Ink version of the four caryatids.

I used Quink writing ink for this. It is water soluble and loses its blackness when water is added. The colours separate into subtle blues and browns. Presumably the blue is a pigmant like Ultramarine but the browns I strongly suspect involve oak gall. Oak gall has for centuries been a basic component of ink.

Four Caryatids from the Erechtheion in Athens. Pencil sketch on 300 gsm paper. A version in Quink ink is underway and will be posted later.

Agamemnon, Electra and Orestes.

These three are gouache paintings derived from the initial drawings, (see previous), done to try and get some idea how the finished work might look. I have already shown the protagonists

in the November 27 posting.

From these two triptychs I have made a computet simulation of how I would like the finished work to be presented in a gallery. You can see this here.

As this site is called The Draughtsman I suppose I should put in some evidence of pure line drawing to support the paintings in the last two posts.

These six images are reference tracings taken from the original drawings. I made drawings intitially to work out just where things go as it were but then needed to overpaint them to see how it all works out. But before proceeding to the painting stage I made these tracings. Being on tracing paper and drawn to scale in relation to the planned finished work, I can, if need be, project this onto the canvas via an overhead projector. Purists may regard that as cheating but there is strong evidence to suggest the old masters used optics extensively.

If you click on the image you should get a full size version.

To those photographers who look at this site from time to time, I suppose these tracings and to some extent drawings can be looked at in the same way as negatives. By that I mean photographers who still practise the dark[room] arts! (grins).

The opposite three figures in the Orestian Trilogy. Here we have, reading left to right, Cassandra, Aegisthos and Clytemnestra.

Cassandra was a prophetess who had been cursed by Apollo in that nobody believed her prophesies, even though they all turned out to be true. She was I think in a bit of a "Monty Python" situation. She had been brought back to Mycenae as a trophy/slave from Troy by Agamemnon and in the play she even prophesied her own death and the manner of it.

Aegisthos was promised the throne by Clytemnestra provided he help her assasinate her husband. This he did but was really only a puppet king thereby. He carries his bronze sword, he is not entirely blameless.

Clytemnestra has blood on her hands. She not only murdered her husband but she beheaded Cassandra and butchered all the children Cassandra had by Agamemnon. She is downcast. Her only son will avenge his father's murder.

Enough of the slaughter and mayhem.

These three images are gouache on paper and each is 30 cm (12") high. This is also experimental work to see how the paintings might look. The idea is to have the triptychs facing each other so that Agamemnon is opposite Clytemnestra; Aegisthos is opposite Electra; Cassandra is opposite Orestes. Note the backgrounds are pale towards the left and dark towards the right. This is to set the mood. Note the Agamemnon/Electra/Orestes group are the opposite way, darkness to the left.

How big to make the final pieces? I put it to some of the others in the studio and the consensus was that I should make a six foot tall mock-up on paper of one figure and try a four footer on another and see how they work. So that will be the next stage. I'll probably get down to it in the New Year. We are all rather busy in the studio with Christmas card making. Artists always make their own.

Well, we do!

The Orestian Triptych
If you've been following this blog for the last few days you will have been watching this project grow. Today I completed the Electra image so now the triptych is complete, - in its water-colour form. This is a preparatory work on paper, though in its way is complete in itself. The plan is to develop this into a larger painting. I had originally intended the panels to be six feet tall; pretty well life-size. But now I wonder, perhaps they would be better at four feet tall (120 cm). What is shown here is 24" (60 cm tall). I have done it this size so that scaling up shouldn't be too complicated.
Anyone out there got any thoughts? 120 cm ? 180 cm ?
There is another triptych planned to go with this one, the three protagonists; Clytemnestra, Aegisthus and Cassandra. Watch this space. I may be a week or two working on it.

I've spent the last few days developing the image for "Elektra" who will stand between Agamemnon and Orestes in the triptych.

Here is the line drawing of the final design. She is a weeping figure. In both Aeschylus' and Sophocles' versions she spends much of the time in the mid-section of the trilogy lamenting the loss of her father and, ultimately, cultivating hatred for her mother.

Is it only in Greek tragedy, I wonder, that grief is allowed to ferment into poisonous hatred and find release in violent retribution? I remember when seeing Sophocles Electra just how raw those expressed emotions were. The play was in Greek but you didn't need to understand the language to get gripped by the drama.

I get the feeling my finished work will seriously understate this. You can judge when it is completed.

