LOOSE DELIGHTS


"I am for those who believe in loose delights."
-- Walt Whitman
Some of my very favorite drawings are free and spontaneous. Unfortunately, so are a whole lot of crappy drawings.

Is it possible to distinguish good loose drawing from bad loose drawing? Or from random marks on paper? It seems to me that there is not only a distinction to be made but also a good reason for making it. Loose, spontaneous art can be fun, but Ernest Hemingway correctly spotted the potential danger: "All our words from loose using have lost their edge." When sloppy or careless drawing masquerades as loose drawing, it eventually dilutes the meaning and potency of drawing.

Consider the following examples of artists who engage in the "loose delights" of drawing but who still preserve that edge.

The great George Lichty had a line like an unraveled ball of yarn:



Nevetheless, look at how beautifully that line conveyed a head, or the indentation of a pillow, or the folds in clothing:



You can tell that a lot of looking and thinking took place before Lichty was able to dash off a drawing like this. We are the beneficiaries of that looking and thinking, no matter how loosely it is conveyed.



Note how he understands the different postures of people sitting in chairs, the anatomy of fingers wrapped around an arm, the shadow created by a fore arm resting on a table:



William Steig is another great example. For decades Steig churned out mediocre cartoons such as this one, where he labored for some semblance of visual accuracy.



Then, in the 1960s he managed to shed these constraints and began drawing marvelous, meaningful pictures with a free hand.



The looser his touch, the better his drawings became.




James Thurber is a third example. He drew wispy nonvertebrates with a simple line that was the perfect complement to his brilliant writing.






In each of these examples, a seemingly spontaneous, haphazard style is employed to convey important insights without being obvious or labored about it. Technical skill is important, but it can also rob a drawing of the freshness and intimacy we see here . These are drawings with wings on, and they occupy a blessed place in the pantheon of drawing.

Popular posts from this blog

THE SKETCHBOOKS OF ALBERT DORNE

Image
Albert Dorne was one of the most remarkable characters in the history of illustration.  The upcoming book,   Albert Dorne, Master Illustrator  (out in November from the fine folks at Auad Publishing) describes how Dorne used his drawing ability to climb from the depths of poverty and illness to international renown as an artist, business leader, educator and philanthropist. Detail   From the introduction to the new book:      Starting with nothing but a talent for drawing, Dorne became (in the words of advertising titan Fairfax Cone) “the highest paid, most successful commercial artist of his time.”   From that position,   he used his drawing skills as a platform for building a multinational corporation that trained tens of thousands of students around the world in the creative fields of art, writing and photography.   Now a wealthy man, he went on to use drawing to help the disabled, became nationally respected for his charitable work a...
Read more

ERICH SOKOL

Image
John Ciardi once said, “Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a better idea.” Since we've been rambling for the last few weeks about modern art trends, I thinks it makes sense to heed Ciardi's advice and spend a moment visiting the paintings of Erich Sokol, the gifted illustrator / cartoonist for Playboy magazine. Sokol had a splendid sense of light, color and atmosphere. He was far more talented than traditional pin up artists such as Vargas, whose uninspired paintings now sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Note the confidence with which Sokol handles the stripes of light on the beach in the following painting, or his treatment of the foliage in the background. Nothing is labored, and no unnecessary details. Although the beautiful girl was always the centerpiece of the cartoon, if you look closely you will see that Sokol had more fun painting the male counterpart-- the fat doctor, the grizzled farmer, the blusterin...
Read more

FIRST CONTACT

Image
. Every once in a while we do a post on science fiction stories here. For me the genre is just endlessly interesting thanks to remarkable storytellers who break new ground with each advancement in technology, biology, evolutionary psychology, etc. If you add into the mix recent discoveries of planets potentially capable of harboring life in other solar systems, suddenly novels of "first contact" have intriguing new playgrounds. A recent novel I haven't been able to stop thinking about is Blindsight by Peter Watts . It in part explores the questions: If an extrasolar intelligence arrived, would it even be possible for us to parse a completely alien psychology? And how would we react if it seemed to refuse contact or took no notice of our attempts to do so? We have a poor track record in dealing with things we don't understand and that frighten us, and Blindsight is a frightening novel. It has a kind of Richard Dawkins fueled bleakness that makes the story compelli...
Read more