Different & The Same

SOME VARIABLES

depth: foreground, background and the space in-between

horizontal elements: the dam, the bridge

mark-making: ink, charcoal lines & smudges, tangles, black blobs. colored pencil

Don't think, just draw what's in front. Now.

12-26-14

1-2-15

12-28-14

Process & Presence

I'm thinking about David Hockney's prodigious drawings and paintings of landscapes: "The Arrival of Spring" (at PACE, New York; just closed). Funny, to hang this show as the Northern hemisphere looks with resignation to the dark and rainy winter months.

David Hockney, Woldgate, 6–7 February, from The Arrival of Spring in 2013 (twenty thirteen). Charcoal on paper. 22 5/8 x 30 1/4 in. © 2013 David Hockney. Photo: Richard Schmidt

David Hockney drawing Woldgate, February 6-7, from The Arrival of Spring in 2013
Photo: David Hockney
source: The Guardian, May 7, 2014

Like my drawings of The South Natick Dam and Lake Waban, Hockney's are probably not the greatest landscape art ever done. A more positive similarity is that like Hockney, and countless other artists, I feel a comfortable command of my medium and metier. I believe we use our fear of drawing badly as our greatest weapon to produce work that matters to us, in the moment, and perhaps for much longer. But who cares? It's simply the process that defines presence.

Looking downriver
charcoal
11-2-14

Looking Across the Dam
charcoal, ink
10-24-14

Tree

charcoal, ink

11-7-14

The Pleasant Street Bridge
charcoal
11-7-14

Why I draw what I draw (English version)

Paolo Canton of Topipittori originally posted this essay in Italian on the Topipittori blog. There is also some nice response on Topipittori's facebook page. If you'd rather read it in the original English, see below:

Caro Paolo,

First, I want to thank you for your interest in me and my drawings. You have given me the opportunity to think about why I do what I do —and that is somewhat rare. Also, In a small way your interest validates and shows respect for me. This is a wonderful thing. I hope some day to meet you in person in Bologna or elsewhere.

Now: Regarding why I am drawing Nature and not book illustrations here:

I do these drawings in order to:

1. draw (I love to draw and make pictures. Love it!)
2. practice the art of drawing
3. look at something —rather than take a photograph of it.
4. to draw real things rather than imaginary things.
5. study and learn about Nature
6. stop thinking and worrying
7. procrastinate
8. meditate
9. get some physical exercise
10. to contemplate existence and the reasons for making Art
11. create a record of my perceptions
12. prove that I am alive
13. prove that I once was alive (for anyone who cares!).

I draw in this manner in many places. The place I draw most of the time is at a park next to a river that is a ten minute walk from my home. The walk is good. The park is good. The river is good. The sound the river makes is very good. I like the animals and other people I see there. I know all the views and the way the light exists in this place. I could draw it every day (and I frequently do draw it every day).

Why? The compulsion? A confession: After some upsetting personal experiences, I found that I needed to get away from the house and studio. I needed to get away from my imagination. I needed to focus on something outside of myself that I loved: Nature. Nature is a neutral subject. I can feel passionately about it and yet it absorbs all the conflict, angst and whatever emotional state I might bring to it. It’s an emotional safety valve. It calms me down.  So, drawing, more than illustrating is a good activity for me.

All my drawings are done in letter-sized sketchbooks (similar to A4). I use all sorts of media (charcoal, crayon, ink, watercolor, colored pencil, etc.); I change it when the work or myself seem dull. Sometimes I work while the rain falls or in the bitter cold winter’s snow. All the changes make the process more interesting to me and hopefully, better drawings result.

What is a better drawing? Maybe your readers have opinions on this question.

I like my observations and my drawings. I have exhibited them a few times and I sell one or two. I wonder if they could ever be illustrations and accompany a text or poem. Hmm… I wonder. They are the illustrations of my life.

Thank you so very much for the opportunity to talk about this aspect of my work and especially for your appreciation of it.

