Insights, Discoveries, Surprises: Drawing from the Model 9780773563902

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INSIGHTS DISCOVERIES SURPRISES

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insights discoveries surprises

DRAWING FROM THE MODEL

ghitta caiserman . roth & rhoda cohen

McGILL-QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY PRESS MONTREAL & KINGSTON • LONDON •

BUFFALO

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CONTENTS

Joint Introduction 7 Introduction by Ghitta Caiserman-Roth 9 Introduction by Rhoda Cohen Getting Started

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Tentative Explorations 35 Gesture 41 Time for Reflection 63 Discovering our Intentions: Our Review of Our Work 83 Conclusion Sources

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JOINT INTRODUCTION This is not a "how to draw" book. It is a book based on a series of regular four-hour drawing sessions undertaken over a period of four years by an artist-teacher and a psychoanalyst-artist who come to drawing from different educational and philosophical backgrounds. At the end of each session we taped our observations and insights. Our discoveries were the basis of our dialogue. We were always aware of our desire to discuss our work at the end of each session. Sometimes it was not possible; as with the creative process, we could not speak on demand. On certain days there were not the words to say it; other times we were too stimulated and excited, and we sounded garbled. Occasionally we felt too spent and there was nothing to say. We have learned to tolerate each other's intensity and respect each other's privacy. We discovered that there is a rhythm to communication. It takes quite a while to become comfortable. The dialogue and pedagogical concepts in this book will perhaps help you to increase your sensitivity and deepen your perceptions. This is an untraditional book, which does not pose concrete solutions. By presenting our ongoing concerns, surprises, struggles, and, occasionally, our discoveries, we aim to release the "artist's block," and we propose a voyage, not a destination. We hope that it will give you the freedom to throw away your cliches and become spontaneous yet insightful; to dare to be personal and at the same time learn to be self-critical. Our dialogue can help you establish dialogues within yourself. There is no special order in which this book should be read. Start at the end, the beginning, or the middle. Drawings are used throughout to suggest various approaches. They are not intended to be illustrations of the ideas. For whom is this book? It is for you if you are open, ready to take a chance, willing to look and to see and to feel. It can help you if you've always yearned to draw, have drawn for years but need new input, are afraid to try to draw, or feel blocked. You will like this book if you enjoy looking at drawings, and enjoy listening to artists' dialogue and identify with the struggle involved in producing art. If you are a teacher or a student or someone interested in drawing and the creative process, this book is for you. We encourage you to accept our thoughts in an open spirit, remembering that we are not creating systems or laws. We urge you to set up your own dialogue on drawing from the model with a student, an artist, a friend, or within yourself.

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INTRODUCTION

by G h i 11 a Caiserman-Roth Like so many children, I was a gifted child. This art gift was nurtured in me by my parents. My father, Hanane, was in love with art and artists, and he "gave" me a teacher (Alexandre Bercovitch, a painter and set designer from Russia). Throughout his life he also gave me books on art, which I still have. Two I particularly treasure are the Penguin edition of the Henry Moore "shelter" sketch-books and one on Ben Shahn. My "papa" gave me paintboxes and beautiful coloured paper, and wrote about me (anonymously) in the local papers. My mother, Sarah, was a creative designer of children's clothes. She was a visual person who loved textures and patterns and colour. She was very proud of my youthful efforts. I seemed to be able to repeat these archetypal support relationships. (I often wonder if, without this buildup of my ego, the would-be artist might have had a lower creative drive and perhaps not have been able to bring the work to full flowering.) I remember the excitement I felt when I sold my first real painting to A.Y. Jackson, rather than to one of my mother's faithful friends. When I was twenty-seven, I sold a painting to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Despite this success, I came quickly to understand that rejection is right around the corner. I understood that fame, success, accessibility, quality, and monetary value had no relationship to one another or else the relationship was fortuitous. I would not be victimized by art fashions, world art systems, or ongoing trends. I had to learn to please myself. I began to teach early on, starting with children's after-school art classes and then at Sir George Williams College. I had developed the concept of "think-feel" within my painting and also in my teaching. Now we would call this approach the right and left sides of the brain. Teaching gave me the financial support that allowed me to paint for most of the week, and it taught me to be critical of my own work and of that of my students. I also learned to be articulate - at least about art-related subjects. Drawing has always been important to me: at first, to record my perceptions. I saw drawing as an extension of my hand and body, and I used it to help me identify with gesture and other mysterious happenings in nature and within the human body, and sometimes within my mind. Eventually, it became an end in itself, rather than primarily a preparation for painting. Drawing seems to come from the unconscious, perhaps because there are fewer choices to be considered,

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INTRODUCTION/CAISERMAN-ROTH

and often the product has less commercial interest. The freedom that drawing offers has entered my painting, and now these two parts of my work interact. It took a long time for this change to occur because I, like many people, tend to divide myself into compartments. As part of this compartmentalization, I never thought about writing; it seemed totally out of my range. About ten years ago, I started to collaborate with other artists and writers. Now I keep an art journal. At last, to write a book on drawing with my friend Rhoda did not seem strange! My friendship with Rhoda has deepened through our shared interest in art and in drawing. Her work in psychoanalysis and on the creative process finds an echo in my own history with psychoanalysis and my work on creativity, as well as my ongoing painting research. My dialogue with students and ex-students keeps all of this activity relevant for me. I have learned more about myself through the dialogue with Rhoda as we worked on this book together and struggled to find the inner response, rather than the quick answer.

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INTRODUCTION by R h o d a Cohen When friends and colleagues ask how we came to write this book and how our ideas emerged, I find it necessary to describe my personal journey through my two worlds: the world of psychoanalysis and the world of art. I met Ghitta twenty years ago, when I was a student at the Saidye Bronfman Centre and Concordia University. All these years later, we find ourselves drawing together in a shared studio and engaged in a dialogue that we feel is worth sharing with you. Throughout the years, I studied art in an informal way. I worked with many teachers, but while attending Ghitta's classes, I found a new freedom and a way of working that somehow allowed me to express my innermost feelings - "working from the inside." At that time, I was going through psychoanalysis, and many of my drawings were of women. These were no longer the bright, cheerful figures that had characterized my childhood art. I found myself using collage or looking into cracked mirrors for many self-portraits. Often I would tear up my drawings and re-create them in new images. Perhaps I was expressing the analytic process; rearranging the parts as the "unfinished woman" became the recurring theme of my work. I pondered the question of how combining my psychoanalytic insights with my artistic skills could help those who had emotional problems and who could not express themselves verbally. My investigations took me into a psychiatric setting, where I worked as a lay therapist for several years. I found the artistic techniques to be helpful with certain non-verbal patients, but psychodynamic theory presented me with a much more in-depth way of working. As a result, art became a more private passion, while my professional pursuit was to become a psychoanalyst. Whenever there were quiet periods in my studies, I would attend art classes or work on my own, but I was not satisfied. The intensity and the need to live my art were too strong, and the times I had free to draw were too sporadic. My psychoanalytic studies and clinical practice left me little energy to draw in a serious and dedicated manner. The work I produced was superficially attractive but in no way expressive of my inner world. Ghitta and I continued our friendship, although our busy lives left little time to spend with each other. We often spoke of working together again some day. Four years ago, Tuesdays in the studio became a reality. We began drawing from the model on a regular weekly basis. What joy to be back in the world of art! I found that this time I was able to draw in a way which allowed me to get in touch with a

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INTRODUCTION/COHEN

part of myself that had been totally consumed in my professional and academic pursuits. My training analysis had indeed liberated new energy: I felt freer and could explore in greater depth and with greater sensitivity. Ghitta and I enjoyed discussing the way we worked, and we would spend time talking about drawing during the model's rest period or at the end of the day. As our work and dialogues progressed, we began to wonder whether our talks could be meaningful for people who like to draw and paint, and who struggle with their creativity. We became excited about the idea of taping our dialogues and writing a book. My psychoanalytic background infuses part of my contribution to the dialogue; however, I tried to avoid being overly academic, since I did not want our spontaneous insights to be lost. As we worked together, however, I have been struck by the many similarities between my work as a psychoanalyst and the process of drawing. Psychoanalytic writers have continually investigated the complexity and depth of the creative process and the mystery and curiosity surrounding creative individuals. Freud was powerfully affected by works of art, although he confessed his ignorance of artistic methods. He saw a great similarity between neurosis and the creative process and often described creative works as attempts to solve conflicts. His early contributions emphasized the unconscious process: unconscious motivation and instinctual drives. He found it difficult to understand the mind of the creative individual and on the occasion of his acceptance of the Goethe Prize, spoke of the "riddle" of the miraculous that makes an artist. In his essay on the history of the psychoanalytic movement, Freud states, The conception of unconscious mental activity made it possible to form a preliminary idea of the nature of imaginative creative writings; and the realization gained in the study of neurotics, of the part played by the instinctual impulses enabled us to perceive the sources of artistic production and confronted us with two problems: how the artist reacts to this instigation and what means he employs to disguise his reactions. (Works, 16: 36)

Since Freud, a vast amount of psychoanalytic literature has been written about creativity and the creative process; as well, there are a multitude of psycho-biographical studies of creative individuals. Some of the questions raised in the literature centre around the characteristics that are common to creative individuals and what may have occurred in their early lives to stimulate their creative urge.

INTRODUCTION/COHEN

Working as a psychoanalyst, I have come to recognize and respect the creative aspect of the psychoanalytic process. Anna Freud makes a wonderful comparison between the analytic process and artistic creativity in her introduction to Marion Milner's book On Not Being Able to Paint. Quoting from Milner, she compares the act of painting and the analytic process. There is the same need for "circumstances in which it is safe to be absent-minded" (i.e., for conscious logic and reason to be absent from one's mind). There is the same unwillingness to transgress beyond the reassuring limits of the secondary process and "to accept chaos as a temporary stage." There is the same fear of the "plunge into no-differentiation" and the disbelief in "spontaneous ordering forces" which emerge, once the plunge is taken. There is, above all, the same terror of the unknown. Evidently, it demands as much courage from the beginning painter to look at objects in the external world, and to see them without clear and compact outlines, as it demands courage from the beginning analysand to look at his own inner world and suspend secondary elaborations. There are even the same faults committed. The painter interferes with the process of creation when, in the author's words, he cannot bear "uncertainty about what is emerging long enough, as if one had to turn the scribble into some recognizable whole when, in fact, the thought or mood-seeking expression had not yet reached that stage." Nothing can resemble more closely than this the attitude of haste and anxiety on the analyst's or patient's part which leads to premature interpretation, closes the road to the unconscious, and puts a temporary stop to the spontaneous upsurge of the id-material. On the other hand, when anxieties and the resistances resulting from them are overcome, and the "surrender of the planning conscious intention has been achieved, both - painter and analysand - are rewarded by 'a surprise, both in form and in content."

Since I work as both a psychoanalyst and an artist, I accept being uncertain, the experience of chaos as a temporary state, tolerating anxiety, and not knowing. I think that the element of surprise and the excitement of creating or discovering something new or different - something unique, your very own, a new kind of order, a different perspective, a new creative space - are the rewards of both the psychoanalytic journey and the artistic process. I hope that our dialogue will be helpful to you when you draw, paint, work, and play and that you will be able to discover the creative process within yourself.

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NEW BEGINNINGS/NEW SPACE Rent or find space, outside or at home. Do you want to be alone? Do you want to share your space? How? With whom? Why? Should there be a telephone? Music? Heat? Other considerations: lighting (fluorescent? incandescent? natural?), food, easels, tables, furniture, mirrors? Schedule? Structure? Rent? Sociability and compatibility? Other activities? Model's responsibilities?

THE PAGE AS CONTEXT: BEGINNING A white page is often forbidding. We can make the beginning easier by preparation and by giving the page a little history even before the model appears. Stan thinking about the model before she or he begins to pose. Mark the page with associational ideas. Think about skin, hair, handprints, a lying-down feeling, breath, weight, time of day - almost anything that can help you get the page moving. Think of transforming the page into a "beginning." You are not making a picture. You are preparing the page for work with the model. Experiment with materials. Use rags dipped in paint, big brushes, your fingers, pen and ink, chalk, rollers. Try to make an inviting surface on which you can start to draw from the model. Use the whole sheet of paper. Don't forget the comers or sides. Do a number of these "beginning" sheets, and keep them in a portfolio to use as needed. You can't predict exactly the relationship of the "beginning" to your studies of the model. This first stage does not dictate, it provokes.

GETTING STARTED

G h it t a

We're talking about what it's like to get into a new space - it seems like an analogy for beginning - a new space in your head. We all come with our own history and feelings, from which we enter the drawing experience. What's it like for you, Rhoda, to move to a new studio, one we will share? It's a new physical space for both of us - also a new head space! You've brought a kettle and your dreams. I've brought a mirror and a plant. We brought easels, tables, a hassock - some of our old baggage - yet each of us is psyching herself up to enter this new experience in drawing and sharing a space.

