"Drawing should be like nature"

Charles Baudelaire, in his statement for L'Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855, wrote, "A good drawing is not a hard, despotic, motionless line enclosing a form like a straitjacket. Drawing should be like nature, living and reckless... nature shows us an endless series of curved, fleeting, broken lines, according to an uneering law of generation, in which parallels are always undefined and meandering, and concaves and convexes correspond to and pursue each other."

Today, I was celebrating an incredibly beautiful spring day with friends on a wild and unspoiled barrier island. As we walked along its shoreline, the red cedars and live oaks sprawled towards the marshes, their roots tangled and tenacious. Oyster shells lay glistening white, carpeted above high tide levels by the warm golden russet of freshly fallen live oak leaves. Everywhere I looked, there were joyous, ebullient abstract drawings waiting to be done of the roots of these trees as they twisted and clung, embraced and snaked. Baudelaire could have been thinking of such scenes as he described what a good drawing should be. I am not sure I could live up to the "good" part of his definition, but I do know that I need to return soon to do more silverpoint drawings of this amazing area where marshland meets high ground in reckless turbulent celebration of life and survival.

Tenacity amid the Oyster Shells, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

In truth,I have always loved these tangles of red cedar roots, oyster banks and sunlight, as shown by these are two silverpoints I did in coastal Georgia several years ago.

Sunlit Fugue, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

More on identity

Yesterday, I mused about the role of drawing in defining one's identity as an artist. Unlike painting, with its more elaborate statement and stage-like set-up, drawing allows an artist to explore and lay out all sorts of different ideas. There is often more flexibility and honesty shown in a drawing, which reveals the artist more readily.

Daring to draw and reveal an inner core requires an act of trust for the artist. Trust that one's own voice will come through and show the artist to be an individual, with a personal style. Basically a high wire act on many occasions, but worth the effort. The more one draws, the more one learns to trust that eye coordination with hand, the inner voice which dictates which marks to make, what to include, what to omit.

Drawing marathons help too - if you push yourself beyond the limit, as in any other discipline, you discover new strengths, new horizons as an artist. You refine who you are as a draughtsman and, by extension, who you are as an artist.

Photo of New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting & Sculpture - New York, home to Drawing Marathons (Image courtesy of Yelp.com)

Defining your identity as an artist

Defining yourself as an artist is a lifelong endeavour. Each of us aspires to have a singular voice, a hallmark style and an artistic identity unlike anyone else. Achieving one's own style as an artist is complex, on-going and both technical and psychological. First of all, I believe, it has to do with defining who you are as a person and what you want to say, overall, through your art. It also has to do with hanging on to your belief in yourself, being willing always to learn and adapt, but nonetheless, being true to your own core identity. Sometimes that can be hard, especially when tough economic times demand lots of compromises.

One tool which I find very useful to help me define my identity is drawing. Whether it is with charcoal, graphite, pen and ink, conte crayon, chalk or silverpoint, it does not matter. It is the act of drawing that helps strip things down to bare bones, to try to get at the core of what I am trying to say. In other words, to define my art and thus to define me as an artist. Drawing is a tool with two rather different uses. The first is to make a finished drawing, a work of art that stands alone. The second is to draw small, quick studies for composition, distribution of lights and darks, etc. in preparation for a painting.

Lot Drunk, Rembrandt, 1632

Rembrandt, Jesus and the Adultress

Drawing, unlike painting, is a direct, spontaneous act, indicative of emotions and thoughts in fresh and unadorned fashion. Many of the great Old Master drawings will leave errors and show corrections - a new line of a cheekbone on top of one that was off in proportion, an arm which has changed position slightly since the first line was put down, a tangle of lines where the artist was thinking of how to depict something or even blobs of ink where the pen "misbehaved". Rembrandt had many a tussle with his pens and ink but very frequently, that drawing could be readily recognised as one done by Rembrandt.

Try using drawing, any drawing, as a pathway to defining more clearly who you are as an artist. It is often a surprising and enlightening exercise - and fun as well.

"The 10,000-Hour Rule" for Art?

I was reading a piece by Malcolm Gladwell about the "10,000 Hour Rule" talked about by scientists. Gladwell, author of the bestsellers Tipping Point and Blink, has also written about the secrets of successful people in his recent book, Outliers: the Story of Success. The 10,000 hours in question are linked, it seems, to achieving success in no matter what field. Whether it is writing, computer programming, composing music or creating art, it apparently applies.

I deduce a simple, forceful message for artists from this: no matter what your medium, practice, practice, practice. You may or may not initially have huge artistic talent, but the message is that if you apply yourself intelligently and diligently to creating art, you can and will become a better artist. I find that both challenging and encouraging. The "Painting a Day" movement is really a marvellous step towards this concept, and one all artists should try and embrace, even if the results are not put on the Web. All the artists one sees going around in public spaces, a drawing book in hand, or quickly catching some scene with deft lines, are doing themselves a huge favour too.

Now that I have publicly reminded myself what I should be doing this very moment, I must be off to do some silverpoint drawing!

An example of one-a-day-Painting