Various works from my first two years at PAFA:
Above is an experiment with my own egg tempera made from dry pigment, water, and egg yolk, painted on matte board. We learned to make egg tempera and oil paint in Materials and Techniques, taught by professor Anthony Ciambella, who also works in art restoration.
Charcoal drawing on Rives BFK of one of our models, Mark.
Untitled (PAFA models)
charcoal on Rives BFK
The above self-portrait was one of the final assignments for Scott Noel's drawing class, Spring 2009.It is white chalk and charcoal on tan Rives BFK.
Scott Noel taught me two very important lessons - to understand the body sculpturally (in 3 dimensions), even in the 2-D context of drawing, and also to reduce the composition of a painting or drawing to 3, even 2 large areas/shapes of value. Most works of art actually contain more variation than a couple of tones, but his lesson is one of simplicity, of unifying as many elements in a composition as possible. The overall impression of a work of art, no matter how detailed or object rich, should generally be one of unity, and the work should be able to be broken down into basic shapes of value. Sometimes the artist has to be an "active" painter and look for the connections in his setup or subject that will allow for this unity, even if that means altering reality when transferring it to the canvas. She should look for ways to make sense of and to organize the information that her eyes are taking in and then represent that information or even transform it through painting or drawing.
If one looks at my self-portrait and squints, the lampshade, the vase, the dresser, shirt, maybe the flesh, and the mirror edge and its reflection blend and become one shape of tone. Likewise, my hair, the background reflected in the mirror, the wall behind the lampshade, and the mask nearly become a couple shapes of tone. When broken down into these types of abstractions, the drawing and all two dimensional works (especially and arguably the best ones) are quite simple. Degas was a master at achieving this simplicity, and he was spoken of often in Scott Noel's class. It is difficult to know how much to "clutter" a work of art and how much to bring it back to the basics. I believe there must be an elegant balance between complexity/subtlety and simplicity in order to make a fine work of art. If too complex, the eye is repelled - the brain cannot take in that much information. If too simple, the eye may not have enough to look at and loses interest quickly. Take a look at some of Scott Noel's work from his recent exhibition at the Gross McLeaf Gallery in Philadelphia with these ideas in mind:
http://www.grossmccleaf.com/artistpages/noelpage.htm
Study of dog legs and feet, from animal drawing
white chalk and charcoal on paper
white chalk and charcoal on paper