Rhoda

Yes, we know where we're coming from, but we have no idea where we're going. When I describe the psychoanalytic process to my patients, I often use the metaphor of a "journey," one not down a superhighway but along country back roads. There's a sense of adventure and of not knowing what we will discover together. Perhaps this new space is similar. I really don't know what it will feel like, how we will work together and what will emerge in my work. I walked in and found a place to sit where I could make it dirty and sprawl out. I chose the table and ended up on the floor, halfway out the door. It takes me time to get used to a new space and a new mood. I'm almost uninterested in the subject. I'm more interested in working with my materials, getting comfortable, settling down. I guess it's a way of working through my discomfort. Once I feel more settled, I am able to look outside of myself and observe the model. When she takes up the pose again, I'm going to roll up the carpet and move closer to her. Look how the light has changed. It's quite beautiful - different shadows on the body. I'm beginning to feel a little more at home.

G h it t a

For me, every day involves some new journey, even if I'm at home. The light continually changes, like the seasons. Sometimes I get myself into a small space, partly to isolate myself from distractions. If I'm drawing with a model, I seem to be better able to identify with her up close. There are two struggles going on: one to reach myself and the other to reach the model. She becomes my alter ego while I'm drawing her. I have an intense commitment to her and to myself. I look for a friendship with her in which I develop my visual and psychological perception. If I wanted to to do an abstract painting, I might look at Kandinsky or Gorky for inspiration.

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FIRST STEPS IN DRAWING THE MODEL Have your model settle comfortably. Make sure there are no drafts, and even arrange to have a heater if necessary. Talk to the model for a few minutes, to put you both at ease. On the first day of drawing with a model, have him or her take a pose that is natural, perhaps lying down or sitting. Give the model a rest every twenty-five minutes, and mark the pose if you want to continue if afterward. Remember, you are not making a picture. You are trying to transform the page into a human body. Try to develop a tactile memory of the model. Walk around the model and get a feeling of the pose from different angles. Do not start with a line. Think of words such as "caressing," "searching," "groping," "discovering," and try to find an appropriate technique of drawing. You may decide to use the side of a pencil or a piece of black chalk or a rag.

IN ORDER TO MAKE PROGRESS, THERE IS ONLY NATURE, AND THE EYE IS TURNED THROUGH CONTACT WITH HER.

GETTING STARTED

I begin by trying to feel the mood and physicality of the model. I sympathize with her on various levels: is she cold? has her lover left? I try to bring this into my drawing. I seem to respond more sensitively because I am so close. The choice of model may be accidental or fortuitous, and I must go through the whole process each time. It takes time and care. If I needed to do an abstract painting, I might look at Kandinsky or Gorky or de Kooning, but I came to draw using the model as subject and inspiration. There is no mindset or system of approach. I try to be responsive. There's nothing automatic for me in drawing. Rhoda

After working with my patients all morning, I wonder, as I'm driving down to the studio, what my experience will be. It's exciting to move from one world to another. I sometimes think about how I'm going to proceed, but when I come into the studio, I'm usually reacting to the forces at play. I settle in to this new space as the memories, feelings, and experiences stimulate my creativity.

G h it t a

I usually paint in the morning. By the time the model arrives, I've prepared for her. I have a choice of papers out, and a variety of drawing materials. I've made sure the room is warmed up. The model arrives, and suddenly there's a new scene. We enter the privileged relationship of give and take. I become tuned in to the model and a strong identification begins. After I have been in my own internal world when I'm painting, drawing from a model creates a new scene too, a privileged relationship of give and take. Drawing has a somewhat different vocabulary from that of painting.

Rhoda

The way you talk about your drawing - in terms of intense identification with the model - is the way I proceed in my analytic work. My task is to understand my patients - both their inner and outer worlds - and to understand what is going on. When I come to draw, the relationship with the model is not of primary importance to me. I use her for inspiration. I use her to stimulate something in me, my fantasy world. Sometimes, though, the model is living through a crisis, and her mood may prevail. I may react to it. We've talked about my figures being headless, trunkless, armless. These images come partly from my unconscious, and I proceed not knowing what is going to come up, somewhat like the analytic process. What happens on the page may trigger more images, and the drawing itself becomes my inspiration.

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GETTING STARTED

Ghitta

I guess we come together in recognizing the demands of the page, its history and inspiration. My drawings seem to fulfil my need for sensuous reaffirmation. With this model, I discovered unexpected roundness, new colour relationships - a flatness and a fullness at the same time. The challenge or problem for me is to take my perceptions and fantasies into a drawing, to transform a page.

Rhoda

Isn't that transformation what art is about: creating something new, something different, from what we are observing and experiencing? Something of our very own!

G h i 11 a

Yes, it's amazing to imagine a canvas by Rembrandt and one by Picasso, three centuries apart. The actual canvas may be the same, maybe Dutch canvas. The image in each case translates an epoch into that Dutch canvas. The canvas has been transformed. We're now talking about the creative process and transformation from just a piece of canvas into a new concept of space and humanity. "Transformation" doesn't happen every time we work. It takes a coming together of many factors, some of them mysterious. But we recognize that moment when it happens: when we forget that we're looking at a piece of paper and instead see a new reality of space, line, entanglement.

Rhoda

I think that when we stand back and look at our drawings and feel that "it works" or that "something new emerged," it seems to say something to us in a personal way. That's transformation!

NEW MATERIALS Rhoda

Today I feel static. When that happens, I change my position. I move around and have the model move. Sometimes short poses can free me up when I feel inhibited.

Ghitta

Getting blocked is such a common ailment. There are all sorts of ways we can help ourselves. There are many things we can change. As you suggest, we can have the model change her position. We sometimes change the scale of our drawing. Or we can change the materials we are working with. Starting a new drawing always makes me feel nervous and excited, but as time goes by I get more used to the model, and I'm able to make a closer identification. Often when I'm uncertain, I put a lot of materials out in front of me. I arrange conte crayons, graphite crayons, acrylic paints, inks, pens - anything I can find. All these choices energize me.

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GETTING STARTED

Rhoda

Materials stimulate me to try many things. I may automatically begin with ink and wash, then I may find that oil pastel loosens me up. As I look at my lines in my drawing today, I see them as containing - more controlling, more intense - whereas at other times the line is more delicate. When I use my scraggly line and the wash, I feel less inhibited, and the chalk helps too. There's no doubt that materials really affect me. Last week, I went to the art store. I felt like a child let loose in a candy shop. I bought charcoals, conte pencils and sticks, some hard and soft pastels, just trying to pick unexpected materials. I came into the studio today and found that the greyish pastel forced me to think about the whole page: the figure and the background. I don't like to think about those two elements separately. The new materials helped me make a connection, and I looked for curves and rounded forms, different from what I was able to do with linear ink drawings. I just discovered compressed charcoal, and I find it intriguing to work with. When I mix it with water, it almost looks like some form of printmaking. I find I am sculpting shapes with this wonderful black, slushy charcoal. Again, the material really influenced the way I drew. The materials I use feel like an extension of my hand and guide me to draw in different ways.

G h i 11 a

Sometimes, at home, I go into the basement and look around for surprises: a dirty rag, an old sponge, some sandpaper, a roller, a feather, an oil pastel, a single-edged blade. I especially like finding paper I've forgotten about. Sometimes I roam around hardware stores, just to see if I get any new ideas about materials.

Rhoda

Are we talking about materials or ideas? Is it the technique that propels the work or is it the concept? Or is it our inner world of fantasy, our feelings?

G h i 11 a

I think it's both the materials we use and our ideas about identification and discovery that influence the work. Often I try to make myself one with the model. Sometimes I forget myself - and even the model. Sometimes, the materials seem very important. Or a dream from the night before might dominate.

Rhoda

In the creative process, so much comes from the unconscious: our fantasies, memories, and inner conflicts. There are times when I walk into the studio feeling fragmented, and I'm tempted to tear the page, fragment the page. Sometimes it works; sometimes it seems phony. However, when I do it sensitively and not automatically, it can add a new dimension to my creativity.

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DRAWING THE MODEL Again, how to begin? Use any means you can to get close to the model. You can literally walk around her and move as she moves. Then you can imitate her gestures and also try some of your own. Be aware of stretch and relaxation, pressure on an elbow or knee. Be aware of yourself in a space. Look at these things within your model, without drawing, for a little while. Try drawing in the air with your arms and hands. The more aware you are of your own body in a space - filling it, squashing it, fighting the space, or whatever - the sooner you may be able to make quivering, sensitive, informed drawings. Start tentatively to explore spaces, roundnesses, and projections, sometimes with pen and ink and sometimes with a pastel or any other material you want to try. This is the beginning of a search for the relevant in your perception. At this stage, light and dark can be interchanged. Get very close to the model. Do not distance yourself. Darken the room by closing the lights and pulling the curtains. Try side light, overhead light. See how the light changes what you see. You may enjoy music in the background as you draw.

GETTING STARTED

Ghitta

Sometimes we don't trust our first insights. Yesterday, I betrayed the first instinct that I had about the model to establish a new one. That can be dangerous because I can lose a whole afternoon. It didn't work out that way, but the sense of discovery seems more important than the result.

Rhoda

The sense of discovery is not unlike the analytic process. When I listen to my patients' free associations, I allow my own thoughts and fantasies to develop. We travel down untrodden paths, which bring surprises and adventure. I'm on the floor today, feeling this sense of adventure. I started with determination and power, but as I proceeded, I felt less involved with my drawing and the model. I lost the intensity. Something intruded. So when I went back to explore, I used the pencil, which permitted me to work more tentatively, to search out more of the creases and cracks, to get in touch with both the outside (the model) and the inside (me).

ANOTHER KIND OF CREATIVE STIMULATION Rhoda

I've been writing a paper on the relationship of mourning and creativity. I'm fascinated by the wealth of psychoanalytic literature on the subject. It certainly makes a lot of sense to me. The mourning process has stimulated much of my work.

G h i 11 a

I did an important group of paintings some years after my father died. Because I had always felt distant from him, my paintings were my way of humanizing him. My father died in 1950. In 1967, when my mother saw the work, she said, somewhat angrily, "Why did you not paint Papa when I asked you to?" I said, "Because I needed to wait until now." It took me seventeen years to accept and humanize him.

Rhoda

I remember how devastated I was when my father died. I was obsessed with drawing trees at that time, and what comes to mind is a large oil painting of a dead tree, which I worked on for hours. My children still remember the afternoon. They're upset because we can't seem to find the painting. But it's not only death that unleashes this profound mourning. It can be other losses and disappointments.

G h i 11 a

Some people work best in crises. I seem to plough through all kinds of feelings.

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Suffice it to say that black and white are also colors, for many cases they can be looked upon as colors, for their simultaneous contrast is as striking as that of green and red, for instance.

GETTING STARTED

Rhoda

I think that loss haunts the creations of many artists. It's also striking how many of my patients discover their creative abilities at a time of loneliness. Freud's earliest drafts for Mourning and Melancholy were written following the death of his father.

G h i 11 a

I did have a creative outburst after my divorce. A kind of rich vein of reaching out, but dissociated.

Rhoda

George Pollack, who has worked extensively with creative individuals, compiled a list of over a thousand artists, sculptors, composers, and scientists who had suffered a significant loss in childhood. He says that great creativity is not only the outcome of a successfully completed mourning process, but may also be an attempt at completing the mourning.

Ghitta

I love the writing of Kollwitz, who identified with death and loss and also the letters of van Gogh, who died so young and so tragically. The diaries and letters of artists in general are of great interest.

Rhoda

I guess I'm speaking about all of this today because I have been immersed in my writing, but I'm also feeling my own personal sadness. It has coloured the way in which I'm drawing. I felt so tentative at the beginning, maybe as a way of distancing myself from my feelings. But as I allowed myself to become more focused, the room took on a somber note and our model appeared lifeless. She certainly was no more lifeless than usual. It's me!

G h i 11 a

My work doesn't always seem to be the result of my "feelings." Sometimes it's an ongoing process. I feel that the cause and result is not so apparent. The art process is so complex and so deep in my own history that it has its own rhythm and momentum. So, I can be angry or sad and use it for something unrelated. I have been more literal about the death of my sister, but not too successfully, because the literal connection holds me up.

Rhoda

Throughout my life, I have been able to enhance my understanding of the task of mourning that is imposed on me by the experience of loss and the fear of death by opening myself to the creative possibilities within me and by allowing myself to be open to the creative work of others. Sometimes this is difficult, but ultimately it's rewarding.

