Can You Draw? by William Dolan
My dad was a draftsman. He wanted to be an artist, but his dad, an Air Force Colonel and lawyer wanted his children to be doctors and lawyers. Despite his desire to be the next Tolouse Latrec, he also needed to do something practical with his talent. So, with that in mind, he studied industrial design at a major Midwestern university. It was there, that he was taught to wield quill pens, inking bows and other tools of the drawing trade.
He knows how to draw a line. In fact, the sole objective of one course was to gain the ability to draw a straight line that does not vary at all in width from start to finish. This was done with an inking bow. The instructor would inspect the lines the students drew with a magnifying glass. He was ruthless in his expectations. Thicker areas of adjacent lines will bleed together and fill in gaps that need to exist.
With a T-square and proper drafting table, a straight line is not hard to draw. However, a consistent line weight is not. The natural desire is to start out slow, speed up as the line progresses and slow down as the artist reaches the finishing point. This leads to a line that is thick on the ends and thin in the middle. A complex drawing made up of lines of changing line weight will not reproduce well.
This is important because art is a communicative medium. If it does not communicate, the artist’s intent, it could cause confusion. In this case, it’s the engineer’s intent and that could cost thousands of dollars in rebuilding, redrawing, lawsuits, etc.
I didn’t go to art school, but rather, studied at a traditional university. I was introduced to painting in various mediums. I learned and practiced valuable drawing skills that enabled me to become a better artist, which in turn, helped me to become a professional artist. Stretching canvases, sizing paper, applying grounds were also part of the curriculum. There was even an anatomy class. The idea was that to be a visual artist, one had to master certain skills in order to successfully communicate visually.
During this time, however, the art schools were pushing idea over ability. It was more important to study French Theory, than learn how to draw. There was even a “deskilling” of artists, as Mark Staff Brandl put it in his recent Bad at Sports interview. “Paint with your [opposite] hand and use lots of turpentine.” Art students were taught to go out of their way to be bad. The important thing was to be able to discuss your ideas well. It didn’t matter if the visuals were poorly done.
This has not really happened in other disciplines. Writers still learn how to use the tools of language. Musicians still use a certain set of rules, even when they break or bend the rules. If music followed the same path as art, we’d be listening to a lot of stuff that sounded like the Shaggs. If literature followed that path, we’d all be reading stuff that makes as much sense as lorem ipsum.
So why does visual art have to suck? Duchamp’s point has been made, over and over again by so many artists. It’s gotten to the point where the discussions of theories are not even interesting. This is a shame when the discussion is actually good and valid.
It’s time to stop hiding poor art skills behind artspeak. Work on expressing yourself in visual terms. Use line, color, shape, and composition to tell your story. Know how to use your materials. Even if you do have a solid philosophical construct to discuss, good visuals will only make it stronger.
Category: Articles, Essays | Tags: advice, career, commentary, skill 25 comments »
January 21st, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Nice article on Lucian Freud and drawing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3687090/Lucian-Freud-the-daring-young-draughtsman.html
January 21st, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I agree heartily, but you left out the most important element of all drawing, form!
January 21st, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Thanks! Yes, form is very important!
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:55 am
I think it is important for artists to be true to their own passion and spirit. How can one express freely when confined to other’s standards and rules? I think artists must learn these skills for themselves. When instructors tell students to paint with poor technique, it is because they are so bored they don’t know what else to try. Attempting to learn anything at art school nearly killed my passion. I believe I create from the deepest part of my being, and most times it is after reflection when can I begin to write/talk about what it is I’ve created. Honestly I am not concerned with the perfect line, I just want to get it out! That is just how I work, and I’m fine with it. I agree with the BS factor hiding bad art, though I try not to worry about it too much. This is just my point of view…take it or leave it.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I think in general, good artists learn these skills for themselves through exploration and the desire to make art. Art school can help an art student hone her or his skills to a more professional level and also allow the student to explore mediums not considered before. I also don’t have a problem with studying philosophy. It bothers me when the emphasis is placed on philosophy instead of craft and especially discouraging craft in favor of a duchampian approach to making art.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I am sorry but you lost me on this argument Bill. Dismissing craft is as valid an approach to art making as is making it a major focus of your work. The conceptualists and installation artists badmouth the painters and the painters do the same in return…I have been moved deeply by works in both camps and wish the argument would finally just go away.
I have worked with, know, and studied great artists that have learned fine drafting skills and then chucked them for reasons only they find important, and then done something amazing with what they have discovered. Guston for instance.
