It was surprisingly hard to find sketch time Monday, but one of our cats, Sputnik, graciously held still last night just long enough for me to rough in her basic form and fuzzy toes.
If you haven't read the comments thread on the post below, it's worth a bit of time. I found everyone's thoughts on why photography seems to me more intrusive than sketching pretty interesting.
10 comments:
Those toes!! What an incredible shot! I'd love to be there, sketching away.
About the question below: I agree, a camera 'captures', it 'shoots.' (See my unconscious reaction above.) There are photography 'safaris' but I've yet to hear of a sketching safari. It's about the hunter and the prey, on one level, anyway. Sketching is a more intimate act, person to person, with only a pencil or pen to record the connection. Still, a person might prefer the relative anonymity of being photographed over the intensely intimate process of being carefully looked at by another person, most likely a stranger.
Good for you to have grabbed that cattish moment!
I think the camera might help us learn to "see," but maybe drawing, as with sketching in words, leads us to understand what we see, and what it means. At least for me, when I take a photograph I don't "process" what I've seen; it is only after trying to write it that I understand it. Am I making sense, or not?
Actually, when I draw or paint, that constant chatter in my head begins to quietly go away. When I taught drawing I would tell the students not to name what they were drawing, i.e., this is a nose, an eye, etc. because they would end up drawing the symbol for it and not really see what theywere drawing. When I abstract the language, i.e. this line is curving upward to the right, etc., then I see more clearly and eventually the voices fade, they go off and get coffee while I'm working. The Betty Edwards book, DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN, is a great reference book for drawing.
I love the water mark on the photo.
I like beeing photografed by fammily or friends but I would equaly hate to be phptografed or sketched by somebody unknown on the street.
How you find time to sketch while making a zillion fruitcakes is beyond me, but inspiring. Having perused your blog a while now I find myself having what I inwardly call "Lori moments"--when I look up and suddenly--there is that tracery on on the old liquor store building where the ivy was ripped off, delicate as a fern, or a group of blackbirds lined up on a wire, like musical notes in the river fog.
For which I thank you, dear--and for all else as well.
Sputnik, eh? Great name. I continue to enjoy your sketches... what you choose to see and how you choose to render it. Wonderful lines.
And this is a great photo, too! I love that leg, the subtle colors and textures, the light, how you composed the shot.
There is a history of people believing that photographs captured their souls. Don't know much about it, but I find the resistance curious. Perhaps it's because photos seem so much more "realistic". So you know those pimples and double chins (or whatever!) are going to show up. Plus, there's a *thing* there, a camera, that's doing the recording, in addition to the person, which depersonalizes the process, and makes it obvious what's going on. A pencil/pen and a pad could be mere writing. Personally, I would find being drawn more invasive, but perhaps that's because I am familiar with the extensive and intensive looking involved. But I'd be more worried about what's going to be done with the photo, because I'd know it was necessarily recognizably me, and I might not like it. If I don't like a drawn portrait I can blame it on the artist, eh? On the other hand, the more I take photographs, the more intimately I'm looking and dissecting or looking beyond what I *think* I see (as one must in drawing) and that's changing my personal views about photography.
I must say, this comments thread on the photo/sketch topic is just getting richer and richer -- feels like my holiday gift from y'all.
And am so glad you enjoyed the fountain-find! More, tomorrow.
That's me. That's my leg and thigh. That's me. No..not that's not me. No.
In another galaxy and another time, I'm a sleek male model, sinewy..alluring. Women die for me.
Okay...anyway..good shot. It is one of those things where more is less and it gets the imagination revving.
Well, Terry Pratchett seems to think that photographs do suck out your soul, as evidenced by how thin and drawn people who are too much photographed.
I;ve been drawn as a model, and that attentiveness is seductive.
Stewart: Heck, a good wordsmith is always alluring, sinewy or no. And thanks for the props on the cropping...details tend to catch my attention, sinewy or no.
;-)
Zhoen: I kind of agree with Terry P., and semi-seriously think that celebrities demonstrate the peril of what too much photography can do to a person. Turning a person into an iconograph (I love his word!) can't be good for one's emotional balance or health. I've not been drawn as a model, but have sometimes been metaphorically drawn and quartered at work -- a much less seductive form of attention!
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