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drawing drawing drawing drawing

is seeing is correlating eye and hand and mind is remembering a gesture is forgetting systems

KEEP NOTES OF YOUR RECEPTIONS quality of light length of pose certain problems materials are you comfortable? your feelings about the model and so on

some of my principal interests the creative process through the cognitive, emotive, and symbolic how do we begin? either emotionally or intellectually instinctively or analytically

TENTATIVE EXPLORATIONS Rhoda

There are so many associations you can bring to drawing. It's almost like searching in the dark.

G h it t a

So let's turn off the lights. Maybe we won't see the model so clearly.

Rhoda

Maybe when there's less light, in a way you see more. Perhaps it's easier to get started.

G h it t a

We are two individuals, and so we begin in very different ways. For me, getting started means the long preparation I do: getting myself in the mood three days before the model shows up. I create pages that might have some connection later on. Sometimes these pages represent my projections. Sometimes I get carried away to other themes.

Rhoda

Unlike you, Ghitta, I don't prepare several days before. I come into the studio, I take out the materials at hand, and I look at the model, the setting, the light. I'm influenced by the colour of the skin, the pillows, the robe, and the carpet, and that becomes part of my context. If I'm having difficulty starting, I take out an old drawing or a sheet of paper that has marks on it - nothing that I've actually prepared. It's a haphazard thing. I use it to act as a catalyst, along with the model. It's a much more "here and now" approach, using what I'm feeling and what I'm seeing.

Ghitta

As we continue to work, the couch and the carpet - even the light - influence me. The pillows are becoming more important to me, and how the model reclines on them and changes their shape. I'm beginning to see the model within this new environment sometimes a changing environment.

Rhoda

When I struggled with a "woman emerging" idea, the concept became more important than the actual model and the environment. I found myself using lines, and then the lines took over. The lines become obsessive. I wanted to carve the body and the gesture from a network of lines - women emerging to a new stage of development - a drawing full of excitement and strength. A birth, or rebirth, with some violence and passion. Nothing in the room made any difference.

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He [Henry Moore] set to work in a more resolute spirit, on a series of life drawings which are a strange contrast to his other work, both graphic and sculptural, of the same years (1933-1935). They are done directly from life, and represent a woman seated on a low stool or the arm of a chair, head and torso erect, one hand resting on an enormous knee. They are drawn from very close to and may have been undertaken as an exercise in foreshortening by which a confined space adds to the effectiveness of weight. Clark, Henry Moore: Drawings, 12

TENTATIVE

EXPLORATIONS

Ghitta

You work through a linear network. I seem to work through a washed-in suggestion of forms in which I try to discover the passion of the body. When I do use line, it's for a specific hard-found perception - like a foreshortened arm or hand.

Rhoda

When we look at the drawings you've done over a three-month period, each one looks quite different. At this point, my drawings are more similar one to the other. My visual language is part of every drawing. I emphasize different parts of the body, using line or wash or chalk as I need to. I keep coming back to my line. It's the basis of my vocabulary in drawing.

G h i 11 a

Art vocabulary is like language skills. I worry about being trapped within a chosen "vocabulary," then suddenly a new "word" - a new perception - suggests a different approach.

Rhoda

I can see the figure as part of the page and the page as integral to the model. I sometimes change my materials from oil pastel to chalk to help me feel through the figure and the space around her, without using a line. It's almost a tactile experience for me textured and heavy. I can almost touch the model and almost sculpt. The oil pastels don't help me, but the chalk does, and occasionally the line becomes less important.

Ghitta

It's a good idea to explore the tactile. Henry Moore did that in his shelter drawings. He brought the sleeping figures, wrapped in blankets, out of darkness. He looked for relationships of rounded forms in different kinds of spaces. These are "caressing" drawings.

Rhoda

When I think of the word "caress," I take a soft pencil and look for shadows within the body and feel out the extremities. A good contrast to Moore is Giacometti's drawings. I identify with them. They're like jumbled nerve endings. I can almost feel the tension he must have felt as I search out the lines of the figure - a quivering polarity!

37

INTIMATE, DETAILED PERCEPTION (SEXUALITY) From a general tentative approach, try to "hover" over the model. Hover in a literal sense: get close to the model. In a metaphorical sense, become a "map maker" of the body. Probe small changes and subtleties. Don't generalize. Try to identify psychologically and physically. Continue to be aware of the negative spaces within and around the model. Poke and probe surfaces and spaces. Look for bumps and creases and folds. Try to notice overlapping, pressing, weight, and stretching. Find a way to express roundness and flatness. Draw skin and hair, nostrils and ears. Respond to the sexuality of the model. Can a male model surprise you? Can you express maleness or femaleness? Remember that you are not trying to make "art." You are learning how to look and to see. There are so many ways to see even an apple when we are drawing it. Studying the human body offers infinite possibilities. Compare Rubens and Rembrandt, Manet and Renoir, Chagall and Picasso. A Degas study is great art. For this hovering, probing exercise, use appropriate materials. Try small tools: pen and ink, sharpened 4B pencils, conte crayons, ball-point pens, and so on. Avoid outline.

*Pvi

•1%'d

;

^w a-fe

GESTURE

G h i 11 a

We have another new model today, and we are just beginning to get to know her. We are entering a phase of gestural drawing, and the model, by changing her pose every few seconds, can help us. She is changing these hard-to-hold poses very quickly. We are used to longer periods of study, where we build up the page. Now we are reacting quickly and drawing spontaneously.

Rhoda

In the quick-gesture poses I'm almost moving my body in tune with the model. It's as if I'm using my body to help me identify with the movement in the pose.

G h i 11 a

It's refreshing to move from a long study to a more immediate approach. It heightens the responses. We must encourage the model and keep her moving.

Rhoda

I just let it happen, almost a quick gesture with no intellectual thought - a movement of my body.

Ghi tta

I'm trying to get the entire body, but I realize that I'm missing it. I deliberately started half-way up the page, in the middle of her body. Starting with the head each time can be stifling. I have trouble getting the whole figure on the page. I'm working on a small piece of paper, and that seems to inhibit me. I guess I'll try a larger piece of paper, and that may help me get the entire figure on the page.

Rhoda

Do we have to get the whole figure on the page? It's fine with me to leave out the head or omit other parts. I'm going to start again, simply, with a pencil, and try to feel out the shapes of parts of the body. The gestures are so exquisite. There is a strength and yet a delicacy in what I am perceiving.

G h i 11 a

In these fast poses, I need to try to get the general idea. It may not involve the whole figure. I need to find the theme, or the key, of the pose - like "pressing," "folding," "stretching." I've noticed that many of the poses involve basic gestural ideas: contraction, stretching, lying down, or getting up. I find elements like cracks and secret places that provoke associations that can help me. Sometimes I use a wash to generalize and line to summarize. It's only after I look at the gesture drawings that I recognize this new vocabulary.

41

Gradually compositions make an appearance again. Political (satirical) conceits expressed in one figure or a few. I still come closest to success with drawing. When I use colour the results are more dubious, for these painfully gained experiences bear less fruit. Klee, Diaries, 260

GESTURE

Rhoda

When I start with a wash, it frees me up, and through the line I move close. I want to be closer to the body today. I'm using a very fine pen, one that flows. I seem to want to capture the model. Perhaps it's a way to deal with a personal loss I am experiencing at the moment. This model seems to want to receive us. She invites us. I am expressing myself using my own body. Continuing these drawings, again I find myself having more energy. I'm starting to get the movement. Sometimes in these very quick poses I become too automatic. The drawings that work best combine my body energy with the model's, and the page seems less stylized.

Ghitta

I found that I was tending to go around the body. Now I'm trying another approach: going through the body. I'm starting from the folding part and opening up into the rest of the body. It introduces a three-dimensional approach. It doesn't make sense to always start with the head, so sometimes I'm starting in the middle. I've noticed that the model rarely takes a simple vertical pose. She is usually bending or twisting or turning.

Rhoda

It can become tempting to stay with outlines. Cross-sections is another approach. Sometimes my drawings take me from the outer lines to the inner, and other times I forget the outlines completely.

G h i 11 a

As we continue to use S. as a model, we begin to adjust to the subtleties of her movements. At first the poses seemed so short. Now it's easier to take advantage of a two-minute position - it seems plenty of time. The advantage of her fast, general poses is that they make us lose our set stance. When we are working very quickly, our perception speeds up. Conscious choices seem irrelevant.

Rhoda

For me, gesture drawing is a way to warm up and loosen up. I seem to start quickly and then slow down, wishing for longer poses. I need more intensity.

G h i 11 a

We are always out of practice for fast studies, and we have to warm up each time, over and over again. Gesture drawing seems easy, but it's not, because of the need to speed up and the fast decisions that seem to be made unconsciously.

43

GESTURE

C H A N G I N G FROM A F E M A L E M O D E L TO A MALE MODEL Rhoda

I was wondering what it would be like to draw from a male model - thinking about what materials to use and wishing I had larger paper.

G h i 11 a

We've been talking about how to surprise ourselves once in a while when we draw. We can change the light in the room, we can draw without looking at the paper, we can draw with our left hand. We've been used to drawing our female models, and today we have a nice, muscular male model. It sure is different. What are some of my formal associations? Light and dark, major divisions in planes, and volumetric forms - a more muscular transformation of the paper.

Rhoda

For me, it's more like working in sculpture. I've been scratching the paper almost as if I was trying to sculpt the body, looking for ins and outs. It has stimulated me to use strong colours. I'm using oil pastels, which are thick and crayon-like and which stimulate me to use bolder strokes. I sense a more vigorous quality in my drawings.

G h i 11 a

I found that the head kept coming out female, so I've decided to concentrate on the head. I'm trying to find the characteristic that makes it male, and that may make me more literal for the moment.

Rhoda

I usually project myself onto the model. I wonder how I can do this with a male model. I'm not so comfortable drawing him. There's something assertive, harder and bolder. The figures in my drawings are more androgynous. The masculine, assertive part of myself is one I struggle with. Perhaps that's what is inhibiting my work. Perhaps I should use papier mache and try to sculpt.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MODEL Rhoda

I've thought about drawing the male model a great deal this week. Last week I latched onto colour as a possible connection to the masculine part of me.

G h i 11 a

I suppose it's difficult to find the exact counterpart to our own psychological entity. One either feels closer or less close to the model. I have gotten to know him better - not in the sense of identification we have been talking about - but I am now able to draw him with empathy and with interest. It doesn't happen all of a sudden. It takes time.

45

EXERCISES

Prepare two brushes and two pots of colour. Assign a different colour and theme to each hand, to activate your left (or right) hand. Close your eyes and try to work simultaneously with both hands. Have your model take two-minute gesture poses, exaggerating the movements of her body.

Use newsprint or newspaper (18" x 24") and four or five acrylic colours. Do ten quick paintings of three minutes' duration each. These paintings will be spontaneous and gestural in feeling. Be guided by both your perceptions and your feelings. And move quickly! Invent shapes that are expressive without being literal of anguish, joy, defeat, birth, love, or any other feeling. First, verbalize about the shape: talk about scale and tonality and colour.

Then try to get your body involved in feeling out the expression by drawing a shape using a line. Make the line expressive. Start using a colour shape to further experience the mood. Make the relationship between the shape and the line mean something. Relate four or five line shapes to four or five colour shapes. Make the relationship count! You can choose two opposing feelings.

GESTURE

Rhoda

Well, the basic difference between us - as we've discussed - is that most of my work is me projected outward, using the model as a catalyst, while the model himself is much more important for you. I guess I'm trying to get to know his body, and the shapes are different after the curvy, breast-like ins and outs of the female figure. I'm trying to carve out the body using cross-hatching, instead of the soft washes I used for the female forms.

Ghitta

By now we have drawn this person three or four times. I have come to simply accept the fact that we have a male model. I don't feel estranged or distant.

Rhoda

I don't know whether it's the model or me, but I'm drawing in a different way than I have before. I'm having problems with him, so it's basically coming from my own fantasy. However, at the same time I am struggling with the shape of the body. I see myself drawing a trunk-like figure with bars and a lot of black. It again becomes an emotional expression of many things: anger, maybe a feeling of being trapped, but also determination to allow the masculine side of me to emerge.

G h i 11 a

In addition to these personal insights, the immediate environment is important for me. It helps me highlight his masculinity. The room is so very white, and the model is so brown that he makes a strong statement against the wall. In addition, we have a good overhead light accentuating the modelling in the figure, and I relate a lot to that. But mostly it's the dark and light that are startling for me.

Rhoda

The model does have some impact. I found myself on the floor, adding on paper to my first drawing to make the sheet larger - as if I wanted to burst out of myself.

Ghitta

The surprise of changing models from female to male is startling, and then from a young man to an old man - a whole new experience. While we usually use the same model over a long stretch of time, there are occasional changes.