Cari saluti,

Rob

Drawn out

The Pleasant Street Bridge
11-16-13
charcoal

It's odd how the few elements in this drawing float and do not hang together. There is enough "reality" in it to make quick sense: "I'm seeing a river flowing through the archway of a bridge". But I'm intrigued by the indeterminate foreground (flowing water) and the sharp angles of the arch's reflection and the elements seen through the arch.

The details of the bushes in the middle ground and the stonework of the bridge create isolated islands of information. There are three vertical smudges seen through the arch that are the reflections of unseen trees. I think these are the cause of the ambiguity: it's impossible to make the picture's space recede enough. The river's surface is a vertical field when it should be a flat surface that recedes in space. Those smudges could be silhouetted trees on a horizon or they could be their much closer reflections. It's unclear if you care to get into it.

I appreciate this ambiguity but really, maybe, it's just a bad drawing. I rarely think of my intentions when I draw from nature. I don't try to manipulate things. My "agenda" is internal to me: I want to record a few moments in time in a place as I perceive it. I'd prefer the drawing be about the moment and place and not about some quirk of perception or Art theory. Then again, it's good to be reminded that pictures are rich conglomerations of perception, skill, matter and technique. Drawings are "written" and made of visual language and as such, they may be read and analyzed.

Back to the moment: I drew this on a cold Saturday morning while speaking to my twin brother on the phone. It was our birthday so it was nice to catch up and wish him a happy birthday. I must have been distracted and failed to stitch the various elements together. My fingers were pretty cold when I hung up.

The Forest Primeval

Elm Bank
10-18-13
charcoal

I draw scenes like this because I think they are beautiful and the act of drawing forces me to stop and enter a contemplative state of observation. I stood in the pathway for 25 minutes or so. People and their dogs passed by me. The sun pushed the shadows this way and that. A kingfisher noisily splashed in the river just beyond the line of trees. The yellow autumn leaves blazed like stained glass in a church.

What use is the drawing? I could sell it maybe. It could be visual research for a book that requires me to know something about forests. Mostly, these drawing go to sleep in my sketchbooks as I fill up the pages. But the experiences lingers and haunts me when I pick up my pencils and brushes far away from the actual forest. For example:

2010

Red Riding Hood
2009

"Owl & Tern in the Redwood forest"
2009

2008

09-03-09

11-30-08

Ducks

detail

Three mallards
9-18-13

low water + rocks = ducks
9-10-13

ducks in the rain 1
9-13-13

ducks in the rain 2
9-13-13

Drawing Exhibition

OBSERVATIONS  Drawing Show

July 6 - 31, 2012

Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary, South Natick, MA

vernissage: Sunday, July 8, 2 - 4 p.m.

I'll have about 25 drawings on exhibit and for sale. Stop by if you're in the area. Broadmoor is a beautiful nature sanctuary with many trails and things to see.

Up & Down

Here are two recent drawings of the Charles River. The top view looks downstream at a place near my home in South Natick. The other is from just below the dam.

Soon enough, the weather will warm up and we'll be off to the races: the trees will get their leaves and have a little fashion show and the orioles will set up housekeeping and construct their intricate and precarious nests.

Herons will fish below the dam again and maybe I'll have the privilege of drawing sleeping baby ducks in the shadowy and perfumed tangles on the river's fringes. And the winter that wasn't will become a memory.

I do think it was the serious lack of snow this winter that kept me away from my outdoor muse. Weird!

A view of the Charles River at the canoe launch at Elm Bank. A light breeze riffles the surface.
© 2012 Rob Dunlavey

A view of the dam and the fish ladder.  I rarely draw those houses. I should draw it all shouldn't I? I know that!
© 2012 Rob Dunlavey

Below the Dam

The island below the dam, June 5, 2011

Here's a hurried sketch of the river just below the dam. I had about 40 minutes before I had to get to a family commitment last Sunday morning. Sometimes that pressure is a good thing in order to prioritize what should be included and what gets left out in a drawing. It's no masterpiece but I feel good because I worked on this challenging 180º view of the bridge, island and dam (I ended up distorting the size of the island. Oh well, there's always next time).

