Learning about Thomas Scheibitz

Studio Visit: Thomas Scheibitz from Frieze on Vimeo.

Learning from Vincent Hawkins

Wonderful works and approach / process to art making.

Vincent Hawkins in his studio from Abstract Critical on Vimeo.

A Liberating Approach to Painting

I recently came across an interview of artist Larry Poons through the Unedit my heart blog.

I find Mr Poons' understanding of painting liberating.
...

Paintings are mistakes. You put a mark on a canvas, and it’s a mistake. Of course it’s a mistake, otherwise it would be wonderful, because it would be finished. But it’s not. After maybe 50 or 60,000 mistakes, you give up. Like Leonardo said, “Works of art aren’t finished, they’re abandoned.” That’s absolutely true, art is never finished.

...

When you’re painting, then you’ve got nothing to paint until there’s something there, that first mistake. But once you see something – you’ll see a flow or a shape – then that’s what you’re painting, and that’s where paintings come from.

...

Of course the only tool a painter has – or ever had – to make paintings is color. It’s all color. There is no drawing in painting, just like Cézanne said. What you think is drawing is just two colors coming together, and if the colors aren’t harmonious (to use Cézanne’s word) then neither is the drawing, and it’s a bad painting.

...

Create Drawings based on Art from the Past or Art by other Artists

Over the Christmas holidays, I have introduced another change (besides adding erase) to my colouring book drawings. After making 1500 drawings, I need injection of new forms and shapes and composition. Hence, I have started to look at art work from the past, and art work from today's artists, and treat them as subjects for new drawings.

The first such drawings are drawings of King Tut.

The second batch are drawings based on the the work of John Baldessari.

Adding Erase

"Erase" is a drawing process that I have acknowledged early on but never used as a major way to construct drawings. In 2010, I will be using it more, starting with these drawings.

To show the lines that have been erased, I have left a trace of them in the final work.

Drawing Page 8719 to 8721

Go to drawings.

Drawing Page 8722 to 8727

Go to drawings.

Drawing Page 8729 and 8730

Page 8729

Page 8730

Drawing Day 2009 Drawings and Undrawings

Drawing 1 to 10

Drawing 11 to 20

Undrawing 21 to 25

See the completed drawings.

7 Drawings from March 29th, 2009

7 Drawings from March 29th 2009 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Being Pictorial

There is a wonderful write up at Saatchi Online by Matthew Collings on the Picasso exhibit at the National Gallery in London.

It is the work of Picasso that has inspired me to draw. The following text from the essay speaks to the reasons.

... old masters are profoundly abstract but modern art is explicitly abstract.

Picasso is always a lesson about reading the past. The lesson is that some visual traditions run out and become impossible but some remain powerful and modern art isolates and emphasises them.

The word for what a painting essentially is, as opposed to what is depicted, is "pictorial," and it's the pictorial realm that Picasso is the king of, not the sex realm or free-thinking law breaker realm.

Unerasing 2 drawings

2 drawings being un-erased.

Unerasing Drawing 9061 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.


Unerasing Drawing 9062 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Undrawing Page 9140

Undrawing Page 9140 from Pixo Hammer on Vimeo.

Link to abstract drawing Page 9140.

Thinking About Drawing

Drawing

Drawing is
lines
        coming together
        forming colourable areas
        sculpting pictorial spaces
        giving rise to visual parts.

Drawing is
visual parts
        coming together
        forming pictorial objects.

Lines Coming Together

	Coming together, one line at a time, touching or not, crossing or not, connected or not. Examples:
	An open line
	A line with one end touching itself
	A line crossing itself
	A closed line, connecting on its ends
	Two closed lines, side by side
	Two closed lines, touching
	Two closed lines crossing each other
	One closed line with a second line touch the first on both ends
	Two closed lines, one inside the other
	One closed line with a second line touching the first on one end
	One closed line with a second line touching the first on one end and crossing it multiple times
	Two open lines crossing each other multiple times
	Four open lines touching and crossing one another
	Many open lines, unconnected, floating in parallel
	Many lines, connected

(Back to Drawing)

Forming Colourable Areas

A Colourable area is
pictorial space bounded by lines
            to hold colours.

A Closed area has
closed boundary,
            can receive a single colour.

An Open area has
partial boundary -
open for interpretation.
            Colour gradation naturally occurs
            at undefined border.


(Back to Drawing)

Sculpting Pictorial Spaces

	A space is not pictorial
	until        sculpted with        lines.

	Growing is to
	add lines forming new areas previously unoccupied.

	Dividing is to
	adds lines carving new areas within existing areas.

	Joining is to
	add lines pulling together unconnected areas.

(Back to Drawing)

Visual Parts

Visual parts are
perceived
        when lines come together
        in a certain way.

Visual parts are
used
        for constructing pictorial objects.

Visual parts are
        not unlike alphabets
        to English words.

        And not unlike radicals
        to Chinese characters.

		To see more, follow this link.

(Back to Drawing)

Parts Coming Together

Line by line,
parts form.

Part by part,
objects form.

Not unlike alphabets
forming English words.

Not unlike radicals
forming Chinese characters.

Colour
		(See larger version)

(Back to Drawing)

Pictures

Examples:







To see more, go to the 10,000 Page Colouring Book.

(Back to Drawing)