Rhoda

Remember when we spoke to the older man more personally. The pathos I felt certainly prevailed. I couldn't draw him. It was strange. His story paralyzed me!

47

GESTURE

G h it t a

I think I understood your feelings in relation to drawing him. I found him a dignified, rather sensitive type of person. I looked to this for my drawing: at first tentatively and worrying about being corny, then somehow getting through to some realization.

Rhoda

I was more comfortable the second week, although my drawings looked somewhat frozen - almost like marble statues. I'm becoming more aware of all the elements that have such an impact on my work.

DOES THE MODEL'S MOOD OR FRAME OF MIND A F F E C T THE WAY WE WORK? Rhoda

Ghitta, I speak so much about how my own thoughts and feelings affect my drawing, but I was impressed by how much the mood of our last female model affected my work. Has that happened to you?

Ghitta

Usually I call the model, and it's like making a date! As I start to choose the model from lists that I have, I begin to remember certain characteristics: not only how they look or move, but also the atmosphere that was created by their presence. At the same time as the devastated career of one model bothered you, another model's yawning exhausted me.

Rhoda

I remember the last time I drew - you weren't there that day. I had seen the film about Camille Claudel, Rodin's mistress, the previous weekend. The model was very depressed. She lay almost motionless. I associated her with Camille Claudel, and the drawing was sad and somewhat fragmented. I called it "Femme abandonnee." When the model and I talked as we looked at my drawings, she spoke about her feelings, which, indeed, I had perceived and transposed into my drawing. Was it the model, the film about Camille Claudel, or me who was the catalyst for "Femme abandonnee"?

Ghitta

I think that the identification with the model is crucial in drawing. We've discovered some of the pitfalls and some of the benefits of this intimate process.

49

GESTURE The process of identification should be a habit by now. The things we look for change with our focus. To make a contour drawing, the artist forms an intense identification with the edges of the shapes, almost as if the eye had attached itself to these contours. This attachment makes a nerve-exposed identification. Be aware of your own body. In the intimate, detailed-

Feel the model's stretch and

perception, map-making exer-

bend. Feel the space around

else you try to get very dose to

the model as if it were around

the model and to hover over her

you. You do not want just a

or him, closer and closer, for complete identification. In the gesture drawing you look for the model's movements andgestures, and try to identify with them.

picture of the model's gesture; you want to respond gesturally. The model will move quickly from pose to pose every three to four minutes. You must move

quickly too. Get yourself into a gestural frenzy, and keep looking and moving all the time. Use materials that move easily across the page. Start by using newsprint, so that you can throw the drawings - and caution - away. Draw with a full arm, loosely and quickly, filling up the page. Do not outline. Work in scribbles and cross-contours, in front and behind. Be loose and responsive. Never forget the close relationship between yourself and the model. Gestural drawing is risky. Stick with it until your identification is complete, and you will be drawing yourself.

GESTURE

Rhoda

Although identification with the model is not my priority, it seems to be affecting me more than I thought. I was thinking about Giacometti again. It was fascinating to learn about that relationship between artist and model. It was James Lord who finally insisted that Giacometti's portrait of him was complete, because he could have gone on forever. I very often feel that I leave work somewhat unfinished, and I was reassured by their discussion about Cezanne. Did you know that Cezanne never completed a work in his mind?

G h i 11 a

This was to be the new aesthetic. I feel that my work is finished when I can no longer relate to it. I try to keep the work open as long as possible, and then, when I can't find an opening any more, I put it aside.

Rhoda

I wonder if I am unconsciously doing the same thing, or if at some point the initial burst of confidence cannot be sustained and I may close the door too soon.

G h i tt a

The precise moment is hard to recognize. A creative insight occurs and propels the work onward. The interaction and interplay of these forces we're talking about - self-confidence, the critical faculty - make for a subtle indication of when to stop.

Rhoda

That illustrates the struggle for me. Do I stop too soon or do I work too long? When I overwork a drawing, I very often lose the freshness and spontaneity of the work. But when I stop too soon, I don't seem to achieve the depth I am seeking.

G h i 11 a

As I understand this dilemma, it's a matter of ego: the self-confidence that permits a lot of associations and the willingness to destroy and continue.

Rhoda

Sometimes when I return to an old drawing that I feel is incomplete, I am unable to make the creative move forward. It's almost as if I've lost the magic of the previous moment.

G h it t a

I have a trick for that which comes from critiquing student work. When I look at my old work, I empty myself of preconceptions. I try to see afresh. What does the old work say to me? Is a dialogue still possible? Can I still relate to it?

51

The whole of visible universe is only a storehouse of images and signs to which the imagination assigns a place and a relative value; it is a kind of nourishment that the imagination must digest and transform. Beaudelaire, in Theories of Modern Art, 49

GESTURE

Rhoda

The only solution I can find is to use the old work as a beginning of a new drawing, not to try to capture the previous image and emotions.

G h i 11 a

But, by the same token, keep all your drawings.

THE MODEL DOESN'T SHOW UP G h i 11 a

The model didn't show up again today. That's discouraging.

Rhoda

I think I'll take out some of my old drawings and draw over them and see what develops. It's easier for me to draw from my imagination when I'm not faced with solid white paper. It's less intimidating, and some of the marks from the old drawing act as catalysts for continuing.

G h it t a

If a model doesn't show up, I always have something I can work on. I'm always in the process of developing one concept or another.

Rhoda

Today I've been working on two fragmented "warrior" drawings. The depth of my work has evolved further from last week, even without the model. I'm struck by how much my drawing has progressed without specific reference to the model.

G h i 11 a

When we're working from a model, the model can give insight, but sometimes the insight comes from inside our hearts. The model, the light, the room, the medium, memory - all these factors make drawing fun.

SENSUALIZING EXPERIENCE Rhoda

I just don't have enough time to draw these days. I'm presenting a paper next month, and all my thoughts and creative energies are being used to finish it.

Ghitta

Distancing, both physically and psychologically, somehow diminishes the intensity of the perceptual experience. In drawing, sometimes this distance seems to produce an academic predictability - like old lessons remembered: "dark recedes and light comes forward," "cool recedes and warmth comes forward" - old cliches.

53

GESTURE

Rhoda

When I feel out of it, I try a closer, more immediate, tactile exploration. A sensuous, rather than an intellectual approach. That's what I aim for. My writing work these days seems to be diluting my drawing. I can't seem to keep both going at the same time.

G h i 11 a

I use the trick of psyching up, not just when we draw but every day.

Rhoda

I envy that optimistic quality in you, Ghitta. I start drawing and my feelings influence my work. I'm not always as "on" as you. It's so hot today. My warm skin and my discomfort stimulate my imagination to find a way of drawing the model's flesh.

Ghitta

We receive many other sensuous messages from our model, such as roundness, bone, stretch, melting - all kinds of stimuli! Those stimuli can also come from the weather, the light, or last night's dream.

Rhoda

Today the pervading sensation has to do with the weather. Spring is in the air - a change of season.

Ghitta

Do these observations relate to drawing the model, or is it sometimes an isolated awareness?

Rhoda

My mood and the excitement of spring or the wistfulness of autumn certainly affect how I see her and how I draw. Today I seek out the warm colours, unlike the grey tones of cooler days. But the storm isn't always outside, it's more within me.

Ghitta

We're talking about our personal awareness and how it enters our drawing. But I want to do something tangible! I'm going to wrap a cloth around her to help me find her again in space. Even the act of wrapping her helps me sensualize the experience and think of her in a spatial way. It isn't just seeing and imagining. It's sometimes projecting some humanness on her. Sometimes it's just turning a light on her shoulder that builds up a sensuous resonance in me. It's in the thinking, feeling, and drawing - and maybe ten other things we haven't thought of yet!

Rhoda

The touching, tactile element comes back over and over again. After all, it's one of the most primitive instincts between mother and child, and when I draw, I guess touching and closeness bring me closer to myself and to the model.

55

Painting is a very difficult thing. it absorbs the whole man. body and soul thus i have passed blindly many things which belong to real and political life. beckman, in theories of modern art, 187

GESTURE

G h i 11 a

This is the same spirit of recalling the primitive instinct of touching. We have to try to be innocent in order to respond to the world with wonder. We try to be open and responsive on a lot of fronts.

Rhoda

When I work with my patients, there is almost a physical touching when there is a shared insight. A similar connectedness happens in drawing when the line or colour truly captures the moment of awareness.

LIGHT AND DARK G h i 11 a

As winter approaches and the days get shorter, the light changes during the afternoon. I love it when the light fades and I have to really search out what interests me. I feel good about the changing quality of light in the room. The model's fragility and delicacy are so beautiful in this natural light. In the half-light there's an awkwardness in the beauty that I like. How about you?

Rhoda

Well, at first the darker it got, the more I simplified my work - the outline, the shapes, the pink flesh against the black robe - a kind of blocking out of the elements, not my usual scratching out and feeling around the figure the way I so often do.

G h i 11 a

I found that in a way what darkness did was reduce the space. I could fit the model into a shallow space. Sometimes when the lights are on, the space becomes more extensive. Today, in this half-light, there was a spaciousness - different from the negative space we've talked about.

Rhoda

Each new element we bring into the studio can be a catalyst. Actually, I missed the pillows from the other studio. It's important that each element add something.

DARKNESS IN THE STUDIO Rhoda

I'm not as comfortable drawing in the dark today. I seem to need to see more.

G h it t a

Sometimes I really don't want to see that much. On one level, I'm full of all the information I need - the subtleties and gestural ideas - these things are by now best intuited, although perception must be consistently fed by experience. I did a pretty academic drawing today - a bit too tight. I was able to give it variety because I wasn't dominated by the sight of it. After all, I could hardly see it!

57

VOLUME, PLANES, TONE, AND COLOUR This is an exercise in the use of tone (black and white) and volume. It's possible to see the model in various ways. Each of these exercises explores different ways of seeing. Look for top, side, and underneath planes, using black, white, and grey. Encourage the model to make herself or himself into a small, square form, all bunched up. This will simplify the problem. First, look for the major planes and then for the smaller planes, and try to transform your piece of paper into a volumetric surface. Keep re-examining the model. Overlap your drawings if you wish. Every square inch of your paper should be involved in the planes and volumes of your subject. Make studies of details from the same point of view. Draw hands and feet and heads from different angles. Adjust the lighting in the room to help you make a volumetric page. You can use colour from the same point of view. Assign a different colour for tops, sides, and underneaths. Once again, remember to transform your piece of paper into a volumetric field. The miracle will lie in this transformation. At first the edges of the planes may be sharp. You can fuse the edges when you are ready.

GESTURE

Rhoda

It's almost as if we've reversed roles. You're observing less; as the blackness descends I want to observe more. Something happened today that occurs periodically. I started drawing and felt that I was working quite sensitively - in touch with myself and with the model. I liked what I was doing. But somewhere in the middle I lost it, and I became automatic. I could blame it on the fact that I tried to push and pull the background forward by making it black. I blackened the paper when the room became dark - earlier it had been so sunny. I lost the figure, and that made me anxious. I lost the sensitivity, the delicacy with which I was working. Does that ever happen to you?

G h i 11 a

I tend to be careful and save what I've got, or put it away until I'm ready to make the next move. One of the things I noticed in our drawing as we were talking was that you said you wanted the page ' to be black, but in fact the page was grey. There seemed to be some disparity between what you wanted to do and what you actually did. That's the most natural thing. It happens often.

Rhoda

Yes. I wanted black and I went to grey, because I was scared! I feel that way sometimes. Occasionally, when I take the leap and just go for it, it's exciting. When I go half-way, I lose it. It's difficult to know when to take the leap and when not to be afraid of not knowing.

59

SHAPE, LINE, COLOUR Thoughtfully create four or five shapes on a piece of paper that has a "body" feeling (without being literal). Try drawing in lines or shapes on your page, using different media. This exercise is useful if shapes are "felt" shapes. Choose colours or tones that relate to this body content. Overlap the shapes, opaquely or transparently, until there is no white paper left. Explore one or two colours at a time. Do five or six of these exercises. Renew the shapes each time. Don't become automatic. Prepare a number of drawing media: brush, pen and ink, felt pens of different sizes, ball-point pen, rag dipped in ink. Have the model take twenty-five-minute poses. Use a different medium for each drawing. Look for shape and contour and a free, rhythmic approach. Let the medium guide you. A fine-line drawing may not fully use the page, and you may want to repeat your perceptions. A drawing done with a rag full of paint will reach outward and inward, and will fill up the page. Experiment with different media until you fill up on this idea of different kinds of lines. The above two exercises should take you a day each. On the third day, take one of your shape-developed pages and try a line drawing on it. Try different medium-line drawings on each of your shape-developed pages. If you change colours, there are an infinite number of combinations. Line can be contour. Colour can be expressive, rhythmic, decorative, spatial. Line, shape, colour, structure, composition, and organization are all expressive elements of art language. Another blind exercise will deal with the search for the feeling of space. Try painting with your hands, trying to create roundness, and then move behind them. See if you can use tactility to guide you. As a second exercise, open your eyes and use a brush or brushes to explore in colour. Volume and distance are proximities.

