Stuart Brownlee - 512319

Drawing 2: Investigating drawing - Part 2: Material properties – Project 1: Space, depth and volume – Research point.

The artists below all make work which both creates and denies three dimensions at the same time. Take a look at their websites then make notes in your learning log about these artists, your response to their work and how their work relates to what you’ve been attempting in this project.

Angela Eames: http://ww w .ange l ae a mes.com/ Michael Borremans: http://www.zeno-x.com/index.htmlJim Shaw: http://ww w .simonlee g aller y .com/Artists/Jim_S h a w/Selected_ W or k s

ANGELA EAMES

“What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed up against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face. Your own skin like a map, a diagram of futility, criscrossed with tiny roads that lead nowhere. Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be.” ― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's TaleAvailable at: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/search?utf8= ✓ &q=What+I+need+is+perspective&commit=Search [Accessed: 20 March 2018].

Angela Eames uses this quotation on her website to illustrate her ‘Planet’ series of drawings:

Cataract#3 [Archival print, 15”x15’ unframed]Available at: https://www.angelaeames.com/planet [Accessed: 3 March 2018].

An image of our planet, an eyeball, flat earth or round earth? For me I see an illusion of the form of the earth seen from space in 2-dimensions. Are these longitudinal and latitudinal lines marked out in a precise geometric fashion with wisps of clouds

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floating above the earth masses below – a globe, but not a globe? Flat, my “face is squashed up against” the image here.

In the Light side of the moon, however, we see a more obvious depiction of three dimensions, although still an illusion:

Light side of the moon. [Framed archival print on Dibond, 20.5”x20.5”]Available at: https://www.angelaeames.com/planet [Accessed: 20 March 2018].

The longitudinal and latitudinal lines are still present on the moons surface to suggest the shape of a globe. The use of tonal light and the negative space of the dark background in the image also provides a texture to the object of the moon floating in the darkness of space. Adding to this and giving a sense of roundness are the moon craters on the surface, receding as they do from the pole to the distant horizons on the edge. Here I find more of an “illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface.”

Another drawing by Eames that does show depth is Final Fusion #1:

Final Fusion #1. [Graphite on paper on stretched canvas]. Available at: https://www.all4drawing.com/who-with [Accessed: 13 March 2018]. This is a layered drawing of four objects, one on top of the other, providing texture and depth – a sieve, a pestle and mortar, a saucepan and a grain shovel.

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The drawing is almost like a Rorschach inkblot, but not quite, It is interesting to try and deconstruct the image visually to see if individual elements can be identified.

What does resemble a Rorschach inkblot is Final Fusion #4. The fact that this is a digital drawing may have something to with this symmetry:

Final Fusion #4. [Digital drawing on paper on stretch canvas]. Available at: https://www.angelaeames.com/amalgams [Accessed: 3 March 2018].

Using computers and digital technology in her drawings allows Eames to explore aspects of the world around us such as surface, layer, texture and space traditionally captured by the pencil, charcoal or paint on canvas:

Clearing. [Archivally printed on stretched canvas]. Available at: https://www.angelaeames.com/veils [Accessed: 3 March 2018].

Peeling away the surface reveals another world. Pixels and their manipulation do the work of traditional drawing materials here. There is a three dimensional quality to the revelation of what lies behind the surface. The patterns change from positive to negative in the unveiling.

The four Making it up as you go along images show different perspectives of the same object, all drawn in a different medium – ink, graphite, biro and charcoal. For example, Making it up in ink shows a top-down view of what looks like a bottle (of ink, or perfume perhaps?):

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Eames, A. (2004) Making it up ink. [Inkjetprint on canvas on stretcher, 154x154cm]. In: Downs, S. and Staff, T. (2007) Drawing now: between the lines of contemporary art. [e-book] Edited by Downs. London: I. B. Tauris.

The spiralling lines and tonal shadows present an illusion of a three dimensional object that you feel could be picked up (and opened) just like that. But, again this is an image drawn on a two dimensional surface.