Four [Hellenic] figures. A little out of sequence here but are part of the exploratory process which brought me to the start of the ongoing project. There is a lack of logical connectedness in that the grey-clad figure on the left is a caryatid from the Erektheion in Athens, the middle two golden-clad figures are of Artemis and the right-hand one in white is a composite of Aphrodite. The Aphrodite was taken from a sculpture (as were they all) which is headless and armless and entirely nude. The torso is in the museum in Pafos, Cyprus and the head is in the Central museum in Nicosia. I decided to drape the figure to keep it all in context.

I suppose it could be argued that Aphrodite could remain naked among her clothed fellow deities for she was noted for her promiscuity despite her being, apart from the goddess of love, she was the defender of matrimonial fidelity.

Each of these panels are 7 x 42 cm and are together on a single sheet of paper 55 x 50 cm. The work is in gouache on 300 gsm paper.

To further illustrate the development of this work here is the line drawing, built up from original sketchbooks.

And here, some gouache has been applied. The idea of this is to work out how, and if they would work as paintings. This particular piece was intended as something of a "test-bed" but I think it stands as a work in its own right.

Agamemnon. Companion piece to "Orestes" posted yesterday. This piece is the same size at 60 cm tall. This is a mixed media drawing utilising both soft graphite and charcoal. To get the subtleties of tone I had to layer up several times.

There now only remains "Elektra" to draw. I envisage doing that as a line drawing with watercolour washes.

At the moment I have a large body of work assembled of the "Sea Pictures" so there is not so much pressure to produce new work in that direction. This leaves me free to concentrate on my Hellenic project(s) which hark back to the times I spend in Cyprus.

Not surprisingly the mythological material coupled with the modern Cypriot Art scene has exerted something of an influence here. Many years ago when I was in my late teens/early twenties I avidly read the Greek classics. My trips to Cyprus have re-awakened this interest. I have done a lot of random drawings of Hellenic style figures, mainly female, but there has been no real cohesive plan. It was rather like looking around a new environment and just taking everything at face value.

But now, I seem to be on a roll. My plan is to produce around fifteen pieces making up triptychs and polyptychs. The first is a look at the Orestian Trilogy which deals with the murder of king Agamemnon after his triumphant return from the Trojan War; his daughter, Elektra's grief and growing hatred for her mother, Klytemnestra who killed her father Agamemnon and finally the return of her brother Orestes who avenged the killing by an act of matricide.

Not quite your gentle family story.

Shown here is a preliminary drawing of Orestes. This drawing is 24" tall. The plan is to make paintings six feet tall. But a happy accident in making this drawing is making me reconsider. Perhaps these should be works on paper? Finished mixed media drawings rather than paintings? Such is the journey of discovery we call Art. We have an idea, then a plan, then have a rethink. So which way shall this project go I wonder?

As well as the Agamemnon/Elektra/Orestes trilogy, I think another triptych is called for of the protaginists for want of a better word, Klytemnestra/Aegisthos/Kassandra. These would, ideally be shown on a wall opposite the first three. I would like to do three goddesses as another triptych, namely; Artemis/Athene/Aphrodite. Also a four part polyptych featuring the female figures, - caryatids, - of the Erektheion at the Acropolis in Athens.

All these works are intended to be six feet tall.

Theme and variations. A musical term that describes what I am doing now. I can see a correlation between the patterns created by written music on the page and the movement of waves. There is also this same correlation with interpretation of a given form. Each different media makes its own interpretation just as different instruments or music voices make theirs.

Tone, form, harmony... musicians and artists use language the same way.

An exercise in layering. I am trying different approaches to interpreting the sea. These two strips of sea are as viewed from overhead. The one on the left is in traditional graphite while the one on the right has been made with successive layers of transparent coloured ink.

What I find fascinating is the random abstract shapes of the patches of foam. Even more interesting is meticulously copying these abstract shapes rather than simply generating my own. None of the shapes readily resemble a predetermined or recognisable object so in drawing them all preconceptions are eliminated. It makes for a good exercise in pure observation I think.

The continuous movement of the sea makes these shapes extremely transient. They change by the second and no way can an accurate drawing be done in that time. So these are made from photographs and drawn in the comfort of the studio.

Despite the foregoing, the drawn shapes do take on a life of their own as the character of these components change with the application of each successive layer.

This is "work in progress" I reckon.

I was at a week-end family get-together up in the Lakes recently. Sunday morning I got up early and went for a walk. Things come into very sharp focus at times like this and seem to say "Draw me, now."

The distant hills rising out of the mists melting in the growing sunlight and the small puddle on the byway reflecting the sky and shining like a sapphire.

Actually my mainstream art had been a bit in the doldrums of late and this walk awakened my eyes again. Now back in the studio the ideas are flooding in more than time and energy can cope with. But then that is the sort of problem I'd rather have.