We know that we learn from perception. Can we learn from other art: from books, art exhibits, and so on? Try looking at art from periods other than our own. Looking at art magazines and going to all the current shows can make you overly sophisticated. It's hard to avoid "style" and to remain true to your own view and experience. Can you strike a compromise between being innocent and fresh and being au courant with all the art trends? I like to "hide out" and then, several times a year, go to New York or downtown Montreal or the library and take a good long look. After these binges, I try to empty myself of trends and what's "in." Do what's good for you!

TIME FOR REFLECTION Rhoda

I like to spend time looking at my drawings. I think about the way I've been working and try to understand what else may have occurred at the time I was drawing.

G h i 11 a

I look over my work - not every week, but after a few months. What did you find when you looked at several months' work?

Rhoda

I tried to distinguish between the drawings that said something to me, those that worked for me, and those that were more cliched and automatic. It was amazing. I could remember what I was feeling the days I was working. I was struck by the intensity and the power of the drawings of the male model, even though I often felt discouraged. I think, like many people, I'm very self-critical. But the re-evaluation was exciting.

G h i 11 a

I have the illusion of innocence and starting from scratch each time. In reality, there is a connection between one month's drawings and another, and this becomes apparent when I look at several months' work. Although many of the drawings seem different one from another, there is, of course, a common thread.

Rhoda

For me, many of my drawings are like a moment in time. Sometimes a series of such moments completes a theme. When I put them together, I get a more complete image. It's more the way things progress over time.

G h i 11 a

We have been drawing together for several years. Do our drawings change over a long period of time, from model to model and from mood to mood?

Rhoda

I can't say that it goes along a simple, straight line of change and development. It seems to go back and forth. I move to a new way of conceptualizing, try new things, and then often I go back to the way I drew before, but in a more layered way - more deeply charged, perhaps.

G h i 11 a

In one case, when my drawing seemed to change, it was because of a conscious decision to try to change. Do you remember when we moved from the other studio to this one? Another time I was influenced by the light that came sharply into the studio. I looked for light patterns. Each time I try to imagine myself completely innocent. Of course, I know that I'm not innocent.

63

TIME

FOR

REFLECTION

Rhoda

Our work is really a combination of our inner and outer space and the situation in which we find ourselves. Even though we have the technique through years of drawing, it isn't only the technique that enables the connection. Often I really don't know what will appear on the page. There's no system by which to know it in advance. You have to live the experience and be open.

G h i 11 a

I have a somewhat different image of it. I seem to be researching a technique of "covering" the model with my sensitivity. This week a pen served that function for me. Another time, I wanted to make a very specific drawing, with the feeling of actually hovering over him and his maleness, and a wash which I moved around seemed to serve that idea of "hovering" for me.

Rhoda

Yes, and then there's the unexpected in the creative process! I was sitting in a restaurant the other day, and I was looking at a man across from me. He had the most intense face, with sad eyes and deep creases. I had the desire to draw this male head. It had a lot of the emotion and suffering I could identify with - my own suffering or his. In this case, it didn't matter whether he was male or female. I like the drawing that that memory stimulated. My drawing today reflected other memories. When I was driving in from the country yesterday, the scenery was exquisite - the black night, the snow on the ground, red leaves - and as it got darker and darker, it was almost mystical. I think that having the model lying down today stimulated me to think about the landscape. The figure became the landscape. There were no preconceived ideas, no didactic elements, just memories.

G h i 11 a

We were in the country too on Saturday, and I also found the landscape of great interest - the first sudden snow - but it didn't seem to enter my work from the model today. I deliberately tried to empty myself of associations. But there was one strong idea: drawing rather than painting. Maybe something linear in the first snow landscape suggested drawing to me. Today I really tried different kinds of drawing: pens, pencils, conte and dirty rag, graphite, the side of a crayon. Sometimes, without intending to, I slipped into washes to cover up and to push areas back and forth. Mostly, I was responding to the demands of drawing with a model. I expected to be almost academic, but in fact I was inventing and changing. What I discovered was the differences between modelled forms and flattened-out sections and the way the line pulls away from the tones.

65

TIME

FOR

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Rhoda

Because of logistics, I had to pin my drawing on the wall, with my back to the model. So in fact I was stimulated by my own drawing, and it led me to abstract more of the shapes. Subsequently, I turned around and faced him. Then I also thought, in my fantasy, that he looked like a fallen warrior. My drawing seems so fragmented - it almost makes me think of war and snow - whereas your drawing has a serene quality.

G h i 11 a

I don't know if my drawing came out of my particular feeling. I suggested that he use the corner space and pretend that a cubicle of space was his. He dropped his head, stretched his arm out, and seemed to really use that space in a dynamic and sensual way.

Rhoda

When I worked with my back to the model, my drawing stimulated me to move further away. It became more relevant than he was.

Ghitta

We continue to talk about the demands the drawing makes upon the artist. I know that as I worked in what I thought was an intimately faithful way of seeing the model, I began to find that consistency of approach was of no use. I had to change the darks and the lights despite appearances. Push and pull - it's impossible for me to be completely passive. I have to invent as I go. These may not work out the same way next time. If we come in an open way - not preprogrammed, using our memories and ideas - the language of drawing will change.

Rhoda

It's interesting that you said that you deliberately tried to not paint today, and I felt that I was unconsciously bursting into painting - moving from drawing into a more painterly quality. Not premeditated: it exploded from me. I feel that I'm moving from one stage to another in my drawing, maybe into painting. Sometimes I feel the need to go tentatively with a pencil or ink. But when I wanted energy, I worked large and broke into colour. It was exciting.

OVERWORKING/UNDERWORKING Ghitta

It's important to remember that we are not making "pictures." We bring lots of ideas to this situation, some of which were thought about before and some of which we "receive" as we're drawing from the model. Unless we're really lucky, we're not creating great art.

67

Heretofore pictures moved towards completion by progression. Each day brought something new. A picture was a sum of additions. With me a picture is a sum of destructions. I make a picture and proceed to destroy it. But in the end nothing is lost; the red I have removed from one part shows up in another. Picasso, in Ghiselan, The Creative Process, 56

TIME

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REFLECTION

These are study sessions. In fact, each of us has to play two roles, the artist and the critic, within the whole process. We've each got to step back from time to time. We have to really look at and assess what we've done so far. Rhoda

It's difficult to learn to be one's own critic. When is a drawing finished? The overworking and the underworking is a struggle. The balance between them is the secret.

G h i 11 a

Only experience can tell us.

Rhoda

When I become impatient and lose my sensitivity, I become automatic and bold without thinking, without feeling. Then I become dissatisfied, and I have to start all over again. It's a constant need to reach within myself and also to reach outward - to keep the intensity all along.

Ghitta

I think we have to be "on" all the time. One can't for a moment say, "Oh, it won't matter here." One has to be sensitized through the whole process, not just at the beginning or the end. That's what being creative is.

Rhoda

That's difficult to sustain! Some people maintain this feeling by using music to shut out the rest of the world.

G h i 11 a

I enjoyed the Diebenkorn drawings at the Museum of Modern Art. I particularly liked the drawings he did of his model and the objects in his house or studio. I felt that there was a good balance between sensitized perception and his idea of what drawing is. They were all of a "technique" that reminded me of Matisse. He used smudged black chalk and black line over it and plenty of white spaces. I preferred these drawings to the more abstract preparations for later paintings.

Rhoda

So did I, but I didn't relate to the abstract ones. They seemed to lack the soul or the feeling from within that I feel in the drawings of the model. I like the way Diebenkorn placed his figures on the page in his studies of the model. He used cropping to advantage. Some of his preparatory drawings for his later paintings look like diagrams, although the actual paintings are wonderful.

69

TIME

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G h i 11 a

The key word you used was "diagram." When drawings become diagrammatic, they become like a phone message and lose their immediacy, their potential expressiveness. The notebooks of people like Picasso, Rembrandt, Degas are wonderfully personal insights into their ways of seeing and feeling, of inventing and conceiving. Pearlstein's drawings do that too. They could be influenced by photography or by Japanese prints. The notebooks of people like Rembrandt, Degas, and Picasso are wonderful. The intention may not have been to make great art, but they are now great art. Drawing is like an extension of the hand, a simple form of communication. When it hits a high point, it's art!

Rhoda

Matisse said that drawing is the most personal form of expression; painting is more distant. I wonder if that's why I have so much trouble breaking into it. When I change into painting, there's a less direct expression. The painting stimulates more from the page and less from inside me. Drawing is more intense for me. Painting requires more technique and more decisions.

G h it t a

I don't feel that way. Painting is more of a concept made from what I feel, whereas when I draw, I'm responding to something else, something external. There are two different forms, with a potential for expression in both.

Rhoda

It's personal for each artist. The creativity in each of us and the works we make are endless discoveries and surprises.

BEING BLOCKED AND UNBLOCKING G h i 11 a

When I was younger, there was a lot of stop and go in my work. I never knew whether I stopped because I was depressed or I got depressed because I was blocked. I thought, "Will I ever paint again?"

Rhoda

This is the classic fear of every creative individual. But for me, my sadness or depression often stimulates me to draw. It's the feeling of not having anything to say or not being able to express myself that stops me.

G h i 11 a

You give a lot to your patients. That may deplete you.

Rhoda

What about your teaching, Ghitta?

71

EXERCISE We compare perception, conception. Start with the sense of couch. Take an object, but don't look at it. Draw or paint through your sense of touch, without ever looking at the object in your hand. Then draw it for a while as you look at it. Then compare the visual and the caccile drawings. Visual investigation: continuing to use the object, start an associations!-drawing idea through change of scale, different views of the object, and so on. Experiment with cutting the page and reassembling it. Make a three-dimensional form, using the ob|cct as subject, and then change it back to two dimensions. At this time, start a notebook to record your perceptions and ideas. This is very important. Do six small drawings using the object; add assoaational

ideas

to

the

theme, such as a figure you are studying at the same time. In two large drawings, explore both figurative and abstract modes. Continue your note-book and "object" references. Studies on colour, the model, and composition will run parallel to all these activities.

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G h it t a

If I don't do it too much, I'm stimulated by it. Otherwise, I'm drained.

Rhoda

So it's a constant putting out and taking in.

G h i 11 a

I'd say that, in general, people are always putting out. Parents with children, children with parents, on the job, other commitments. Maybe we need to take in more visually and associatively. We should be making visual connections all the time.

Rhoda

The model's late! Let's go for a walk up St Lawrence Boulevard and try to nourish ourselves. I remember the last time we walked together. I kept admiring the trees and you kept looking at the shadows. Now I see the shadows too.

G h i 11 a

There's a street fair on. Here's some Spanish pottery. Seeing it in the sunlight on the rough wooden tables is marvellous! It feels like Spain for a moment.

Rhoda

The glorious, sunny colours and the memory of the Spanish countryside! It was mystical. Look at these wonderful woven bags all those shapes pulled together.

G h i 11 a

They're from Greece and Africa. There's such an international feeling! When we go back inside, let's look at some El Greco prints, and maybe some early Greek drawings.

Rhoda

But let's continue outside for a while. Oh, look at the row of filled green garbage bags. I have a real desire to do a series of them one day. Is that crazy? Some with the contents spilling out and other bulging and closed.

G h i 11 a

Nothing's crazy - to each his own! I love the dappled sidewalk and the shadows of iron railings. I'm storing up images that I may or may not use. In any case, all this excites me and fills me up!

Rhoda

Being outside provides such visual stimulation - and it frees us up physically and enlarges our visual context.

G h i 11 a

Let's talk about some other ways we can help ourselves unblock. I love to read poetry, which removes me from my usual stream of associations.

Rhoda

Music, memories, and dreams are wonderful sources of inspiration for me. But I very often create my own still life. I need something concrete, even though I may not use it.

73

TIME

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Gbitta

Using found objects for inspiration is exciting. The best thing to help us unblock is an idea, a symbol, a myth, or a moment of personal insight. When we get blocked while drawing from the model, how can we see her afresh?

Rhoda

I try looking at her reflection in the mirror and changing my position. Perhaps I'll work on the floor or pin my paper to the wall.

G h i 11 a

We've talked about changing materials, scale, and light. Another way for me to gain insight is to look at my work early in the morning, so that I surprise myself. Problems glare at me and I unblock!

