took lost and found to a whole new level with his paintings of dancers. (He also did the posters for Cats.). You have no trouble seeing what is going on. Her head is down and one leg is bent, with the edges appearing and disappearing seemingly at random, but of course it’s all carefully planned and the result of years of experience.
Most of us baby boomers have seen Bob Peak’s posters for movies like Camelot, Apocalypse Now, Rollerball, Funny Girl and Missouri Breaks. Here’s a drawing that Peak did of Robert Henri. Notice how he lets the color of the background also form the color of the suit and then only adds the shadow shapes. The fern in the back mostly has the grey tone cut in around it and is really a silhouette. The only area of color is where he wants your eye to go, Henri’s face.
Finally, sometimes you encounter an image that causes a permanent perceptual shift. This is one that did it for me, by one of my all-time favorite painters, Frank Frazetta. A lot of people never got past the subject matter, but this is someone who knew the craft of painting inside out and backwards and could draw rings around most people. He was one of the masters of lost and found. This tasty piece is painted on bare masonite! Heaven knows how archival it will be, but jeez. The warm shadow in the torso of the middle figure is the masonite showing through. I was totally blown away when I realized what he had done. Now this was before I was able to go to any major art museums and once I did, I saw that letting the ground show through is a classical approach that has been around for a long time. Another reason why it’s so important to see originals. Fragonard did a famous painting of a girl in a yellow dress, reading. The warm shadow on her back is the ground showing, same as in the Frazetta, except it was a paint layer, not the support itself. Maybe that’s where Frazetta got the idea. He just did it with Neanderthals instead of a pretty girl.
PINTO 6×8 oil on canvasboard
Today I thought I’d share my record of the progress of a painting that is currently hanging in the Redwood Art Association juried membership show at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, California, which is about 20 minutes from where I live. This sequence should give you a pretty good idea of how I work.
Here’s the reference image that I started with. It was taken in September 2008 at Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve. This group of horses wandered right past the ger camp one evening. I got lots of great pictures. Looking at them when I got home, I was struck by the stallion’s pose as he showed off around the mares. I haven’t done too many domestic horse paintings and I wanted to really focus in on understanding their structure and capturing the sheen of the coat, so I decided to use a fairly large canvas and only paint the horse.
Here’s how I started. The support is gessoed canvas on hardboard and measures 24″x36″. I did an initial lay-in with a brush. All I cared about at this point was getting the horse where I wanted him on the canvas and indicating the proportions correctly. You can see on the front leg that is lifted where I have started to do the actual drawing.
This step shows the finished drawing for the head, shoulder and front legs. At this point, I had dragged out all my books on horse anatomy to double check the structure and confirm that I had understood it correctly. Changes are easy to make at the drawing stage, but I’ll wipe out and re-do at any point if I see something that’s wrong. That’s just the way it goes sometimes and I don’t fight it or make excuses to myself anymore. I also have a full-length mirror behind me and I use it constantly to check the drawing for accuracy. I’ve designed the mane and the tail shapes, some of which are planned to go off the edge of the canvas so the horse isn’t floating and looks more like he just happened to be walking through the frame.
I’ve started to lay in the first layer of color on the body and hindquarters and am already varying the values to pick out anatomical structures like the hind leg tendon and to start suggesting the roundness of the torso. Since I’m working from a digital photograph, which flattens form, I’ve schooled myself to compensate by always looking for ways to get back the three dimensional form I know is there.
I’ve finished the initial color layers and am starting to paint with the knowledge that the strokes I make now will quite possibly be visible in the finished painting. I’m always refining the drawing as I go. One of the things that interested me about doing this particular piece is that you can’t see his eyes at all, so I wanted to capture his attitude and character from his body language and by painting him big on the canvas. I was also thinking of the design of the positive space -the horse- and the negative space -the background.
I’ve developed a procedure in which I go darker and the opposite color temperature than where I want to end up. When I come in at the last with the final value and temperature, the contrast will create the richness and variety that I really like.
Most of the basic lay in is done. All my darkest darks and medium tones are in, except for those patchy looking bits that I haven’t gotten to yet. Now the fun starts….all the juicy highlights, modeling and finishing touches that are a reward for the prep work leading up to it.
And here is the finished painting! Since all I cared about was the horse, I kept the background simple and just added some shadows to “ground” him. I wanted a neutral tone that related to his color and then added the soft yellow band to give it a little visual punch. I feel like I have a much better grasp of horse anatomy now and I’m pleased with how it came out.
Susan Fox, American Artist 