A modern dress study and an Amazon from Classical times. An interesting similarity in clothing style. I don't think our ancient Amazon would look out of place walking down a 21st century street.

Study of a Hellenic image made during my residency at Lemba, near Pafos in Cyprus.
Mixed media drawing; watercolour, gouache and graphite on size A2

300gsm paper.

I always tend to give these Hellenic deities intense but sightless blue eyes partly in defference to their mediterranean origins but also that although gods, they were not all-seeing. If they were they would not have so selfishly inflicted so much suffering on mortal humanity.

A classic example is Leda and the Swan where Leda was seduced by Zeus disguised as a swan. She in turn gave birth to Helen who ultimately caused the Trojan War.

Another interpretation in the Hermaphrodite series. Each square is 10 x 10 cm. Gouache on paper. The whole mounted on a 60 x 20 cm panel.

Ερμαφρόδιος Hermaphrodite, one of a series of drawings using various media, - this one in watercolour with the figure drawn with a graphite stick, - taken from a sketchbook image I made when last in Larnaca. The original statue has the left leg broken off at the calf. In the sketchbook version I added the missing component but in the series of finished works I decided otherwise. I am coming to realise that part of the aesthetic to modern 21st century eyes is this ancient statuary in its incomplete state. It makes us appreciate what remains and in that way make a link with artists of the past.
Some of the series here on my studio walls.

Matthaias Grünewald made this drawing of a crucifixion some twelve years before his famous Isenheim Altarpiece which can be seen at the Musee Unterlinden in Kolmar. This drawing is a study for another altarpiece for a church in Germany. This drawing can be found in the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe, Germany. It is on paper 32 x 53 cm.

Grünewald's crucifixions marked a turning point in Christian art. Up to this time the crucified figure of Christ was portrayed as standing on the cross as if He could get down from it at any time. The brutality of being crucified was never really emphasised. He was depicted on the "Throne of the Cross." But Grünewald pulled no punches. He showed such a death for what it was, - painful. Not only was the posture of the corpora more contorted but the cross was crudely fashioned. It may well have been nearer to what actually was used. In some of the crucifixion paintings I've seen you'd think the Roman soldiers had had the cross specially made at Waring and Gillows, the famous Lancaster furniture makers!

Even for non- Christians, the Crucifixion makes an interesting and strong subject; the outstretched limbs make an ideal for anatomical illustration and the cross shape makes a strong impact on the psyche. The cross has featured in art for millenia. There are pre-Minoan examples of cruciform statuary which can very easily be mistaken for something made two thousand years later.

This is part of an ongoing intermittent project which I return to from time to time as a rest from my regular "bread and butter" Sea Pictures. I started exploring the Hellenic female figure in Cyprus and has now emerged as something of a recurring theme. It makes a change I suppose from the Enigma series which has been an obsession of mine for quite a few years.

We discussed obsession the other day during our lunch break at the studios and concluded obsession is probably the main driving force behind art. We do the same thing over and over but each time vary the interpretation and perhaps the medium used. I have discussed this at some length on my other site which you can see here.

All the drawings have been made on A3 size cartridge paper cut into strips about 10 cm wide. This interpretation shown here is a pen and wash effort, the line drawn with a 0.5 mm Rotring pen.

Mantegna's "Dead Christ" is, in my opinion a turning point drawing in the development of Reanaissance art. Mategna was a most draughtsmanly painter. This work is done in tempera on canvas and was completed around 1490. It measures 46 x 81 cm so is roughly A1 size. In the years when I was a life model at the art faculty in UCLAN in Preston there would always be a time when I did this pose. It was a favourite for it gives a classic lesson in foreshortening.

It was one of the more relaxing poses in a life class. The pose usually lasted all day, I don't suppose I would have been a "dead" figure but if I'm honest, I will have certainly been a sleeping one!

Drawing the foreshortened figure from life is a good exercise, it forces you to abandon preconceptions about what the human form looks like. You have to draw what you see, not what you think you ought to be seeing.

Rogier van der Weyden was a Flemish Painter based in Brussels and did this painting around 1435. It started out as the reredos at a chapel in Leuwen but is now at the Prado in Madrid. It is almost certainly one of his most famous pieces and I feature it here for comparison with a drawing he did later in 1460. What I find striking about this, apart from the composition being very similar to the painting is the style of the figures. They seem to have a quality very similar to a much later artist, Giacometti who was a twentieth century sculptor. Giacometti went in for elongated figures that posessed these same expressive qualities found in this Northern Renaissance drawing. You can read more here. Follow the links to Rogier van der Weyden.
Its worth switching on the speakers on your PC when visiting the wga site for its baroque music.

