The suggestiveness of a sketch

A still from my forthcoming video The Suggestiveness of a Sketch

In art suggestiveness refers to the ability of a painting to be open to multiple interpretations, thus allowing viewers to enter the creative process and see the subject from their own perspective. 

In my way of painting, suggestiveness comes from giving watercolours the freedom they deserve. I allow washes to run as they may, and in doing so they add their own contribution. Speed, daring and an open mind are of the essence.

In Triplicate

 

Three preliminary clay sketches depicting Thea LaFond winning 

an Olympic Gold Medal for Dominica in the Triple Jump. 

After weeks of work, on the modelling stand in my studio are preliminary clay sketches depicting Thea LaFond winning an Olympic Gold Medal for Dominica in the Triple Jump. 

I have faced the difficulty of portraying rapid movement without the aid of flowing drapery and how to position the figures, from hop, to skip, to jump, so that at a fleeting glance they are seen as one in their flight above ground.

All I had for reference was a video clip showing Thea in action. By viewing the video hundreds of times at quarter speed, I was able to capture the essence of the few seconds between the hop, the skip and the jump. Below are some of the sketches I made from the video and my clay sketch of the final jump.

What happens next, is in the lap of the gods, or more correctly, in the lap of committees.

Creating an illusion

Work in progress on a quarter lifesize maquette of a figure in motion.

The ultimate challenge for the figurative sculptor is that of a figure in motion. I alluded to this my post The Curse of Committees.  E. H. Gombrich in his book "Art & Illusion" writes to the effect:

...Paintings and sculptures have more beauty and greater force when they are a sketch than when they are finished...sketches express an idea in a few strokes...while a laboured effect and too much industry deprives it of force. It is an art in which the artist's skill in suggesting must be matched with the public's skill at taking hints. The literal-minded Philistine is excluded from this closed circle.  

Herein lies my challenge. Not with a single figure, but with a series of three figures that show the transition from one position to the next. You can then add the difficulty of retaining the spontaneity when enlarging the maquettes to lifesize. There will be more about this in forthcoming posts.

The sculptor Auguste Rodin was passionately interested in movement. The maquette shown below is one of a series he made on the theme of dance. 

Dance Movement "A". Rodin Museum, Paris.

 

A partly-teachable art

An image from my latest video: Your Hands Fashioned and Made Me.

Cedric Watts, in his introduction to James Joyce's novel Ulysses (an 81st birthday present to myself) he refers to the author's art of seeing or making connections between apparently unconnected entities. He refers to it as, a partly-teachable art.

He also suggests that: 

Feelings of elation and depression may affect our reflections, but in themselves they are non-verbal. Some of our sensations are simply visual, aural, tactile or olfactory. If we write an essay we become conscious of an effort to translate none-verbal ideas into words; sometimes the words don't fit, so we have to try again, matching the verbal to the notional, and often modifying the notion in the process.

I find the same applies to my paintings and sculptures. To some extent the moving image gets around the problem. Hence, my experiments with videos. 

James Joyce also had a fascination with the potential of film.  

The Curse of Committees

My preliminary sketch for a life-size sculpture of a rugby player diving for a try.

Twenty-five years ago I was asked to enter a competition for sculptures for the West Yorkshire town of Dewsbury. The brief was for two sculptures standing side by side; one depicting a 20th century rugby player and the other a 19th century mill girl. I told the judging committee (the members of which wouldn't have known a sculpture if one fell on their heads) that I found the combination and static pose ludicrous. 

As a result of my uncalled for advice, the committee made short shrift of my submission of a rugby player diving for a try and mill girls running out of the factory gates with their shawls flying.

The winning Dewsbury entry is shown below in situ.

All this comes about because I have at the back of my mind a sculpture of an athlete motion.