NEGATIVE SPACE Rhoda

Today I disciplined myself to examine negative spaces. The figures emerge from the page. The negative spaces I picked up make as much of an impact as the figures themselves. I looked at the spaces between the model's arms and legs, as much as I looked at the figure itself. I looked behind her neck and around her - in and out. I am more interested in the negative spaces than in the movement or gestures of the model.

G h i 11 a

I think that the negative spaces have to be integrated into the concept of the space and volumes. Negative and positive are like breathing in and out. Sometimes the concentration on the negative space can take your concentration away from other things you are looking for. And sometimes there is too much of an arbitrary simplification.

Rhoda

Negative and positive involves thinking about the whole page - the transformation of the page.

Ghitta

I've been thinking of the word "transformation." One can't say, "I'm going to do a marvellous drawing today," or "I will make great transformations today." It's something that might occur or it may never occur. I see a lot of paintings of the colouring-book variety: empty, no transformation at all. We start with almost nothing, and we try to make it into something.

Rboda

My work seems to be more a transformation of my feelings onto the page. My perception and understanding of the model follow afterwards.

75

CHAOS Continue to use the first piece of paper that has been contextualized and on which you have drawn your first perceptions, the summation of your senses. Continue to work on the same drawing. Look hard and see what you can discover about the model. There will be planes, lines, bumps, spaces, hard and soft, and you will have to struggle to find ways to express these perceptions. Allow everything you sense and perceive to find expression. If there is a sudden difference of level, express it. There are no systems for expression. You should first find the need, and then you can find out how to make it work. Don't be afraid to try different ways of drawing side by side. This may appear chaotic. It is an exercise in perception and in ways to draw as a result of those perceptions. Try lines going across the forms instead of around them. Contrast the marks of a pen and a brush. Try dark for hard and light for soft. Try reversing these. Use a rag to fuse tones and a pen line to pull away. There are no rules. Try to deliberately cut the body up into different points of interest. Develop different parts of the page. How long can you tolerate the chaos? Use it!

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REFLECTION

G h i 11 a

We are using the word "transformation" in a general way, as "experience transformed." It may not enter art. We'll see when we look at our work if it does ...

CHAOS G h it t a

We are bombarded by so many sensations in our ordinary life, every day. When we try to focus on drawing with the model, the chaos of observations and infinite choices is often confusing. Let's talk about this feeling of chaos and how we can use it to advantage by making a few choices and yet being open enough for the perceptions we have to influence us.

Rhoda

As you know, Ghitta, my mood counts for a lot, but I'm trying to sensitize myself to the model and to my surroundings. When I find the situation too chaotic, I tend to isolate a part of the body to study. This seems to work as a starting point, shutting off the bombardment you mentioned.

Ghitta

I tend to look for a "theme" within the model, such as "the model and her immediate space" or "containment," by trying to be close to her. I want to find an idea.

Rhoda

Remember our model's purple hat and multi-coloured shawl? There was so much colour that I couldn't draw her. So I had to work in black and white and ignore it, or it would have been an abstract painting. I guess that wouldn't have been so bad, either!

Ghitta

Chaos need not be a negative factor. My first gropings are often "chaotic," a maelstrom of beginnings and tentative markings. Then, after shaky beginnings, I struggle to find my "sense" of the experience.

Rhoda

Our studio is a haven of security for me. I really shut off the rest of the world, and I'm ready to immerse myself. I particularly like it when we listen to our favourite music. But are we talking about the chaos in our head or the chaos outside?

Ghitta

Back to our favourite theme song! The inner world versus the external world.

Rhoda

The chaos can come from both!

77

COMPOSITION AND ORGANIZATION Look through art books or go to an exhibition, and see if you can recognize these compositional arrangements.

TYPES OF COMPOSITION AND ORGANIZATION

TIME

FOR

REFLECTION

BEING SELECTIVE Rhoda

For so long, I started my work with a wash drawing and then I worked line into it. Now I have many new approaches.

G h it t a

Many people start with an outline, then they often use "shadows" against the line. Changing materials, starting dark, or actually painting can be refreshing.

Rhoda

When I allow myself to start more provocatively, then I use my oil pastels. I sometimes dissolve the colour in turpentine, other times I love the intensity of the pure colour. After using black and white for so long, the colour is a relief!

G h i 11 a

When I started to draw this morning, I was very aware of the light and dark in the room. Later, the sun broke into the room. I was forced to change my approach. I needed to start in black and white and then later switch to colour. The past few weeks, I've been influenced by doing etchings. It has guided me into drawing scratchily - and sometimes on a smaller scale.

Rhoda

Today I've used the white oil pastel and I scratch it out with coloured pencils and conte sticks.

G h i 11 a

The technique we use can come from our materials or from a memory of an unrelated activity - like drawing in the snow.

Rhoda

I often think of hard and soft: from pen to wash or from the soft pastels to the hard crayons.

Ghitta

It can be the hard or soft of the model or the materials, or it can be hard or soft of the picture itself. I know the element of selection is crucial.

Rhoda

Today I would like to draw the curve of her neck and shoulders. I had to walk around and select what was really crucial to me and hope that it's relevant to my drawing. I just want to repeat and repeat that curve. Sometimes the parts make up the whole. Other times I have to move on.

G h i 11 a

For you, "selection" means finding a "theme" with the model. I may find the light and dark patterns a theme.

Rhoda

What I was describing with my repetition of the curves suggests a rhythm on the page. Maybe that's my selected theme.

79

NEGATIVE SPACES: A NEW AWARENESS Any free-standing object has space around it. If you make marks on a page, all the space between those marks is negative space. The model offers a good vehicle for the study of negative space. Remember, you are always trying to transform a piece of paper into a "body" idea. Start drawing the model the space around and behind her or him. These spaces can be very dark, or made up of vertical or horizontal lines, or rubbed grey, and so on. The spaces around the body and within it will be different. You may discover a very tight space between the arm and the side of the body. The space between the legs may be tighter still. The space behind the neck and head may seem unenclosed. Look for different kinds of negative space. Try to accentuate these spaces in different ways until you really become aware of them. After a while, these spaces will integrate with the forms. Negative and positive will form a unity. Your perception will sensitize you to negative spaces. Try drawing the forms in one technique and colour and the negative spaces in another technique and colour. If the spaces are enclosed, the technique will be different from that used for open spaces. What happens to the edges of these spaces? When the forms and spaces finally integrate, you will be at a new level of perception.

DISCOVERING OUR

INTENTIONS:

O u r Review o f O u r

Work

Rhoda

Today we spread out all our work on the floor and reviewed it. At the same time, we chose the drawings we might use for this book. It's interesting, Ghitta, as we look back and think of our discussions and how we both draw. It appeared that I put the emphasis on my feelings and that you've been more influenced by the light and dark and the shapes. But when I look at this drawing I did when I felt excited and bold - "Woman Emerging," it's called - I see that the light in the room did influence me. It was a particularly sunny day. The shimmer of wash I used that day represented the sun streaming into the room, if I remember correctly. So I can see that the surroundings do have more influence on my work than I thought.

Ghitta

So many things influence us - and anyone who starts to draw. First, there's the history of the person's style, the systems of drawing that the person has developed. Then there's the physical surroundings : the light, the comfort or discomfort, the role of colour. The way we feel influences us too - excitement or hostility, or whatever.

Rhoda

We certainly agree on that last point! I am so aware of the affect and history because that is the very essence of the work I do. We both work using a different vocabulary. What about style? We've talked about my jagged, intense line, which seems to permeate all of my drawings, though a few that have a more spatial quality. We each give these elements different priorities. When I use colour, it seems to emphasize spaces. You seem to be more interested in space in your work.

Ghitta

Yes, I often struggle to express the space. It's always an attempt to integrate my perception of the model and the immediate space around her. I always seek that integration. Rhoda, when you look through a group of your drawings, can you remember the circumstances of the particular day the drawing was done?

Rhoda

Yes, I very often can. I'm thinking about two series I did: the "fallen warrior" and a series of male nudes. While working on the fallen warrior, I was thinking of the first snowfall. I remember standing in the studio and pinning the paper on the wall. The drawing experience was more a memory of the weekend - the snow and the trees - and so I could be free to abstract the drawing. For the series of the male figure, I remember the spontaneity and the quickness with which I drew. It flowed right out of me. I could finally identify with the model, his masculine, powerful self. I remember lying on the floor drawing. How excited I was!

83

My attitude towards drawing right now is a more elaborate attitude than I had earlier in my career. I am not as easily satisfied now as I was then. I need more of a full blown drawing for myself now. My attitude towards drawing is not necessarily about drawing. It's about making the best kind of image I can make, it's about talking as clearly as I can. I am much more comfortable making these elaborate, rich drawings and prints than I am with painting. Dine, Prints 1970-1977, 28

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

G h i 11 a

I think I recognize work that I did, not so much from a memory of my feeling about the work that day, but from a recognition of strategies that I used. For instance, the first time I tried out a fragmentation concept - of twofigureson a page - I tried to make the tension between the two figures important. I remember another drawing where I decided to make a hard shape for one of the figures and keep the rest of the drawing soft. It created a kind of cave in the middle of the drawing. These strategies were more important to me than what I was feeling at the particular time the drawings were done.

Rhoda

As the page emerges and develops, some of these other ideas you speak about also come into play. I remember when new materials - the black pressed charcoal, the oil pastels, a new ink - have stimulated me to try different ways of expressing myself and relating to the model.

G h i 11 a

One day I had a piece of black paper, and I couldn't imagine how to start. Suddenly I got an idea: the light hitting the edge of the model. I'm so eager to learn from the model. I tried to block everything else out, except the inspiration of the model. The model is my source of information. I make preparations, but for what I don't exactly know - for the unknown. I'm talking about my research. In looking back over my drawings, I remember the steps, rather than how I was feeling.

Rhoda

For me, research is not only looking at the model and trying different approaches, but also studying other artists' work: the context of their ideas and their ways of looking at the world.

G h it t a

Through drawing and through studying, we gather a lot of information. Sometimes it's about how we're feeling that day, and very often it's about the language of art, such as spatial concepts and negative space. And there are areas in which the model can inspire us. Our information gathering is in these areas.

Rhoda

There's research, response, memory, and, best of all, there's the moment of discovery. But if you say, "If only I could do the same thing today that gave me my last success," that's the kiss of death. You just can't do that. What's important is my response and insight while I'm drawing, and that elusive sense of mystery that makes art.

85

ART MATERIALS You can draw with just about anything. Try a stick dipped in paint, the edge of a stone through wax crayon, or a handful of grass. A rag or Q-tip dipped in a pot of paint is useful. I like an old-fashioned pen nib in a holder and a little bottle of ink. Fill a shoe box with pencils, ballpoint pens, fountain pens, felt pens and markers, conte crayons, graphite stick almost anything. (Leave the charcoal at the store!) Water-colour crayons are easy to use. Oil crayons can be mixed with turpentine. You can try chalk and pastels. Try to invent and discover other materials to use in your drawings. I strongly recommend the use of acid-free paper. Newsprint should be used only for throw-aways. This means laying in a stock of Arches or Rives or any other paper that is acid-free. Japan Carlyle is a machine-made, acid-free paper that is a little less expensive. It is important to ask around and find your source. Speak to other artists. Check the art supply store at your local university. Find out about co-op discounts. Go into art stores and look for slightly damaged sheets. Try coloured papers. You will need a piece of fibreboard to clip your drawing to. Don't forget rags and a jar for water.

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

MATERIALS, ROUND 2 Rhoda

Today I have this gorgeous handmade paper. I thought it would be an inspiration to me. I thought about it for weeks, but it's really difficult to work on. I'm amazed at how much the paper can affect the quality of the drawing and how I was seduced by its lush quality.

G h i 11 a

I'm familiar with that paper you bought. It's very thirsty paper, and whatever you put down gets soaked in. It's funny. I knew you were going to work on it, so I decided to "gesso" some paper and use acrylic on it. In a way I had the same battle that you had: the texture was too dominant, and it gave me trouble.

Rhoda

Yes, in my case the texture was fighting with my line. I tried using oil pastel, and I felt it was frustrating too, because the paper overpowered all my materials.

G h i 11 a

I think I'll work with Arches paper, an acid-free paper that doesn't impose too much. I hope that I can make a marriage between the surface of the paper and what I put on it - an interaction between me and the paper.

Rhoda

That's what I missed today. The surface came between whatever I was feeling and the model and the drawing. It interfered!

Ghitta

We can see how materials can fight us. Coming to peace with our materials is a blessing. But often we feel urged to try new things - to change and become more exciting, or whatever. We can run afoul, fighting the medium instead of integrating it. Perhaps that's only half the truth. While the medium in drawing - be it pen and ink or conte crayons or working with a rag on various kinds of paper - can influence how we work. The choice of paper is infinite: colour and texture abound. Sometimes there are pieces of grass and flowers in the paper. Usually I have trouble working with it. The texture is too dominant. Sometimes it already exists as an object.