One of the images shown by the Drawing Research Network on their Flickr page.

Sarah Lightman
Originally uploaded by DRN_SWG

I started my working life as an engineering draughtsman and because of this I get the urge to draw something mechanical from time to time. This particular image, done in my usual way with graphite on 300 gsm paper, is the latest example. It is of a motorbike brake caliper. The nature of the piece meant I had to approach it as a technical drawing at first. Because the detail shows man made machined components the initial drawing utilised tee-square and set square. Then, once the line work was done, more traditional drawing methods were used. I think that well made machine parts have quite a sculptural quality about them. It elevates the everyday and mundane to the realms of so-called high art. But then that is what art is all about in my opinion, to highlight the mundane and say to the viewer, "Look at this."
There is another example of this "highlighting the mundane" on my other Blog where I have a photo of newly installed pipework beneath a boiler. The soldering is not so neat but I plan to make a drawing from this sometime and I'll probably tidy it up a bit.
Picasso once said, "Art is a lie. But through this lie the truth is revealed."

Beach #5. Graphite on watercolour paper with some tinting. Size A3. I used water colour paper to get the graininess for the stone texture. This particular rock pool is on the Morecambe Bay tideway where the rock is a soft variety of sandstone which means the sea's action makes the stones rounded but never smooth. Compare that with say, Cornwall where the indiginous rock is granite which can be smoothed to a fine polish.
I remember drawing this on site in a cold November gale whose only interruption from America was Ireland. Clear blue skies, an empty beach, the sussurating waves, the call of the birds..... and frozen fingers. Who says I don't suffer for my art?

Larnaka. This too is A3 in size but done on smoother 300 gsm cartridge paper. As above, blue skies, sussurating waves, birdsong but this time not frozen fingers but a risk of sunburn, even at seven o' clock in the morning.

Seeing I'd mentioned my "Sea Pictures" in the last posting I though I ought to show a couple here. Most of the series are paintings so strictly speaking, they hardly qualify for a draughtsman's Blog. But you can see some of the sea pictures here.

"Beech". Graphite drawing on A3 size 300 gsm paper. This is one of the coppiced beech trees growing by the Luneside cycle track that once was a railway in Lancaster. I did the drawing only a couple of days ago.
While still settling in to the new studio space the tendency is to produce very varied work. I should be working on Sea Pictures for the upcoming exhibition at Arteria Gallery here in Lancaster but...
.....watch this space, eh?

Having moved into new premises I have been sorting out some older work including life drawings. It is hoped that at some time in the not too distant future we may start life-drawing sessions again at Luneside, but not just yet. We still have a lot to do just getting the place straight.
This drawing, done in .35 mm micro-pencil on lightweight (90 gsm) paper, - layout paper, - was done some four years or so ago at one of our sessions. I drew it on an A2 sized sheet but cropped it down to 42 x 32 cms.
Sometimes it is a useful exercise to limit the means of drawing and to work with a set set of rules. The equipment I used is more compatible with a tight drawing technique and by extension, drew the floor texture with a straight edge. Definitely borrowed from technical drawing.
And yet...
I think I still ended up with a fre-flowing feminine form. Within the above mentioned constraints one still has to draw what is really there.

Botticelli's "Flora" from his Primavera painting that I referred to yesterday.

A drawing by Botticelli. I think its called "Allegory". What I like about it is the way the female figure's clothes are highlighted in such detail. It is a lovely drawing, pleasing to the eye. What more can I add?

I think the model was the same one he used in his painting "Primavera". Note the third figure from the right of the painting, - "Flora".

Drawing No. 11.
Another in the recent series of figure drawings. Graphite on 300gsm paper. size A3

An experiment with the Graphic Novel. I am putting together a graphic novel from a short fiction story I have written about a life model and a group of art students. It is simply an exploration of the form and I have no plans on publishing.
That said, the challenges of this format are interesting, arranging how the pictures should be displayed and how the story can be allowed to unfold. Another aspect of this is it requires me to make drawings of objects not normally within my ouevre, e.g. street scenes, close ups of hands etc. and objects such as cameras as shown here. Many of these things need to be drawn "from the life".
This project may take some time to complete as it is not intended as my mainstream work but a useful fill-in during fallow periods.

These images have been made from digital photographs of pencil drawings done on cartridge paper subsequently uploaded into vector format using CorelDraw. With this process the whiteness of the original drawings is lost making for a b&w photo effect. This is a sample page whose size is A4.