The Norma Project

Norma.
Charcoal.
3 hours.

I haven't used charcoal in a long time, and was looking forward to using it again for the quickness of application. It takes much less time to fill an area with tone using charcoal than pencil, and I have regretted lately that I have been unable to do much more than a contour when figure drawing. Contour drawing, while nice, is not a "drawing"' but rather the skeleton of a drawing. As my teacher Tim says, the contour is "the place where you hang a drawing." Something along those lines. A drawing is an investigation of space, or , Tim again, "imaginary ?? In imaginary space." In other words, you need tone - the space that tone implies and creates - in order to have a "drawing." Of course, there are beautiful contour drawings, but I think there is something to this definition: without tone, a contour lies flat on the page - it remains design only - while the addition of tone (implied space) brings drawing into a deeper sphere or Art. The Art of painting is the illusion of 3D space that is created on a 2D surface. This is the difference between Drawing and mere design. Design is a part of Drawing; Drawing combines design with spatial thinking ("Drawing is sculpture by other means" - Tim, of course!), which only means that Drawing is a fuller (not better) Art.

So - I wanted to do a Drawing.

Isabelle, the host of this drawing group, casually mentioned that I could do a painting during these sessions if I wanted, and it got me to thinking about doing a capital-P Painting of Norma, and what that would require. I wrote some notes to myself and figured out that I would need to do the following:

• Prepare canvas


• Transfer my drawing


• Paint a poster study


• Brush in an underpainting, indicate background


• Fill in the background underpainting


• Paint a first pass (with a focus on the face and hand)


• Paint a second pass

To do all of this, I really only need four sessions with the model: one to do the poster study, one for the underpainting, one for the first pass, and one for the second pass. I can do a large portion of the work at home, and Isabelle gave me a photo of Norma's portrait, so I could use that as a reference at home. (In fact, I suppose I could take my own photo, from my own perspective, and work on the portrait in my own studio.) I emailed Isabelle to ask what she thought of this, and she sounded keen to do it. We may even be able to swing one or more four-hour sessions, which would be fantastic. (I need as much time as I can get - especially for the poster study, since I want to complete it in one session.)