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Tablets as an aid to help portrait painting
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Posted
Or, you could do as I did throughout my college years when drawing models in the life class… we were taught to closely observe and draw what was in front of us!
It’s not rocket science, it’s not difficult, but it does take practice, and that takes time which we don’t seem to have these days.
It’s like drawing! Newcomers to art don’t seem to want to learn how to draw, but to plunge straight in with colour! And it shows…
I have to confess that had we had iPads back then, we probably would have used them, but I’m so glad that I learned the traditional way, the hard way!
Take a look at the fabulously expressive oil painting portraits by Tim Benson ROI, straight in with a loaded brush and no preliminary sketches. He observes his model closely and captures their character in such an exciting way with no aids or grids whatsoever - a young version of Lucian Freud in style and approach!
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Posted
Or, you could do as I did throughout my college years when drawing models in the life class… we were taught to closely observe and draw what was in front of us! It’s not rocket science, it’s not difficult, but it does take practice, and that takes time which we don’t seem to have these days. It’s like drawing! Newcomers to art don’t seem to want to learn how to draw, but to plunge straight in with colour! And it shows… I have to confess that had we had iPads back then, we probably would have used them, but I’m so glad that I learned the traditional way, the hard way! Take a look at the fabulously expressive oil painting portraits by Tim Benson ROI, straight in with a loaded brush and no preliminary sketches. He observes his model closely and captures their character in such an exciting way with no aids or grids whatsoever - a young version of Lucian Freud in style and approach!My mention of portrait painting was just to demonstrate what people on PAOTY often do (clip a tablet to their easel) while MY intentions are to use the tablet for grid method mural painting.
Posted
I receive frequent ads via email for the "LUCY drawing aid" - l idly clicked on a Facebook ad some months ago: do that sort of thing at your peril if you don't want spam (this has relevance to these emails from Thailand we're all getting: poke your head above the parapet in this world, and you will be targeted: those who can't be doing with that should stay away from the internet).
My interest in this projection mechanism was never more than fleeting; it's one of those things like "Grammarly", which is supposed to help you write better so you don't need to make the effort; another offers to take all the work out of writing blogs - somehow or other, it can be done for you without your having to engage a single brain-cell.
While I do wonder how one can trust anything as being genuine any more, I don't care if people use these various aids if they really want to; I do get irritated however by the suggestion that Rembrandt, or more usually Canaletto and Vermeer, used the device; this comes from a very bad book by David Hockney and one other, who put forward a theory about the camera obscura/camera lucida without any evidence at all to support it. It's far more likely that these artists just knew how to draw and paint - it wouldn't stagger me if they used devices of various kinds: there's a drawing by, I think, Dürer showing precisely that in operation: a simple projection device housed on a table-top. But it's a facile supposition that all the old masters used the larger bits of furniture involved - the inventory of Vermeer's property after his death indicated no such device, though, as he owed money, everything else in his house and studio (which was the same place) was listed.
Anyway, whether they were used or whether they weren't, whether they should be, in modern forms, or whether they shouldn't, the only visual aids I want are my specs: if I can't draw what I see in front of me, I don't see much point in bothering with it at all - if it comes down to glorified tracing, there are easier and cheaper (MUCH cheaper) ways of doing that. I do know that some devices are useful for very large works in which one might otherwise get lost - used as a prop or aide-memoire, fine. Take a drawing or painting all the way through from start to finish using aids - not fine.
Posted
The huge murals in the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea were painted using the grid method, it was the best way of enlarging Frank Brangwyn’s designs, but then he was enlarging his own smaller drawings which he had produced in preparation. It’s a useful tool, so I say go for it. I can’t recommend a tablet, but you could always print the photo and grid it up, or use a suitably gridded piece of overhead projector film as an overlay, much cheaper.
I’ve had flak in art classes for using a rule to get a straight line in a painting (something Ravilous obviously did) - there’s no pleasing some people.
Posted
I have never used the grid method, so would be interested to learn how you actually do so Alan. Obviously I know in theory, and that you start with drawing a grid on your reference material/photo/sketch, but how do you start on the larger painting. What do you use for your lines? Do you then work on a section at a time or use mostly as a guide?
Maybe a thought for another article in TA?
Posted
Tessa, yes, I could integrate it within a much broader feature for The Artist, but I’m already planned in for seven more features for 2024, none of which lend themselves to including this subject.
I can go through it again in detail for you, but I do recall that I touched on it a while back in an earlier edition, scaling up a plein air sketch of Lichfield Cathedral onto a larger support.
I may have done something for Dawn on this subject also, leave it with me, I’ll see what I can find!
Posted
Alan has indeed done a demo on this! Here's the link https://www.painters-online.co.uk/tips-techniques/oil/articles/from-plein-air-sketch-to-studio-painting-with-alan-bickley/
Posted
Excellent Dawn, thanks for finding that old demonstration from a while ago - I believe that a more comprehensive version went into The Artist magazine, if anyone is interested in reading it, I can sift through my binders that have my features in, so let me know and I can find the date of the edition.