So what is it?
As we said in class- it’s a PAINTING of a pipe; a PICTURE of a pipe.
And what is a picture?
A picture is nothing more than an arrangement of dark and light shapes on a flat surface. If you want to make a picture OF SOMETHING, like a portrait for example, then you just have to arrange dark and light shapes in a certain way. It’s that simple.
Don’t believe me?
Well, take a look at this abstract painting:
It’s just some white and black shapes arranged in a particular way on a flat surface. It’s a picture.
So let's say we rearrange the shapes in this picture:
We rotated the black shape to the left a bit. Now there is a different arrangement of shapes. So- since a picture is an arrangement of DARK AND LIGHT SHAPES, what would happen if we changed the value on one of those shapes- like so:
Same shape, different value. Lets change values again- how about we make that grey shape white, and the white shape black:
Wow- that changed things a bit, didn't it? How about we add some more small shapes, subdividing that big white shape again:
Then, we'll subdivide it some more, by adding a million little shapes of different values:
Now color.
Get the point? Rembrandt's self portrait is, on it's most basic pictorial level, an arrangement of shapes. At first our shapes were arranged a certain way. It was a pleasing abstract image, but it certainly wasn't a picture of a man. Then we changed the arrangement of the shapes. Then the values. Eventually those dark and light shapes were in an arrangement that represented something figuratively recognizable.
That's all there is to it: a picture is an arrangement of light and dark shapes on a flat surface.
Of course, we all know that it's not that simple. Especially for a genius like Rembrandt. But if you want to get good, you gotta know the VERY SIMPLE TRUTH that Rembrandt knew: we’re not DRAWING STUFF we’re drawing PICTURES OF stuff. The picture plane is a whole other world. It is not a world of forms, it is a world of shapes.
Keep this is mind when you are doing your homework this week. We are making arrangements of dark and light shapes. We are arranging them in a certain way on 2D paper so that they re-present something in the 3D world.
Keep this in mind outside of Conceptual Drawing class as well. When you do your thumbnail sketches for an illustration, straighten out your dark and light shapes: they lay the all-important foundation for a successful final image. Andrew Loomis says: "90% of our work is planning, the rest is just good carpentry."
And in your observational drawing remember:
Deconstruct.
Conceptualize.
Re-present.
That's all there is to it.
Are any of you familiar with Mike Mignola? He is most famous for creating/writing and (sometimes) drawing Hellboy. He has one of the best eyes in comics for light and dark shapes. He is notorious for spotting a LOT of black shapes in his art. What's really incredible is when he sketches things out in pen. He almost seems to have a sixth sense for laying down black shapes and getting it right the first time. Here is a link to his website http://artofmikemignola.com/~artofmik/Art. I will bring in The Art of Hellboy next week to show some of his older (1995 - 2004) work.
ReplyDeleteI find a good way to break-down a picture into smaller, more simple shapes is to use Photoshop. By uploading a photo and rendering it with the "cut out" filter you can clearly see the shapes that make up the picture. You can scroll between large, simple shapes and smaller, complex shapes. There is also a clear range of values.
ReplyDeleteif you use the "posterize" feature on photoshop, you can do the same thing by selecting how many levels of simplified gradient you want to see, but i believe you have a greater range and more control control with deciding which levels of value to omit
ReplyDeleteThis makes complete sense. I never thought about drawing this way, but once it's broken down to this level, i feel it really opens up a lot for me.
ReplyDeleteI saw this really cool exhibit at the MFA a little while ago. Its these two printmakers Rodolphe Bresdin, and Odilon Redon. Bresdin's work was my favorite. His prints are made up of all these tiny lines and intricate details, but they still can be broken down into many different light and dark shapes.
ReplyDeletehttp://ezproxy.massart.edu:2066/library/welcome.html#3|search|6|All20Collections3A20rodolphe20bresdin|Filtered20Search|||type3D3626kw3Drodolphe20bresdin26geoIds3D26clsIds3D26id3Dall26bDate3D26eDate3D26dExact3D3126prGeoId3D
You can't really see it in any of those examples, but I love the way sometimes at first glance its hard to tell what your looking at, and then you recognize one little thing, like a leaf, and the whole thing makes sense.