“Color Line Light” Drawing exhibition at the National Gallery of Art

Yesterday I saw the new drawing exhibition, “Color, Line, Light,French Drawings, Watercolors and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The show was organized with Musée des Impressionnismes, Giverny and is on view in Washington, DC until May 26, 2013.

A wonderful antidote for the doldrums of winter this exhibition includes an impressive array of drawings, many in full color, from the mid 19^th century to the early 20^th century.  The 100 works, from the collection of James T. Dyke, show off many brilliant drawing techniques and subject matters ranging from landscape, still life to figures and portraits. Indeed this exhibition will make you reach for neglected art materials and experiment!

          Paul Signac, Barges on the Seine at Samois, 1900, Watercolor and gouache.

The drawing techniques showcased in this broadly ranging show includes watercolor, gouache, pen and ink, charcoal, pastel and mixed medium. The periods of art represented include romanticism, realism, impressionism, postimpressionism, pointillism (neoimpressionism), symbolism and the Nabis.

                                   Paul Huet, A Meadow at Sunset, pastel.

Watercolor techniques range from the tightly rendered paintings of Alexandre Calame, the confident brushwork of Gustave Dore, to the fresh and freely painted pointillist works by Paul Signac.

                     Gustave Dore, A River Gorge in a Mountain Landscape, watercolor.

Charcoal drawings range from a luminous figure study by Albert Besnard to the dark, ominous, tonal work of Charles Angrand and sensitive realism of Leon Augustin Lhermitte.

Leon Augustin Lhermitte, An Elderly Peasant Women, charcoal.

The show features the use of pastels, which in the 19^th century became a favored medium by many artists thanks to the development of richer pigmented chalk pastels.  Paul Huet uses a bright palette to layer color in describing a meadow at sunset.  While Auguste Louis Lepere uses an analogous palette of pastels to draw a pastoral scene.

                Auguste Louis Lepere, Chestnut Trees above a River, 1900, pastel.

It is often thought that the impressionist artists didn’t create many drawings as they painted spontaneously from life. This show offers many opportunities to see impressionist works on paper. An atmospheric pastel drawing by Claude Monet was done in London while he waited for his oils paints to arrive. Edgar Degas is one of many impressionist artists who enjoyed drawing techniques.  The exhibition includes a few masterful drawings by Degas they are inspired in their use of the compositional space and in there animated effects.

                       Edgar Degas, A Dancer at the Bar, charcoal and white chalk.

I recommend an excursion to the National Gallery of Art to see this inspired exhibition.  I also recommend the exhibition catalog.

Durer and Beyond, Central European Drawings, 1400-1700

In August while at the Metropolitan Museum of Art I saw two amazing drawings exhibitions.  One, which I blogged about last week, featured the plant drawings of minimalist Ellsworth Kelly.  These drawings were so beautiful and elegant for their simple use of line and negative and positive shape.

The “Durer and Beyond” exhibition featured many drawings also created with line.  Albrecht Durer’s energetic ink lines with layers of hatching and crosshatching were a great contrast to the Kelly drawings!

Albrecht Durer, (1471-1528) of Nuremberg, Germany, is regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance.  While still in his twenties Durer became famous for his woodcuts, such as “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”.  He went on to create many masterful paintings, but his drawings are among his most famous works.  Amid his most revered pieces are “The Great Piece of Tuft”, “The Praying Hands” and “Wing of a Roller”  Many of these drawings are in the Albertina in Vienna.

          Albrecht Durer, pen and ink on prepared paper, "The Praying Hands", 1508

                      Albrecht Durer, watercolor and gouache, "Wing of a Roller", 1518

Throughout his life Durer was known for his detailed and complex self-portraits.  The exhibition drawing below “Self Portrait and Studies of the Artist’s Left Hand and a Pillow” features such a self-portrait with it’s penetrating gaze.  On the verso of this drawing is a series of whimsical drawings of a pillow.  The series almost reads like an animation!

Albrecht Durer, pen and ink, "Self Portrait and Studies of the Artist's Left Hand and a Pillow", 1493

                              Albrecht Durer, pen and ink, "Six Studies of a Pillow", 1493

The exhibition featured 100 drawings created between 1400-1700 by artists from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic among others.  A charming study of a hedgehog by Hans Hoffman (1530-1592) created with watercolor and gouache, highlights this artist’s love of observing nature down to the smallest detail!

                          Hans Hoffman, watercolor and gouache drawing of a hedgehog, 1584

If you enjoy looking at master drawings there are two current exhibitions that you might want to visit.  "The Mantegna to Matisse” exhibition at the Frick Collection, will be up through January 27, 2013 and the “Durer to de Kooning: 100 Master Drawings from Munich” is on view through January 6, 2013 at the Morgan Library.  I plan on blogging about both these exhibitions.

Ellsworth Kelly's "Plant Drawings" exhibition

This past summer, while in New York, I saw two amazing and very diverse drawing exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The shows were “Ellsworth Kelly Plant Drawings, 1948-2010” and  “Durer and Beyond, Central European Drawings, 1400-1700”.  Both exhibitions highlighted an abundance of drawings created using line.

                                                Sunflower, 1957 watercolor

Ellsworth Kelly is an American artist born in 1923 and best known for his minimalist works.  Kelly embraced the Color Field School in the 1960s and became known for his vibrant, clean minimalist paintings and sculptures. Regarding his interest in simple, minimal shapes and contours Kelly stated " I'm not interested in the texture of a rock, but it's shadow."

                                                       Hyacinth, 1949, ink

The exhibition at the Met focused on Kelly’s plant drawings, created over a sixty year period. These simple elegant drawings, made with graphite or ink on paper or with watercolor, are stunning for their simple use of line and shape.  Kelly is a master of composition, integrating negative and positive shape and keen observation skills.  Indeed, his drawings read as portraits of an individual plant.

                                        Study for "Plant I", 1949, ink and pencil

While most of the pieces are 18 x 20 inches, there are some monumental drawings that utilize a strong vertical composition.  The overlapping of shapes and form create a sense of motion.

                                           Four Sunflowers, 1957, pencil

I highly recommend the exhibition catalog  “Ellsworth Kelly Plant Drawings” by Michael Semff and Marla Prather.  It is a beautiful publication and includes a comprehensive interview with Kelly conducted by Marla Prather in 2011.

I will be posting about the “Durer and Beyond” exhibition in the near future.

Vibrant Drawings Using Colored Pencils & Mineral Spirits

Artists use colored pencils in a variety of ways.  Many use them in mixed media with watercolor or ink, others layer them to create dense color saturated images.  I like to use colored pencils with odorlessmineral spirits (OMS), applied with a cotton swab, to create vibrantly colored, painterly drawings. 

The materials needed are colored pencils, OMS, cotton swabs and Bristol paper.  The Bristol paper is a good choice as it is smooth without any texture. 

I start out by doing a sketch of my subject matter using colored pencils to lightly block in my composition.  As I build up the color I lightly rub the surface with mineral spirits on a cotton swab.  The mineral spirits act to break down the waxy binder in the colored pencil and create a vibrant and painterly image. I keeping layering the colored pencil and ODM until the drawing is complete.  Here are a few recent examples of my work using this interesting technique.

I would like to thank my friend Josh Yavelberg for introducing me to this way of working!

                                       

                                  All drawings by Marie Dauenheimer.