Rhoda

It doesn't quite resolve my difficulties. I thought the paper would free me up, but instead it tightened me up. I was wondering if I should bring in my oil paints next time to see how they'll work on the paper.

87

GESTURE AND SPACE EXERCISE

The chosen theme is an enclosed space or hole. Look, as always, within your own body for the theme: a cupped hand, an explored lap, a crooked arm. Take a moment and feel out your body gesturally for the feeling of an enclosed space. Beginning with your own body, start drawing in a detailed, sensitive contour line. Explore the shape of the hole: make cross-contour lines in different materials, tones, thicknesses. For several hours, use yourself as subject. Then start externalizing the theme: corners of the room, an open door, an open drawer. Find your theme. You will be sensitizing yourself visually and tactilely. Do not sentimentalize. Choose a new size and kind of paper or pad. Bring conte, acrylic paints, brushes, pens and pencils. Use objects from home that represent the concept of a hole. Consider filling the hole. What does this mean emotionally? Create a hole by placing rocks together. Arrange drapery around these forms. Usfe a heavy jacket to create a hole or a series of holes.

DISCOVERING OUR

INTENTIONS

G h i 11 a

I also have a weakness for beautiful paper, but usually I can't find a way to use it.

Rhoda

I've used so many materials. When I look at my drawings and see my work spread out on the floor, I sometimes wonder why I choose what I do. The materials can help express the mood and feeling, or they can impede the work.

G h i 11 a

I guess we have to present ourselves with a lot of material and then be very selective. Lately, you seem to like to combine a fine line with heavy oil pastels. Your use of contrasting materials gives a certain dynamic to your drawings.

Rhoda

You seem to be more comfortable with wash and some kind of conte.

G h it t a

The pen doesn't seem to work on the paper I gessoed - or on any other surface either!

Rhoda

I've been using pen nibs and india ink to draw with. I found that this medium worked when I was drawing on the floor but not when I was standing at my drawing table.

G h i 11 a

I've noticed that too. I guess the ink runs down but not up - especially these old-fashioned pen nibs, which were used long ago at school desks.

Rhoda

I've had problems finding a good water-soluble black ink. The art supply store sold me what was supposed to be water-soluble ink, but it's more indelible than what I want. And sometimes the black water-soluble ink turns blue when I wash it out. I hate that!

G h i 11 a

I guess we'll have to do more research on this. We tend to stay with one or two tried and true art shops.

Rhoda

I've also been using thick oil pastels, which are very greasy, with turpentine. I like that. Last year I bought another brand, and they were too dry and not nearly as comfortable or rich as these.

G h i 11 a

Since I paint with acrylic paints, which are water-related, it's natural for me to continue using them when I draw. I often add another water-soluble item - water-colour sticks - and sometimes conte crayon.

89

What I want to show in my work is the idea which hides itself behind so-called reality, I am seeking for the bridge which leans from the visible to the invisible through reality. It may sound paradoxical, but it is in fact reality which forms the mystery of our existence. What helps me most in this task is the penetration of space. Height, width, and depth are the three phenomena which I must transfer into one plane to form the abstract surface of the picture, and thus to protect myself from the infinity of space. My figures come and go, suggested by fortune or misfortune. I try to fix them divested of their apparent accidental quality. One of my problems is to find the self. Beckman, in Modern Artists on Arf.m

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

Rhoda

I've been mixing oil and water, and that gets me into difficulty.

G h it t a

A good rule of thumb is "fat over lean": first lean - water-based then, if desired, fat or oil medium.

Rhoda

That's why pen, conte, and wash are difficult over my greasy oil pastel. If I want to wash out, I use turpentine.

G h i 11 a

Today I used a skinny one-haired brush to draw with.

Rhoda

Do you like that better than using a pen? I've missed the wash and pencil that I had been using along with my pen. The oil pastels are taking over, and it just doesn't seem to be authentic for me. Sometimes, as our drawing evolves, what has worked at one time is no longer meaningful at another time.

G h i 11 a

The creative process includes the choices we make: paper, materials, time of day, lights on or off, and so on. Habits are to be avoided!

Rhoda

We've often talked about how difficult it is to come with preconceived ideas, wishing to repeat a previous response or pattern. I keep thinking about the more conceptual work I was doing four or five weeks ago. My drawings seemed more abstract. Now I'm unable to break into that. I'm too literal. I can't seem to leave the actual shapes and go into the forms I was creating before.

G h i 11 a

I think we're into the old subject of why we come to draw from the model. The model imposes on us.

Rhoda

Today I'm too involved with her outer forms. All weekend long, I was looking at the white snow. There was a series of criss-crossed lines made by the barbed-wire fences and their shadows. When I'm free and loose, I can abstract the shape of the figure using just parts of the model's body, as well as my memories of these crisscrossings. The freedom I feel allows me to do that, but it doesn't always happen!

Ghitta

I don't think that the word "abstract" has much meaning for me when I'm drawing from the model. My drawing is a celebration of my perception. I don't like to imagine myself in another circumstance while I'm drawing from the model. She's there for me to relate to.

91

DISCOVERING OUR

INTENTIONS

Rhoda

Perhaps I just don't feel as involved with the model. I use myself more.

G h i 11 a

In certain drawings, other ideas enter besides the model. The drawing takes on its own life. What does the drawing need? What's my next move? I don't know beforehand.

Rhoda

It sounds as if we're talking about the same things - ourselves, the model, and our surroundings - a continuous relationship. When I begin to draw, I may be inspired by my own thoughts or by the model. Many things interest me. Today the sunlight streaming into the studio and the presence of the new model stimulated something from within. As I continue to work, I respond to the page as much as to these other sources.

G h i 11 a

That's a good point. Sometimes when we take different positions, we forget that we have the evidence on the page. It's a combination of all of those things.

FREE ASSOCIATION Rhoda

Today I'm drawing almost in a free-associational way. I find a part of the body that holds a particular fascination for me: the curve above the head. Another figure emerges alongside the model. Was it stimulated by the comments of the model, her feelings of loneliness? Or is it my own frame of mind? I walk around, I go to the back of her. I am interested in the curve in her back. I work it into the page. I continue working from behind as the page evolves - almost a series of impressions, of discovery. I wonder if it will make a whole or if it is a fragmentary journey for today.

G h i 11 a

I'm sympathetic to your immersion in the model, as well as your associations. This richness of approach denies "distance." I try, through preparation - dreaming, fantasizing, a close association with the model - to achieve this immersion you describe.

Rhoda

It was difficult last week, when I kept on covering my drawing with the white oil pastel. It distanced me. The drawing of the figure got lost and re-emerged - a kind of disappearing and rediscovery. The white oil pastel was the culprit. And why did I cover her? Was it a time when I was trying to hide from something? What was I afraid? Was I disguising something?

93

PERSONAL THEME The concept of a personal theme can be introduced. Look for any of the following thematic ideas on which to build your drawing: interlocking forms perforations (forms with spaces) rhythmic patterns and textural contrasts forms with strong movement and direction (horizontal, vertical, diagonal) bridging relationships through tension, touching, space, line Think of this stage as an emotional one. Try to emotionalize your theme through scale and colour, contrasts and drama. Line, shape, colour, structure, composition, and organization are all expressive elements of art language. Another blind exercise will deal with the search for the feeling of space. Try painting with your hands, trying to create space, and then move behind them (space). See if you can use tactility to guide you. As a second exercise, open your eyes and use a brush or brushes to explore in colour. Volume and distance are proximities.

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

G h i 11 a

One can become too analytical about meaning and motives. Perhaps only in retrospect, after many months of work, can we understand these underlying factors.

Rhoda

I think that our drawings are clues to ourselves. I sometimes conceal and cover up. I just finished reading James Lord's Portrait of an Artist, where he describes Giacometti's tortured way of painting. He was painting Lord's portrait. This was a never-ending process of covering up and beginning again, doing and undoing. Reading about Giacometti's profound sense of insecurity was reassuring to me.

G h i 11 a

I read this book too, and I found it infinitely painful - almost too painful. Fortunately it was a slim little book, and it did not take days to read. It seemed to me that Giacometti reached his centre quite early on. It surprised me that he didn't stay with it.

Rhoda

As I look at my drawings, I perceive a struggle to achieve, a certain depth, because I want a feeling of truth. Sometimes impatience makes me destroy what has been done. Things I don't like shouldn't become mistakes, they should become history. In this way I preserve my perceptions.

G h it t a

In a drawing I didn't like from last week, I turned a standing figure and made it lie down. The figure can begin to float, an associational idea can become a focus - birth, drifting, and so on. The drawing almost leaves the model and becomes its own subject, in this case, from birth to erotica.

KEEPING THE RHYTHM G h i 11 a

Even if I'm not in the mood to draw, I feel committed - to you, Rhoda, to the model, and, most importantly, to myself. So many things can interfere: other pleasures, other work, distractions.

Rhoda

It's even more difficult when art is not one's full-time profession. At times, I find it exciting to thrust myself into drawing and leave the more cerebral part behind. But then there are other times when the wrench is painful. I think that being committed to drawing with another person keeps the momentum going. This is most important, because in our lives there are so many pulls and obligations. There's also the question of becoming discouraged, and of too much time elapsing between drawing days. I sometimes worry that I'll never be able to draw again!

95

I have a clear view of 12 years of the history of my inner self. First the cramped self, that self with big blinkers, then the disappearance of the blinkers and the self, now gradually the reemergence of a self without blinkers. Klee, Diaries, 260

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

G h i 11 a

I've certainly had those feelings. The only way I know to beat them is to become obsessional, to never let a day go by without actually drawing or painting.

Rhoda

That's difficult in my life. But it amazes me how much my visual perception has deepened over the years, how many images I see that I want to transpose or record. Sometimes, when I'm at a concert, I have a desire to draw the sounds I hear. One has to do - to draw it - not fantasize about it. I wonder if it's lack of time, my inhibitions, or my fears of putting these images onto paper - or is it my fear of exposure that stops me?

G h it t a

I have four drawing notebooks: one for theme ideas and teaching ideas; one for fast-drawn notes in a car, on a train, or in a crowd; one for landscape or other studies, such as rushing water; and one for figure studies. I take these with me to the appropriate places. It means that I'm always plugged in. It keeps up the rhythm. Sometimes I get a flash of an idea.

Rhoda

I'm always jotting down ideas or thoughts for my writing. Perhaps I should do this for my drawing, as you do, to keep up the continuity. Drawing from the model has prepared us to keep notebooks. We can take our notebooks to concerts, to the country, in the metro, parks, restaurants, even at home. Get into the spirit of looking. Make our perceptions work for us. It's amazing what ideas we can find by being alive to gestures and shapes.

G h i 11 a

Your friends should know that a notebook is the most precious gift for people like you and me.

B E I N G C R I T I C A L AND

SELF- CRI T I CAL

Rhoda

I've discovered that when I'm drawing, I have a sense of confidence and excitement - little fear - but when I look at my work at the end of that day, I become hypercritical. It's only when I look at it a couple of months later that my optimistic sense of excitement returns.

G h i 11 a

I think that your subjective and objective views are separated. When you draw, you are all feeling and subjectivity. When you return in a few months, you're more objective. I tend to have my subjective and objective feelings closer together. I'm critical almost as I go. I lose myself and find myself very quickly.

97

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

Rhoda

Is that because of your experience as a teacher? Or are you generally less self-critical?

G h i 11 a

I'm easier on myself from moment to moment, but when I go through my work at a later date, I demand more of myself. I hope to rediscover my own intention. Otherwise I am just my own mirror.

Rhoda

I often start with one intention and, before I know it, something else has replaced it, so I guess something unknown creeps in.

G h i 11 a

I try to see if I am able to create some hidden dimension - maybe a hidden gesture! This is mysterious and vague. And yet almost simultaneously I may want to be analytical.

Rhoda

Sometimes my feelings swamp me. It can be beauty or chaos. But being overly intellectual has other dangers!

Ghitta

Rhoda, do you think we can simultaneously play the roles of artist and critic while we're working?

Rhoda

I think the two processes are often happening at the same time. When I step back to look at my work, I change modes. And when I look at my work again later, I can see it in a different way, sometimes more critically and sometimes more accepting.

Ghitta

It's hard enough to be self-critical.

Rhoda

And even more difficult to criticize each other.

Ghitta

The human dilemma.Of course, there are occasional glimpes of each other's work as we are drawing, and the occasional comment. These come spontaneously and naturally. But it's harder to speak so personally to each other about the other's work just as we're drawing.

Rhoda

So I guess we have to wait for the right-seeming moments. Sometimes your comments are a welcome intrusion, whereas at other times, when I'm so immersed, they are difficult for me. It's interesting that many times when we talk immediately following drawing, we are often too vulnerable - perhaps regressed - and our exchange is strained and sometimes painful. Our nerve endings are so exposed, and prevent us from reaching a creative discussion.

