OVERSIZED GRIDS.

OVERSIZED GRIDS
Drawing from Life.

Looking back now,it's a wonder the oddness of the situation wasn't apparent to me at the time.
The year is 1989 & I am sat in my wee studio working with my 3^rd life model in as many weeks.He is sitting, cross-legged, on a table in front of me & like his predecessors is entirely naked.Separating us is a large sheet of clear Perspex approximately seven feet square on which is described in permanent marker,a regular six inch grid.Between scribbling away on an equivalent grid on my drawing board I am squinting at him through my one,unpatched eye.If he is finding this unusual ,or at all out of the ordinary, he certainly isn't showing it.Sportingly he has even brought along a gaily coloured silk dressing gown.

I had been brought to this bizarre pass by a steadily building obsession for pictorial accuracy & fidelity in my representations of the naked human form.To wit,realistic & convincing nudes.
Wishing to avoid a reliance on photography I had read up a bit on other pictorial aids to accurate drawing—the plumblines & clinical marking techniques of Sir William Coldstream( later taken to perversely alluring levels of pedantry by his pupil Euan Uglow),primitive Camera Obscurae & Lucidae &some renaissance theories & systems concerning scale & perspective.Specifically,I had been intrigued by one old sixteenth century woodcut showing a Methuselah-like artist looking through a giant grid of strings to better portray a generously proportioned young lady at the other side.It looked feasible.Strangely, I Had been using much smaller vertical grids for years in my still lifes but until now had never seen the possibility of interposing one between me & an actual person.I set to work making one.
Life drawing isn't easy.I like to think I have long been capable of a sensitive touch in the representation of tone & form—the filling in,as it were-- but precise dimensions & proportions are hard work.I can just about manage still-lifes—after all,collections of inanimate objects & such like aren't going to go anywhere as you are drawing them,fall asleep,do their knitting or demand more money—but with living people,often naked,there are just too many imponderables & variables.Temperature & fatigue cause constant changes in their posture & appearance.Plus,it takes me ages to draw anything & life models charge by the hour.I can just about manage a presentable quick impression but a forensically accurate nude drawing fit for painting was a different matter.Life drawing is actually one of those skills that can be effectively taught, with a relatively clear set of rules that can be profitably learned.Many people have told me it must be great to be so "gifted",but really,most of what skill I have was learned in mandatory life drawing classes at Edinburgh College of Art.They were often a chore at the time,but –along with one particularly arcane thirty minute exercise involving colour,which I might return to—they were the most useful lesson of my five and a half years in Edinburgh.

The drawing classes at Edinburgh took place a few hours in the morning & a couple of nights 'til nine.There must have been twenty or so students,& after setting up the pose with the model,checking props & heating etc the teacher or teachers would wander around each easel ,occasionally making whispered comments & suggestions to each student.It was all very serious—quiet,intense concentration,only the odd rustle of paper,rasp of charcoal or lip-smacking "putt-putt" of putty on paper breaking the silence.

It's a strange thing,being just out of school & having a beautiful,naked woman being plonked down in front of you for your scrutiny & study.You really want to look at them--well,obviously,you have to look at them,that being the whole point--but you don't want to be seen to be looking at them too....enthusiastically.

One horrible class lingers in my mind from this time.I can't remember who the tutor was. Blackadder,Callendar....David Evans?Maybe it was Elspeth Lamb.Whoever it was must have been of a sadistic bent that day.Appearing from behind the curtain,& surveying us all with damp,rheumy eyes was this old bloke in his fifties.He was fitted out in one of those standard white cotton modelling thongs which hardly anybody suits.Apart from that & a brightly coloured, velvet jesters/harlequin hat with jingle bells he was entirely naked.Oh,& curly-toed "Alladin" style velvet slippers.With jingle bells.He was handed a long wooden pole adorned at one end with the likeness of "Mr. Punch".Once in position he had to stand like that for hours.To his credit he carried out his duties with aplomb,barely moving,even as certain students collapsed in fits of giggles behind their easels.However,to this day,I have never seen such a look of resigned sadness in a man's eyes.

I don't know how people can do nude modelling--I certainly couldn't.

Except,now I think about it,to my horror....I did.

It was over a period of 3 years in the mid-nineties & I wanted to explore my inner-soul,to exercise a little self-analysis,purge the spirit as it were.I physically reflected myself in multiples (glass phials,mirrored globes lightbulbs etc.) spread over three uniformly sized oils on panel.I still regard them quite highly as vaguely cubist,abstracted confections & they all found themselves in worthy collections but to think about their execution now I get the shivers.The mirrored globes & twisted glass phials obviously distort the reflected images,bending,fracturing & magnifying everything,but sometimes you can't distort certain features enough.

Of course,an ability to draw accurately from life is an advantage to an artist both as an aid to painting & as an end in itself,exercising the brain in such a way being most beneficial.However,it is by no means essential.That consumate painter,Steven Cambell never let deficiencies in the draughtsmanship department get in the way of being a great Artist,;sheer force of will & reckless painterly vivacity enabling him to realise his rich,baroque confections.Likewise,the internationally successful painter & playboy,Jack Vettriano has never let an almost complete inability to draw be any impediment to executing on canvas his much desired, steamy,cinematic concoctions.And why should he,having access to photomechanical aids that have been around in one form or another for at least 500 years?The fine Spanish realist painter,Roberto Gonzalez-Fernandez once remarked to me that he was unconcerned over criticisms about working from photographs,maintaining that his ends justified the means--that the idea behind the picture,the concept,was all that mattered.

Me? Well,the perspex grid experiments lasted for a few months in 1989 & were certainly interesting,but as you can probably see from the examples shown here were imperfect & proportionally flawed,though I think they do have some nice features.They came to an abrupt end,as you can probably guess,when the inevitable happened--one day,the entire,hastilly sellotaped & precariously balanced structure collapsed.Fortunately,it fell forward,banging me about the head,& not the infinitely-patient girl on the other side.

Since then,apart from three days spent in London's Science Museum drawing antiquated adding machines & the occasional portraits,I've pretty much given up on Life Drawing as an end in itself.
It's ironic really.Even now,after thirty-odd years as an artist & not getting any younger, I still get folk making jealous insinuations;"must be great huvin'your job,eh? Paintin' naked wimmin a' day.How on Earth d'ye manage tae.....y'know....keep yer brush steady? Eh? HEHEHE...." To which impertinence I can now—alas—honestly reply that,"I don't really look at the steady stream of refined,elegant,statuesque,intelligent,caring, but above all, nude Amazonian Beauties that I paint,day in-day out....I AM TOO BUSY WORKING.Now bugger off,& let me finish  my Pale Ale in peace".

All Life Drawings illustrated here by James McDonald,1989.