The life-drawing class I attend regularly (at the Ilkley Art School) is a constant revelation in terms of the apparently unending succession of new technical devices we are offered, and with which we are invited to experiment. This week’s session was no exception.
The approach we were offered today consisted of covering an area of paper with crushed charcoal, which we were invited to apply with our fingers, mapping in in a very provisional way the form of the model and essential features of her context in the room. We were then invited either to intensify the tone of parts of the surface, or to reduce that intensity by removing some of the pigment using scraps of chamois leather. The image emerged through very direct contact between our fingers and the surface on which we were working, with little mediation from some object such as a brush, pen or stick of charcoal.
In some respects the experience was disturbing. As one participant in the class observed, it was as if we were exploring with our fingers the actual surface of the model’s body. Indeed, the process did create a sense of engagement with textures and forms that had a great sense of immediacy about it. The method took our attention away from drawing as a process of making lines and refocused our attention on forms, textures and tones.
We are often told that the purpose of these sessions is to develop our capacity as artists to observe, and there is no doubt that this experience served that purpose. You have to ask yourself the question “What is it that I see?” and answer it in ways that are not simply habitual. In that respect I am taken back to my reading, several years ago, of the work of William Kentridge (Six Drawing Lessons.)
I just ask myself how long can the School keep up this flow of novelty?