99

It is not the how of painting but the why. To imitate a style would be a little like teaching a tone of voice or a personality. Shahn, The Shape of Content, 123

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

G h i 11 a

I find it hard to suddenly change modes of expression: from sense perception, from visual thinking, from willing chaos, to the mode of articulation. We both have to be ready for more discussion. We have a history, but sometimes the memory of hurt and the inability to deal with it at that moment inhibits a deeper dialogue.

Rhoda

As time goes on and we are more comfortable with each other, the feeling of trust develops. Then we can take more chances.

G h it t a

We are a vulnerable lot. Our relationship is different from the student-teacher relationship, where criticism is expected. Even then, I have to be particularly sensitive to each individual person.

Rhoda

We have to try to understand each other's vulnerabilities and tread oh so lightly, hoping that we can be honest yet kind. But how do we know that our comments will be relevant?

G h i 11 a

That's where the ability to move out of our own skin is so important - trying to withstand what our friend is trying to say.

Rhoda

It was amazing the last time we drew together. Our model truly understood what I was trying to say. She came over quietly and looked at my work, which was pinned on the walls. She said, "Your work is so different from most of the work I see. I don't know how to describe it. Maybe I could say it's psychological. It's almost as if you are talking to me. Maybe we're talking to each other!"

G h i 11 a

So we don't just depend on each other. It's so important to have somebody identify with our work.

W H E N IS A W O R K F I N I S H E D ? Ghitta

With the idea of spontaneity so much in vogue, it's hard to know when a drawing is complete. Partly we go on instinct, the same way as knowing when to go to sleep or when we've eaten enough.

Rhoda

It's in my nature to stop instinctively, but I know there is more to it than just that. So I look at my work again and again. Sometimes I try to recapture my mood and sometimes I have a new insight. My greatest downfall is overworking a drawing. I over-compensate by stopping too soon.

101

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

Ghitta

I also worry about overworking, but I've discovered that there is the general effect of the drawing, then there is the inch-by-inch examination. So now I go over a drawing in this way, inch by inch.

Rhoda

Yesterday I didn't know whether to stop or go ahead, and you suggested that I turn my drawing upside-down. It was marvelous! A whole new image emerged, and I had been so blocked all afternoon.

G h i 11 a

Another good way to assess the conclusion of a drawing is to go away from it for a while, as you suggest. Often, when you see the drawing again, something can occur to you as a missing link. Another way to test the situation is to look at the drawing in a mirror. This can sometimes highlight an incompleteness. Do you have any more ideas?

Rhoda

Often I look at my drawings in sequence. Two or three studies placed together sometimes look wonderful. It's also fascinating to find a drawing from many months ago and to see it in juxtaposition with my current work. The "group" becomes a whole new image and thus completes this work. Twenty years ago, when I started working with you, I would tear my drawings and collage them onto another piece of paper and then continue drawing, rather than struggle for conclusion completeness - of the first drawing. Collage doesn't work for me anymore. I wonder if collage represented the fragmentation I felt in those days.

Ghitta

Perhaps it was you, but it was also in the air in the 19708, through Schwitters' popularity and the use of old letters, photos, and so on. Today, in the 19908, this seems cliched.

Rhoda

There are times when an unfinished work looks just great, so when can we really ever know?

Ghitta

It seems to be within a personal aesthetic. Jim Dine's etchings have fingermarks and smudges all over the paper. Nowadays we have this personalization. Clean paper was a must in the nineteenth century. So it's personal, and yet the times dictate the fashion!

103

I have a profound respect for Mondrian. Although we are at opposite poles, he takes things to their limit and sacrifices everything to attain purity. He leaves the dramatic realism of his first period to arrive at this saintliness. His influence is widespread. But he remains a unique case in the history of art. As for me/ the more ignoble I find life, the more strongly I react by contradiction, in humour and in an outburst of liberty and expansion. Miro, in Penrose, Miro, ] 99

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

THE STRUGGLE OF WORKING TOGETHER G h i 11 a

Artists are often such solitary people. I usually work alone. Drawing with you every week and talking about our experiences and insights has opened new levels of experience for me.

Rhoda

The only artists I know of who have worked together are Picasso and Braque. Their collaboration led them to develop cubism. We know that their working relationship was short-lived. Do you know of other artists who have worked together not in a master-pupil relationship?

G h i 11 a

I've read a lot about Picasso and Braque's friendship. This was a seven-year friendship in their youth. They even dressed alike (in overalls) with different hats. Van Gogh and Gauguin had great plans for a co-operative studio. Van Gogh prepared the place, but Gauguin was to disappoint him! It didn't work out. It's presumptuous to talk about ourselves in this context, yet it does point out the subtleties, joys, and possible pain in such studio sharing. I think it's worth it!

Rhoda

Many creative artists seem to need someone with whom they can share ideas, talk about their discoveries, successes, and failures. The loneliness and isolation of the creative process - not only in fine arts - is a stumbling block. If we pose this against the sharing concept, we can understand the fine balance we seek. It's so easy to put off working till tomorrow, but when you have a commitment to a friend, it's a positive reinforcement.

G h it t a

Van Gogh and Gauguin had great plans for just that. But it didn't work out. It's presumptuous to talk about ourselves in the same context! Our dialogue seems to flow in such a spontaneous fashion, but we have more difficulty in talking about each other's work. It's important to take into consideration each other's vulnerabilities. And, of course, the compatibility of the two artists is of the utmost importance.

Rhoda

It's so easy to put off working till tomorrow, but when you have a commitment to a friend, it's different. When other people join us, the relationship is changed, the intimacy is destroyed.

105

EXPLORATIONS IN CONTEXT Using this list as a guide, make up your own "historical profiles." Use jazz figures, philosophers, athletes, or whomever you want to see in historical context.

1760

1780

1800

1820

1840

I860

1880

1900

1920

1940

I960

1980

Hokusai

1 7f.f\

Ingres

1 /ou— loo/

Co rot

1 7Q£ 1 Q7C 1 /TO — I O / 3

Daumier

loUO — I O / 7

1 ODO

1 Q4Q

1 Q7O

Courbet

I Q i Q 1 077

Flaubert

o") 1i — 1iooU oon 1i oz

Pissarro

iQ'iri

Muybridge

1 O"3f\ Qf\jt loJU— 11 7U4

Manet

IQ'JO

Degas

IOJ4— l 7 l /

Bizet

1 O1O

1 O7C

Cezanne

1 QTO

1 Qf\£.

Sisley

1 Q?Q

1 QQQ

Redon

1 QAC\

Monet

\QAf\

Zola

1 QAf\

Renoir

1 OA 1 1Q 1 Q 1 OT 1 — 1 7 1 7

Morisot

IO4I

IQQC

Cassatt

I p/ic

IOTA

van Gogh

1 OC1

1 OQf\

Seurat

1859-1891

T. Lautrec

1864-1901

Bonnard

1 O£7 1 OC7 lOO/ — 1 7J/

Vuillard

1 QAQ

1 QAC\

Matisse

i O/r Q

IQC4

Picasso

1881-1973

i on?

1 QQ?

lOJO — IB/3

IOJ7— 1 7U6

I O I L.

lOnU— 1 71 O

IQ")£

1 04U —1 1OAT 7Uz

|O3J — IO7U

1 7QH

1 O£7

DISCOVERING

OUR

INTENTIONS

G h it t a

So we agree that privacy is the other side of sharing, especially in the struggling period, which sometimes involves "thrashing about." Drawing from the model can be subjective and personal, and may be hard to share when we are in the throes. Perhaps if we talk about each other's work later on, maybe in a month or so, it would be easier for us. Some distancing is necessary for such discussions and openness. Our dialogue is going more easily, although we have discovered that we talk more freely away from the studio: in a cafe, for example. Maybe it's the development of trust.

Rhoda

I think the difficulty is that an interruption during this creative journey can be disruptive. So, as much as it's a wonderful stimulus to find a compatible partner, it's crucial to understand where each is coming from and to respect each other's personal boundaries.

107

EXERCISE Return to nature or the model and explore a theme in drawing. Use your perception and your theme concept to gather information about line, texture, shape, volume, and so on. Stress tactility. Be obsessed with hard and soft. Use drawing as a language of exploration.

MATERIALS NEEDED: hard-backed sketchbooks with good paper acrylic paints (if colour desired), pens, conte crayon, graphite I large piece of paper and supporting board not smaller than 26" x 40", OR

heavy brown paper and supporting board not smaller than 26"x 40"

CONCLUSION

We were sitting in a coffee shop and overheard two young people discussing "suffering and art." Perhaps sharing a studio can take away some of the angst of that "creative suffering." Sharing the studio and interacting intellectual and emotionally through art is an intense experience. There can be moments of uncertainty, vulnerability, envy, and competitiveness. Our friendship, our sense of caring, and our feeling of responsibility to one another have helped us to overcome these moments and brought us together on a deeper level. It's more than a friendship: it's an art-based relationship between two intense individuals who struggle daily with the creative process. Our book is not a blueprint for drawing. It represents an ongoing process of discovery and beginning. We've learned to learn from one another, to be more self-critical and more self-accepting. Not only were we able to create a space of our own, but we were conscious of creating a space for each other. I count on you to keep me interested and committed to our time together. I often feel like relaxing or reading, but I'd never let you down. I become oblivious to the chemistry of my materials. You tidy me up! The intensity with which you work inspires me. I learned to see more. I tried to be less literal. I tried new ways of working. I realized that certain problems recur over and over. These problems are not only mine. I tend to use two sizes of paper. Watching you makes me more daring. Your patience and perseverence inspire me.

We are speaking about friendship and learning, sharing and privacy. The independence we seek is balanced by our need for contact and interchange. Our dialogue for this book was not always easy and flowing. We coped with mutual disappointments, off days, time lapses, and distraction. But we were determined, and the moments of connection were stimulating, exhilarating, and rewarding, thus propelling us to completion. Your dialogue will be very different from ours. Don't be afraid. Make it your own. OCR & RC

111

CONCLUSION Hone your sensibilities. It's more than instinct: it's a continuous monitoring of the "set" of the work You may discover the fragmentation, the rhythm, or whatever. Hover over the painting or drawing until you localize something incomplete or useless. Eventually, sometime later, after several months, you may begin to feel some elation. You may become convinced that the marks, gestures, lines, shapes, and colours actually contribute to the transformation we have talked about. Forget that this is canvas or paper. It can become cracked, folded, flung, or whatever. You feel good enough to move on.

Ask yourself if any

technique you use is the result of the model's gesture or shadow, or whether you have been energized by a sudden gust of wind or a flash or light or a memory, or if you are developing a system? Are you reliving some drawing success without being able to

remember

the actual discovery?

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SOURCES

Artists on Art. Edited by Robert Goldwater and Marc Treves. New York: Pantheon Books, 1945. Cezanne, Paul. Paul Cezanne Letters. Edited by John Rewald. 4th ed. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1976. Clark, Kenneth. Henry Moore: Drawings. London: Thames and Hudson, 1974. Dine, Jim. Jim Dine Prints 7970—1977. New York: Harper and Row, 1977. Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 16. London: Hogarth Press, 1966. Gardner, M. Robert. Self Inquiry}'. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown & Co., 1983. Ghiselan, Brewster. The Creative Process. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1942; repr., Mentor Book, 1955. Klee, Paul. The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918. Edited by Felix Klee. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. Milner, Marion. On Not Being Able to Paint. London: William Heinemann, 1957. Modern Artists on An: Ten Unabridged Essays. Edited by Robert L. Herbert. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1964. Penrose, Roland. Miro. The Wof Id of Art Series. London: Thames and Hudson, 1970. Shahn, Ben. The Shape of Content. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957. Theories of Modem Art. Edited by Herschel B. Chipp. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. 117

G H I T T A C A l S E R M AN • R O T H

rhoda cohen

McGill-Queen's University Press 1993 ISBN 0-7735-0993-3 Legal deposit fourth quarter 1993 Bibliotheque rationale du Quebec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper Publication of this book has been supported by the Canada Council through its block grant program.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Caiserman-Roth, Ghitta Insights, discoveries, surprises: drawing from the model ISBN 0-7735-0993-3 i. Caiserman-Roth, Ghitta 2. Cohen, Rhoda 1933- . 3. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)- 4- Drawing - Technique. I. Cohen, Rhoda, 1933- .II. Title. NC593.C34 1993 74i'.092'2 093-090442-7

Designed by Karin Oest, Montreal Typeset in Futura, Gill Sans, and Garamond by Typo Litho, Quebec Photography by Laszlo Printed by Friesen Printers, Manitoba