Etude #41

Goal

The egg tempera panels in this series have been occupying a large part of the last two months without quite arriving anywhere. They are worked and reworked, but none has yet crossed the line into finished. It seemed necessary to step back and reconsider the approach. So I started three drawings.

These drawings are being started both as a reprieve and as a way to test different mediums while working within the same constraints as the egg tempera panels.

The purpose is not to make three successful drawings so much as to see what they might reveal. In particular, how colors work together, how different water-based mediums interact, and how mark-making affects the end result.

The marks do not actually disappear. They remain underneath. Three or four layers down, a line or a patch of color can still affect what sits above it. The hope is that the finished surface will have some sense of light coming from within it, the visible color altered by everything that has been put down and then covered.

**Elizabeth Peyton - Jake at the new Viet Huong - 1995**

Peyton’s brushwork comes across as elegantly simple. Her work is eye candy in a good way.
(after working with muted greys on my drawings, the orange here is abusing my eyes).
Peyton does a lot with one layer.

**William de Kooning - Nude Figure, Woman on the Beach - 1963**

de Kooning had the most sophisticated arsenal of mark-making. When I look at what he did, I see someone who never stops practicing the act of applying paint to a canvas.
This guy slopped it on like an insane practitioner of the arts. It worked.

**End of Session 3**

I kind of like it here.

**End of Stage 10**

I feel like this ‘solidified’ for me here. There is still a need to refine the mark making and color, but its essentially done.

**End of Session 12**

I’m happy with it here.
Going to push it one more step to see what happens.

**End of Session 15**

Done
There are still problems with it. I could see going into a few spots to touch places up or deepen a color or two… they aren’t big changes, so I’ll just leave it as is .

Result

Pretty happy with it. It works. This is one of the first three drawings in this series. I was mainly concerned with color, expressionistic mark-making, and a psychological side that is found through the act of drawing.

Color: I had fun with this one. I think this is good. I can do better. Got too finicky around the face.

Mark Making: There is probably still too much caution in the mark-making. The next one could go further.

The more interesting discovery is what happens when the drawing is compared with the egg tempera. Tempera is strangely forgiving. A figure can be altered, painted over, altered again. The composition remains available for reconsideration almost indefinitely. A drawing is less accommodating. Once a mark is there, it has to be lived with. There are corrections, but not really reversals.

That changes the kind of searching that can happen. The tempera permits exploration through revision. The drawing permits exploration through accumulation. One keeps the image open; the other closes it down, mark by mark.

The ‘Psychological’ Question: I think there is something of someone there. Sort of. Need to push it more.

Directions: For best experience, click on an image. Use the (forward/backward) buttons.