All this sketching I've been doing has me thinking a lot about just what we embark upon when we draw something. Making a drawing requires decision after decision in the attempt to turn our view of that 3D object into a reasonably understandable 2D image. And to make that image pleasing, interesting, worth looking at. It always comes down to simplifying, it seems. Not only can you not 'draw every leaf', you can't even draw every branch, or even every main branch. Looking at such a drawing would be as unbearably tedious to the viewer as creating it would have been to the artist. If we take up a pencil or a pen and create a representational drawing – a representation of an object rather than, say, a representation of our angst whenever we see Aunt Lillian - then the starting point is the object itself and we have no option but to translate in some way, since we are already taking away one dimension. So, how do we go about this translation? The simplest choice is to represent something as faithfully as possible, photographically if you will, trying to make our two dimensional mixture of paper and marks look like the three dimensional object we're looking at. Sometimes this can make a lovely drawing, but not always. If it always worked, then every photograph would be great art and the scale of greatness would be measured in pixels or dots per inch. At the other end of the scale, there's stick figures. I find both extremes less appealing than methods that lie somewhere on the continuum between the two. Here's some images of drawings that give varying translations of reality onto paper.
The realist route, a drawing by Ingres. Personally, I don't care for this drawing. To me, the 'unfinished' portions of the study are lovely, but the finished face looks like this is where pencil lines go to die.
Moving a bit farther away from realism, this DaVinci drawing manages to keep the finished portion more alive looking.
This Rubens drawing is even livelier. I love this drawing. I came across it when I seached for drawings by Ingres, and when this one came up I knew it could not possibly be an Ingres.
Look at those lines! Wiggling around, lively as can be. I've always been in love with Rembrandt drawings. There's just so much going on there. I feel as if I could reach out and touch this fellow.
Step by step translations from realist to stick figures, each of them exquisite.
