Are quick drawings and paintings artworks or just studies? Are they value at all?
A lot of drawings of old masters have an immense value nowadays but looking at contemporary artists drawings, are they such important?
Why don’t contemporary artists exhibit mostly their drawings and experiments, just their final masterpieces?
Scrying – pencil and chalk, quick drawing on paper
Drawing from imagination, pencil on paper
Spiritual, Mixed media on paper
Angela and Richard,
what a combination of posts for today!
A lot to think about.
Angela,
I think drawings and experiments can be especially interesting, since they often show the artist grappling with particular problem, which may not even be evident in the final work. One feels that one gets a real insight into how the artist approaches things. And sometimes they can reveal a completely different side to the artist, like your pencil drawing. I also really like your work with the brown and blue chalk. Were these studies for potential paintings, or did you intend them as works in themselves?
Angela,
You love spirals!
Two different points.
One, your bottom picture reminded me of rare dreams that I have. They are colorless,the light is very dim and the shapes are large and simple. I call them my primal dreams.
Two, I have been busy reading specs on lenses because I will soon buy a new camera, to, for example, photograph the view out of my Den window. Looking towards the outside, past my Aloe vera, I see a pine tree and behind it, tall leafless oak trees at weird angles. Forgetting about photography, I grabbed paper and pencil and drew all those curved branches, inside and outside. I felt love and thought of your comment yesterday to Hanneke’s post. Thank you.
Angela,
I love the first and third drawings very much. Your use of the limited palette of color and the mood of each. I like seeing the marks as well. Sometimes our finished pieces get overly finished, so to me, these are just as worthwhile as some of the paintings you ahve showed us. The beginnings of ideas can sometimes let me in more to the process than the “ends” of ideas.
Angela,
Very special to see your drawing work. This has a special significance after getting to know you’re completed paintings.
I find it wonderful the way you experiment with such different styles in these studies. The results are strikingly different — almost as though we are looking at the work of different artists. I think this in part shows how you use the media to search for your visions, and in part how the media influence you. Very interesting!
Angela,
Intriguing question as well as interesting images.
In my media (textiles) I think what would normally be called “studies” are often termed UFO’s — unfinished objects. They end up hiding in tubs before they are finally cut up or thrown out. Some textile artists do studies in watercolor or with drawings before they begin, but, particularly when fabrics are being sewn together, the image is “auditioned” and its elements can be rearranged if it doesn’t work. The rearrangements are lost to record. Occasionally an artist will save photographs of her work-in-progress, which serve as kinds of studies. But for the most part, there’s very little information about studies with textile artists. Even the work claimed to be “studies” generally turns out to have a careful finish.
The lack of studies among textile artists (I except myself of course <snort>) makes me ponder another feature that exists when you don’t have studies. The most acceptable textile art generally has a very fine finish to it — it’s tidy and well-crafted in the traditional sense of textile craft.
But like you, I like studies and think they add to our knowledge as well as our vision. I’ve been chaffing a bit about the lack of rawness within textile art (there are occasional unravelled threads, but they are very tastefully unravelling). On another blog ( http://www.raggedclothcafe.com ) that I’m setting up (I’m converting an email list that I moderate) I used this topic in a slightly different context.
I think we lose something when we don’t have studies; certainly playing with comparisons among similar imagery is useful.
Angela,
I especially like the hands in the first image. Can you tell us more about this?