Swifts and a heron below the dam, June 12, 2011

A view from about the same spot only looking up toward the face of the dam drawn yesterday afternoon. Several days of intermittent rain had ended long enough for a flock of swifts to feast on the newly emergent mosquitoes and other insects. A Great Blue Heron in his "sniper's nest" just below the dam. In the 45 minutes of drawing, the heron moved out across the face of the dam then flew off downriver. There have been no mallard or goose families here yet. I wonder when they will move back in?

Skunk Cabbage

Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

You have to imagine that the dominant color here is GREEN.
It is an intense early morning sun-infused yellow-green. And this plant Skunk Cabbage, which is abundant, soaks up that sun and scatters a brilliant emerald color to all fields. Its shaded parts are deep green with a suggestion of blue, purple and sienna. Where the sunlight glances off the broad rolling leaf tops it is a fluorescent lime-jello yellow color with bits of pale blue and yellow from the bits of sky that accompany the errant photons that find a resting place on your green-hungry winter-starved retinas.

Skunk Cabbage IS Spring. It pushes its way out of the cold muddy wetlands while there is still ice and snow. The inconspicuous fetid-smelling flowers actually generate a little heat which must make their flowering structures that much more irresistible to the flies and other insects. The flower is very sexy in a way: a short flower-encrusted club is encased in a mahogany colored hood. The veil is parted, if you're a fly it's probably quite cozy (but not exactly what you were expecting - rotting flesh perhaps). The leaves come later. And they keep coming. The unfurl to their bright green state well before the other vegetation. Skunk Cabbage is easy to spot.

If you do become an aficionado of this plant, it probably means that you have crossed a certain line that separates you from casual naturalists and those who like an occasional stroll. It might only mean that you are desperate for winter to end and will grasp at any indication that Spring is lingering somewhere just out of sight. OR, it may mean that you've decided that dry socks are not a fabulous priority and that flowers that are not fragrant or appealing in a conventional sense, flowers that display the boudoir more than the lace curtains leading to it are rather "to the point". Well, what Skunk Cabbage is about then is as plain as the nose on your face!

After the Royal Wedding

Emergent fiddleheads (4/29/11)

Broadmoor Sanctuary 4/29/11

After Prince William and Kate Middleton's beautiful ceremony this morning, I went to Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary to see what natural spectacle might be in the offing. The weather was fabulous: clear skies, early morning raking sunlight, not hot and just a hint of cool.

Ferns are emerging in the forest now and the fiddle heads grow very quickly. I captured several clumps of them in the drawing above. While drawing this (about 45 minutes) I saw a water snake glide past and a small turtle sunning on an exposed "tuffet" out in the water. Grackles had a spiraling aerial combat overhead and geese filled the air with their cacophony. The snake returned and retraced its route back to the other corner of the shore.

I did a second drawing at the end of the boardwalk (in purple pencil). I liked the reflections and the new plants, pencil-thin, arrowing up out of the still water. Geese zoomed overhead in both directions where nuptial parties were happening in the marsh. At one point I was surprised by a Merganser rocketing low over the water from one end and over the bridge where I was stationed.

Slowly, the process gets underway: The process of getting to know this place.

Before I go to work

a foggy morning at Elm Bank

Before I go to work (today, the Library to have some uncluttered time and space to develop several children's book proposals) I take a walk and draw a few things. Just me in the fog, flexing my imagination and fingers; trying to capture something. Grist for the omnivorous mill that is an artist's lot in life. I try to do this everyday.

There's so much happening in the Spring. I did slow myself down for a few minutes to draw the "Camperdown Oak" at the Cheney-Baltzell mansion at Elm Bank.

a cell phone pic of the oak. The myth is that after a  gardener grafted tree roots on top of the trunk, the roots were forced to function like branches. There's no doubt a life lesson in this fable of adaptation.

art and nature

reflections of trees

Crassula sp.? "Hens and chicks"

maple flowers and fog jewels

this might be "Butter and Eggs" a member of the Scrophulareacea or "Snapdragon" family.