January 31st, 2009 at 8:25 am
Ted,
I think the overall point is (and you said it yourself)… “I have worked with, know, and studied great artists that have learned fine drafting skills”…that artists need to learn the skills to discover their own conclusions. These skills can be used to fight with or against their mission. Picasso said he spent a lifetime learning how to draw like a child again after he mastered the skill.
If students nowadays don’t really learn the skill or techniques, what are they fighting against (or with)?
Plus, I think there is a huge difference with what Guston produced and let’s say what an artist like Elizabeth Peyton is doing – -
January 31st, 2009 at 9:08 am
Thanks Norbert, I think the argument a dangerous one…..
I don’t ever want to be in a position to say to someone that if they cannot draw then there have no chance being an artist, which is very close to the argument realists use to excuse their particular conceits. I don’t have to master glass blowing to know that I want no part of it in my life or art. .
January 31st, 2009 at 10:00 am
Great short post Bill!
I understand your questioning of the logic, Ted, but the problem is that exactly what you suggest has been inverted and used to explain (away) incompetancy. “Dismissing craft” is diffrent that personalizing and “dissing” CERTAIN forms of enforced craft, whichm e.g., is what Picasso did. It has now become the opposite through a misreading of that revolt. It is NOT a revolt, it is now the enforced academy to havbe NO skills. And it is always explained away with the old identical, memorized crap. You, as I saw, have quite bit of skill in pushing paint about. Skill can take many forms and must indeed be personalized. Well-intentioned amateur crap is usually “half”-well-done. The point is, stop memorizing things and create your own competancy for what you have to express. I do believe that drawing is far different that glass-blowing (or even painting for that matter). It is the basic visual-AND-conceptual tool of most of the arts, incl. architecture and so on. The trouble with the Feeblists is not that they are dismissing craft, they are actually dissing themselves and their whole endeavour in a trendy academically-enforced fashion. Playing the step-and-fetch-it for the knowledgeless powers-that-be. Deskilling, right at THIS moment, is not a revolt, rather its exact opposite, it is fawning obedience.
January 31st, 2009 at 10:01 am
Sorry I type like shit and never correct before pinching submit. Makes it hard to read my comment!
January 31st, 2009 at 10:07 am
I’m talking about skill in the use of line, color, form, etc. as expression, not necessarily the ability to accurately create a facsimile of an object. Too often the emphasis is placed on fleshing out the idea, then throwing some junk together to illustrate a theory. Usually the connection between the object and the idea also needs to be explained. The visuals often are an afterthought. It seems more like philosophy to me than art.
January 31st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Hey Mark…. I may be misreading all of this which wouldn’t be a first for me…. but fawning obedience to whom? I don’t see evidence of this that isn’t balanced by an equal and powerful opposition. Only once have I heard an argument for deskilling, and the point was that great amounts of skill in any given area isolated the artist from his or her culture until a point where the work became useless, like speaking antique languages. Classical music is an antique language I am not about to give up…. but some musicans today will walk out of a room filled with a belle canto voice.
That its the Academy in some places does not refute the fact the some of the work may be great, and that is my only point. Why shut out any of it?
February 1st, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Rock and blues musicians have skill. They can play their instruments, write and sing. They may not have an interest in classical music or be as much of a virtuoso or as good as their orchestral counterparts, but they can play. The deskilled artist can’t even create art. It’s all in the written nonsense around the art that makes it valid. A better musical comparison would be the Shaggs, a group of girls that had no ability or experience. They were put behind their instruments and recorded an album, just to prove that one didn’t have to be a musician to make music.
The difference is that the Shaggs and anyone like them are not a major or even minor force in the music world. However, NOT being able to do anything well, visually is what is taught and a generation or two of important artists are following this path.
karaoke singers aren’t having decent music careers, yet “karaoke” artists are.
February 1st, 2009 at 11:16 pm
“The deskilled artists cannot even create art”.
I may not know any of these kinds of artists Bill, but you have to agree that the arguments against them are exactly the same arguments we have heard throughout art history every time the fashion changes. I am more willing to be carefull about throwing them all in river I think and to be honest when I teach I always encourage people to learn things that they may later discard because to do so from a position of knowledge is much more powerful,,I just never would tell them it is the only way. Other than that I think in retrospect we agree, I just recoil at the sound of doors slamming shut. Pax
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:46 am
“karaoke singers aren’t having decent music careers, yet “karaoke” artists are.” – - great line.
Matisse broke ground with his paintings. As have other artists over the years. I am sure it wasn’t easy for them and they were misunderstood by some.
