| Toroazul Painting and Fine Arts |
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| The artistic process: The power of preliminary sketches |
| Endymion and the Moon pen and ink 14" x 18" Private collection |
| For some artists like myself, the PROCESS of creating a pen and ink landscape such as "Endymion and the Moon" (above), first requires scribbling a series of very rough thumbnail sketches, also called croquis (CLICK here) to capture the main idea, image wise. |
| The following images show the next step in the PROCESS --- a series of more developed images where I begin to define the characters and the landscape more in pencil. Sometimes the white of the page literally gives birth to those forms . . . . |
| Endymion and the Moon pencil 111 " x 8.5 " $ 4 0 0 |
| Similar explorations are a vital part of the PORTRAIT process as well. My eventual decision to paint this young Dutch athlete as he read a magazine -- immersed in a simple black background -- was made easier by the intermediate pencil sketch (below, right)). The sketch allowed me to simplify things and zero in on his head, shoulders, and upper arms. But focusing on such essentials, needing little or no background, is rare. At that point the artist is not only observing but actually seeing. |
H e r m a n
pastel
36 " x 46 "
Private collection
pastel
36 " x 46 "
Private collection
| H e r m a n pencil 11 " x 8.5 " $ 4 0 0 |
| Another useful reason for preliminary sketching is to answer the question, "What's fit to print? ". . . . Some "editorial" decisions went into the process of selecting the image for the frontispiece of Ricardo Aguiar's Twenty Short Stories of the Cuban Revolution (CLICK) (1987). Note how the early drawings of the young Cuban political prisoner in the following images may suggest the idea of rape. The frontispiece (see pen and ink below) is much violent. |
| Study for frontis : 20 cuentos... pencil 11 " x 8.5 " |
| Study for frontis : 20 cuentos... pencil 11 " x 8.5 " |
| Another crucial factor in artistic expression is the material of the medium : the type of paper, the ink, or the graphite. For me, the minotaur emblem that appears throughout this web site is not just a tale of mythological transformation! It describes the way the artistic PROCESS can allow you to become ONE with the raw, "animal" materials inside the pencil or paint pigments . . . . |