Does anything ever stand still?

We have it all: Snow, ice, standing water!
3/7/11 wax crayon in sketchbook

A few days of warm weather have unleashed the frozen snow. The river is very full as it rushes dangerously over the dam.
3/7/11 wax crayon in sketchbook

These were drawn yesterday during a short respite of warm, rainy weather. I know it seems crazy and surely, I'm asking for too much but I hope that Spring is slow this year. I want to document it :)

Winter Drawing

The South Natick Dam | 7 Dec. 2010 | colored pencil

There's just a bit of ice on the fringes of the river above the dam. Icicles have formed where water leaks from the surface down through the arches of the bridge. I've seen an occasional goose or two swimming in lazy circles above the dam. No herons to speak of and just an occasional group of ducks heading somewhere else high overhead.
I promise though that I will make some snowbound sketches as soon as we get an accumulation.
There were a few flurries last night and it was cold enough that I saw the evidence this morning as I walked Ellen to her bus stop.
Life moves too fast wouldn't you say?

The End

Endings are just beginnings right?

Goodbye to Summer.

South Natick Dam: one more mallard

(colored pencil, 23 sept. 2010)

Hello to Autumn

Lake Waban: a solitary swan

(colored pencil, 24 sept. 2010)

The ups and downs of late Summer

the lily pool and fountain, Elm Bank

© Rob Dunlavey

About a week ago, on a very hot and still morning, I headed out a bit later than usual in the morning and made this sketch at the decrepit Cheney-Baltzell mansion at Elm Bank. My soft green pencil dented the soft paper of my sketchbook as I drew. The humidity made the paper even softer. Eventually, the darn scene got drawn. Why? Why??



I guess I get some weird pleasure in representing things, more or less, as they are before my gaze. It's also a way of possessing something that I see often but yet when I see it each time, it's like it's new and never before seen. Drawing helps the neurons line up a little more amourously when I see that familiar thing again. I think the test if this is true is when I turn my attention to the faces of the people I love. And when is that likely to happen?



Here are a few more monochromatic renderings of things seen around my neighborhood. It has been a fabulous pleasure returning to the river and all these familiar haunts over the summer. I've gotten acquainted with the animals, the water's flow and the light. If you like to draw, I can't recommend it enough.

looking downstream near the bridge, heron and mallards
(© Rob Dunlavey)

reflections at the top of the dam
(© Rob Dunlavey)

Low Flow

The flow in the river is very low now and only portions of the dam's face are covered with flowing water. This allows the hungry ducks to scramble up and down the exposed cement and glean the tasty green weeds and slime that grow there.
The low water also seems to attract children. While I drew this picture a bunch of them scrambled over an expanse of exposed rocks and gravel to the island (not included in this drawing) and explored. They startled a Little Green Heron and brought back memories of something wild …and maybe some poison ivy too :-(

The Bridge 1

The water is very low now. Yesterday morning I found a spot just under one of the arches of the Pleasant Street bridge and sketched the view downriver. The sun was bright and there were shadows and reflections on the cool water underneath. Two mallards could be seen through the arch. From this spot, the Charles River winds about 30 miles I guess to Boston Harbor. Over the years we've found our favorite stretches.

colored pencil

All the ducklings have grown up (as far as I can tell) and are gradually becoming part of the larger flock that calls this spot home. I miss them. On this day the air was cool but the sunlight was bright and hot. I did find frogs sunning themselves above the dam. I wonder what on earth they are thinking as they pose, unblinking, like statues for long intervals of time. There was also a turtle bumbling about in the increasingly shallow and muddy water. All I saw was a green, duckweed-festooned dome paddling this way and that as it looked for breakfast. I wonder if this is the same turtle I saw earlier in the summer.

colored pencil