Recently, though, there has been some really bad art. Karen Kilimnik is just one example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/collective/dnaimages/gallery/2/karenkilimnik/1.jpg
I don’t think there is much to ponder…this is just bad shit…and the list goes on. A lot of visual artists have a difficult time calling out bad art.
Ted, every time a door slams shut it makes us stronger while we try to open another – -
I know this whole thing is a loaded topic but it is interesting to discuss – -
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:02 am
True it is an interesting discussion…and the schlocking painting of Paris Hilton that you link is pretty questionable….but the artworld thought the same of Vincent….exactly the same….. which should give pause at least.
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Ted, you are right.
There is just something about the art world being an open-ended subjective free-for-all that bothers me though. It gives artists the freedom to produce a lot of shit with a lot of philosophical artspeak bullshit to go with it…see, there I go again right back in circles. I better stop now – -
Maybe that’s the beauty of it…one person’s shit is another person’s gold …though I think it is necessary to repeat Bill’s comment: “karaoke singers aren’t having decent music careers, yet “karaoke” artists are.
ps – as far as Vincent…like I said, some artists are misunderstood during their lifetime. I don’t think Karen Kilimnik falls into this territory
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
one more thing, as Mark Staff Brandl points out (unless I’m wrong on this…):
maybe this whole thing is a current artworld, curator, academics problem and really not about the artists themselves…
Kilimnik is just a painter…it’s the artworld and curators that have made her a BIG success…why blame her…right???
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I think the difference between Kilimnick and Vincent is that she is widely accepted as a great artist now.
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Bill, I can see people misunderstanding Vincent back then. I’m sure if he lived longer (he could have lived another 40 years) he may have seen some success in his own lifetime. Matisse was ridiculed but also saw a lot of success in his lifetime. Both of these painters had something special, if people saw it or not.
Do we really feel that Kilimnick has something special. Will she become MORE of a superstar 100 years from now?
Again, I think we have the art world to blame..not Kilimnick – -
ps – Also the difference between Vincent and Kilimnick is that one is a great painter and the other isn’t…..hey, Kilimnick can paint anyway she chooses, maybe some of her irony is interesting, etc….I’m assuming she is painting “badly” to make a statement, etc…I just don’t think she deserves all the accolades…come on!!!! look at her stuff!!!
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
What do you think of her color use?
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
her color seems very localized…nothing special.
hell, I don’t have the answers…it’s just very strange when artists like Kilimnik, Peyton, Doig, Dumas are SUPERSTARS
I’m not saying they should or shouldn’t paint or if their work really is good or bad …but should their stuff be fetching $300,000???
should any one work be worth 300 grand, 1 million, 100 million…??? seems crazy doesn’t it – -
the whole art world is fucked up yet we want to be a part of it…!!!???
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Yea the value question is as difficult a question as whether or not it’s art at all, becuase art can have no value. There aren’t many artists that would turn down a check for that kind of money, it isn’t the artists that are deciding who is getting these checks. There is a great documentary on the subject…. The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale…. where you can see people responsible for setting the trends give it to him and then take it away. His work doesn’t change at all, his public does. .. and now this Pittsburg artists work is on the rise again.
I am sure that an artist doing quirky paintings of Hollywood stars with a competent palette and both feet in New York Expressionist style, would have very little to say about the zillions of dollars that are going to be risked on her career. To think otherwise doesn’t make fiscal sense, and yes we have to be very careful about which careers we choose.. ours is a very strange one.
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I doubt that Peyton and the rest of’em could paint any better than they do. The trouble is that most of their inspiration comes from throw-away pop culture where fame and scandal are akin to moral values. Also, when the visual vocabulary begins with cheap snapshots and not any interest the actual seen world, the results can’t really surprise anyone…I don’t begrudge any of them their success, it’s a good thing that any painter gets any attention these days; however, there’s also no need to spend more than a few seconds with most of their work before moving on…The main goal always should be to show people the world that they live in, to spark some recognition or memory or thought. There’s never been a tried and true formula to do this, nor should there be…
March 10th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Hey don’t dis DuChamp. What he said should be said over-and-over again at the expense of skill. There is no one way to create art. I agree skills should be taught and mastered, but the best way to learn to become an artist is studying other artists. Like business, medicine and politics, art is something that needs to be studied and discussed rigorously to be learned. No one is stopping any student from working on their art day and night and researching topics that are not part of the curriculum. I make all types of art and find I need a different art language often. But like many “skills” artists agree there is something more than just mastering a technique. Evenly-weighted- drawn-lines have a place, just like a urinal placed on the floor with a catchy title. The urinal just reveals more about our backwards society. Good luck.