Angela Eames digital self portrait reminds me somewhat of Chuck Close’s painted self portrait – digital pixels v’s painted pixels – with both you really need to view from some distance before the images begin to coalesce:

Angela Eames, Self portrait, miniature Chuck Close, Self portrait, 2004-5

[Oil on canvas]

In it interesting to note that “Chuck Close, who has always used his own face as his primary inspiration - or more accurately, a photograph of his face. Having imposed a grid on it, he paints each square as a mini abstract painting; whether this reveals anything or is just technically brilliant but ultimately empty and tedious is disputable.” In: Godfrey, T. (2014) Painting Today. London: Phaidon, p.400 and image p.403.

In a paper delivered at a symposium held at Loughborough University in 1998, Eames states:

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“In the making and placing of marks, two and three dimensionally, drawing has ultimately led us to the electronic realm which in turn continues to discharge responsibility and incite engagement. Drawing as visual thinking, unconstrained by means or method, is both rudimentary and vital in developing human awareness of 'reality' in a synthesis of natural and artificial. I refer to visual work, not necessarily drawings, since I am concerned with visual thought as opposed to finalised examples of drawing.”Eames, A. (1998) From drawing to computing and back again. In: Tracey | Journal: Drawing across boundaries. (September 1998), p.2.

The sections of her paper are organised as such:

1. Being is not unlike drawing - drawing exists - drawing as actual, as a reality.2. Drawing is not unlike painting - painting involves uncertainty - drawing as the

pursuit of an untrodden path.3. Painting is not unlike running - running can be transcendent - drawing as

spiritual document, as revelation.4. Running is not unlike working - working allows for strategy - drawing as

endeavour encompassing intuition and rationality.5. Working is not unlike programming - programming favours reason - drawing

as cognitive thought.6. Programming is not unlike thinking - thinking is not static - drawing as

continual probing.7. Thinking is not unlike drawing - drawing is being - drawing as forming.

The circular nature of this argument is attractive and in a sense presents a holistic approach to thinking about drawing, or what drawing is?

Thinking about this and using Eames’s Making it up as you go along as inspiration, I produced the following four drawings at one sitting using the same media as she had used. The object selected was a blob of physio putty:

Ink pen on index card Graphite pencil on index card

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Biro pen on index card Charcoal stick on index card

Of these representations of the same object, I favour the charcoal drawing, which for me has more tonal form than the other three. Both the graphite and charcoal renditions were drawn initially using side applications of pencil and stick, varying pressure and then layering from dark to light. The ink pen and biro drawings use much more line marking and the tonal effects are not so obvious.

Continuing with mixing research and practice, I moved on to drawing a cube, this time highlighted from the top left of the object.

The use of graphite pencil and charcoal stick enable a more fluid and blended capturing of the tones and shadows than do the use of pen. The pen drawings appear more formulaic and geometric somehow, whereas the graphite and charcoal seem more natural and organic.

One other thing I did learn, unexpectedly, is that after photographing the sketches and prior to pasting them into my project sketchbook I sprayed each sheet with fixative for the graphite and charcoal. I was more diligent with the physio putty sheet, covering over the ink drawings. However, with the cube drawings sheet I forgot to cover that side of the paper and sprayed the entire sheet – wrong! I now know that spraying black biro with fixative turns the ink blue. Interesting how it didn’t turn the ink pen drawing blue as well – must be down to different properties of the ink.

Ink pen on index card Graphite pencil on index card

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Biro pen on index card Charcoal stick on index card

Black biro ink after spraying with fixative.

Reflection:

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“how does Angela Eames work relate to what I’ve been attempting in this project.”

Drawing by removing, drawing and layering, – in this project using charcoal – in an attempt to create a believable illusion of space and depth in two dimensions.

“The description of space, depth and volume relies on depicting the way in which light operates on objects and the change in tonality that this produces.”

In the Eames work I have selected to look at I feel that Light side of the moon, Clearing, and the Making it up series of drawings are examples of effectively achieving a sense of three dimensional qualities.

I think that my physio putty and cube drawings are reasonably successful in capturing this same effect – especially the drawings made in graphite and charcoal.

In relation to the charcoal project drawings, I am not sure that I have captured this same sense of space, depth and volume as successfully as I could have – maybe requiring additional removing and layering to more effectively capture that essential essence of three dimensions on a two dimensional surface.

See:

https://stuartbrownleeocadrawing2.wordpress.com/category/coursework/material-properties/space-depth-and-volume/

Stuart Brownlee – 51231922 March 2018

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