Nicholaides Update- Schedule 4

Okay, I'm starting to slack off a wee too much - but when you hear why, maybe you'll see it's not such a bad thing. 

In section four, studying memory drawing and other quick drawing methods, Nicholaides introduces five new exercises.  They are as follows: 1) drawing from memory, 2) moving pose, 3) descriptive pose, 4) reverse pose, and 5) group pose.

Well, frankly, in terms of speed, he's preaching to the choir.  Been there done that.  Did it to the extreme.  Remember when I was burning them out at posemaniacs in ten seconds, no sweat?  But of course there is more to it than speed.  So, here we go.

The memory pose is just what is sounds like.  Look at the model for a moment, turn away, then draw it from memory.  This is what we do - or should do - every time we start a class.  That is, take the time to study the pose. Analyze it.  In that time we translate perception to conception and go from observing to formulating, so that by the time we make the first mark on paper we are already drawing from memory - and moreover, drawing from a model we've constructed in imagination, which is almost the same thing.  The distinction gets tricky if you consider that it is possible to still your mind to preserve the visual afterimage, which is like a photograph on the retina.  This is not an image fashioned by the mind; it's raw sense data resonating in the eye.  With training, one can keep it resonating long enough to trace it up.  (Recall that we covered this in my Journal "I Robot! How to Become a Camera Obscura.") 

To keep it simple, lets consider the "normal" way, which is to build or construct or otherwise formulate a concept of the subject matter and then draw from that.  Ideally we alternate between perception and conception, using one to condition the other, to progressively refine the drawing.  (For example, as we might do using basic forms of box, ball, pipe and cone to establish placements, simplify forms and ultimately construct the contour). Problems arise when we don't alternate.  Then we run into what one might call type I error, drawing from imagination when we think we're drawing from our senses, and type II error, drawing from our senses when we think we're drawing from imagination.  In other words, being unconscious of the difference between sensing and imagining. 

It's not as silly as it sounds. I can't tell you how many times I drew parts of a figure or composition a certain way only to realize afterward that they should be exactly opposite the way I had them.  That's when I slap my head and cry, "How did that happen?"  I know I can't be the only one. Granted, sometimes there are physiological reasons for it, like distorted perception attending eye-hand cross-dominance (recall, we discussed that at length some time back.)  But once that's ruled out, it pays to train an awareness on how attention is being used at any given moment - is it focused internally (imagination) or externally (sensation). 

The moving pose is practically identical to the actual multi-phasic action exercise recommended by Hogarth that I alluded to in a previously when I altered one of Nicholaides scheduled exercises.  The only difference is that Hogarth does not specify using it for life drawing.  He instructs the student to use it when drawing from imagination.  Nevertheless; it's the same exercise used a different way.

The reverse pose is another one you'll find in Hogarth's books, though, like parallel projection (which Nicholaides calls "right angle drawing") he uses it as a tool rather than for skill practice.*  Nicholaides does make an exercise of it.  He has you study the pose, then, instead of drawing it as it is, you are to draw it as a mirror image. 

Don't know about you, but that is something I tend to do spontaneously.  It doesn't seem to make any different to me whether I draw the image one way or the other.  In martial arts we mirrored the Judo instructor when he performed warm ups, but, in karate, we used a different system that had us do the warm-ups opposite to the way the instructor did them.  I guess that and practicing ambidextrously at times got me used to mixing it up.

The descriptive pose is unique.  This is the first time I've encountered anything like it.  One writes vague verbal description of an action, or is presented with one, then draws it according to his own idea of what the words mean. On one hand I question the practicality of it.  On the other I marvel at the shrewdness of how it engages both cerebral cortices and makes them communicate with each other and work together.** 

I sometimes talk to myself when drawing, especially when troubleshooting, and have to wonder, now, if that is just a funny thing I do, or if it is actually a sign that my brain is switching on the turbo booster.  I think it is. So, maybe it's not the first time I've encountered something like the descriptive pose.  Let's say, instead, that it's the first time I've consciously used it.  

Finally comes the group gesture pose.  This is the same as drawing the gesture of an individual.  One treats the group as a whole and identifies the flow of energy within it, or its rhythm, and indicates it intuitively with lines.

This I recall from life drawing class in community college, which was taught by Hugh Mesibov, a graduate of PAFA.  He had us do this.  He also had us do group poses using several sittings of the same model in different poses.  We put them on the same page and arranged them to look like a group pose.

So, because I have a fair amount of experience doing each exercise on my own, I opted to skate through schedule 4.  Basically, I ignored the schedule and did my own thing, putting the most attention on observing how I transitioned "unconsciously" from one kind of drawing method to another (i.e. from core, to gesture, to contour, etc.), making sure to cover all the exercises without necessarily putting them in boxes, if you know what I mean.  

If that's not a good excuse for deviating from the schedule, then explain further that I got a flu shot on Tuesday and came down with something that, likely, was floating around the clinic, which floored me for the rest of the week. I'm still sick from it. Anyway, I read ahead, and from here it looks like things get messy . . . and difficult.  The next schedule is all right.  It's more of the same, except in ink.  Which is dandy, except, been there done that.  And more to the point, I'm there, now, doing it pretty much all the time.  Hehe.

After that he changes the medium, again, this time to water color.  And while that sounds like fun, headings I spied, such as "The Head: Five Hour Contour Drawing- right angle drawing" make me shudder.  So, I think I'm going to work with what I've got thus far.  Let it sink in.  Let it gel.  Let the parts come together.  And slowly increase tolerance for long intervals of contour drawing.  I admit to needing it.  Just don't need so much of it all at once. 
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* Here I correct myself and explain that Hogarth's version of the reverse pose differs from Nicholaides' vesion.  Hogarth's exercise is to draw first a front view of the figure, then a back view using the same silhouette. The idea is to practice reversing front and back. Nicholaides' exercise is to draw the pose with left/right reversal, maintaining the point of view on the figure (front or back), but flipping the silhouette from one side to the other as by holding it to a mirror. 

** Come to think of it, isn't this what comic book illustrators do by translating written scripts to pictures?  So, then, unique?  Maybe in the realm of Fine Art it's unique.  But in comicdom it's routine.  LOL.  Still, this exercise may be a good introduction to it, a way to ease into it and a way to practice it in small, manageable steps.