Compared to painting, drawing is about simplicity of materials. This is part of the beauty and challenge of the artform.
In drawing on light paper with some dark material like black chalk, the lights in the drawing come from the paper itself. This simple type of drawing lacks the distinct layers that we can make in painting, where layers can be translucent or opaque, hiding partially or completely what came before.
By painting in a series of layers the artist provides him- or herself with the opportunity to make a new start on the picture with each successive layer. Each new layer opens new possibilities.
How to get this possibility of making a new start with a drawing? At first glance, the act of going over a drawing with a soft cloth to remove much of the pigment from the paper may seem like an act of desperation or an admission of failure.
Another way to think of it is that removing a proportion of the dark pigment from light drawing paper, reducing the contrast but leaving the essential pigment distribution the same, is something like painting over the drawing with a thin translucent layer which partially hides what is beneath. This is a normal part of layered painting. Thinking about it this way, “unfinishing” a drawing is less about correcting mistakes than about opening new possibilities.
..reducing the contrast but leaving the essential pigment distribution the same, is something like painting over the drawing with a thin translucent layer which partially hides what is beneath
David,
Application to photography using AP?
Karl,
Why do you have sex in the title? Does the technique of starting over relate particularly to sex, autobiographically or in general? Is it merely a blatant play for search engine hits? I ask in all seriousness, as I am considering the title “Sex rocks” for my next installment on Bones of the Earth (which maybe I should have called Boners of the Earth).
Karl,
Of course this post (or I should say, your work shown here) reflects the last one your did on transparency — is this something you are working on seriously these days?
The way the marking tool skips across the surface of the paper makes one layered kind of image and then on top that you add the layer of softly brushed particles that cling as you whisk at them. Are you thinking of going back in, perhaps with another marking tool? redefining or drawing another line? The whole process intrigues me.
And when I think about the partial hiding, I realize that that’s what happens with most of us with sex, also. Interesting intersection of concept and visual.