Pots: Past & Present

Here is a quick post,  just trying to get one in this week!

A few pages back in a past post,  I showed you a couple drawings quite similar to this one below, except that those were highly realistic with strong color and form. (Check last year's "Old Jug and Jar) This mixed media piece is much softer with the image more a part of the support's surface, barely breaking free of the background. Still, you can see my appreciation of 3D forms as I rendered the soft reflections on the solid surface of that old stoneware bottle and the more distinct reflections in that little glass jar.  Notice how those high-lights contribute to the essential emphasis on 3D form.









That interest in form was also present more than fifty years ago when I produced this stoneware covered jar in my Bridgewater, Ma dairy-barn  studio. You can see those same reflections there on the glazed surface that help you understand the form.  Just as I then - years ago - held the clay form in my hands as it spun on the potters wheel, today I feel the form rise from the penciled surface as I observe and draw.

Whether human figure, ripe fruit, clay pot or ancient tree - I find that an awareness of form is almost always present in my work. That's a good thing - I like it!



"Form is expressed in the light tones by dark accents, in the dark tones by light accents."
 Harvey Dunn

"What tis a sketch but a moment's passion, searching for the truth"   Stephen Aitken