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

Old Jug & Jar: Spacial Perception

This week we have two Prismacolor Pencil interpretations of a nice old stone-ware jug (actually a bottle) and a small glass jar.  The three dimensional forms you see here are the result of careful observation and accurate renditions of shape, color, shade, shadow and reflection. In the first version on the right we see these three objects straight-on at eye level with no sense of form derived from linear perspective. If this were a line drawing it would essentially consist of flat shapes outlined. 

(Tho' not the essential point of this post, a hint of depth is seeing shapes overlapping.)    

In this second drawing we perceive form because of the same accurate representation as above but with the addition of linear perspective. We are looking from a slightly higher viewpoint so can see the oval shapes in the openings of the jar and in the shoulder and base lines of the bottle. While we can see the complete top edge of the jar, our eyes follow the jug's shoulder line as it disappears around the "corner" on the right side and we complete the oval in our mind as it passes behind and reappears running toward us on the left. We understand this as an indication of 3D form.

Our experience with this world says that light on one side of an object usually produces a shadow side, a curved object's shading progresses from light to dark and a highlight is the reflection of a light-source. Our hands confirm that perception of form when we reach out and hold an object. When the right marks are presented on a flat surface in an appropriate way, we believe!


"What we call art would seem to be specialist artifacts for enhancing human perception."  Marshal McLuhan

"In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present."   Sir Francis Bacon