“Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer, and clearer still.”
David Hockney.
I like this quote by Hockney and I feel with my daily drawing that it improves my vision of the world more and more clearly.
I have been doing a ten-drawings a day project for about five years but sometimes I do a lot more. For the first few years there was a lot of, negativity
in my drawings but now it is mainly quite positive as every day I draw simple portraits of my favourite saints Saint Francis and Mary MacKillop.
“Never see a need without trying to do something about it.”
Mary MacKillop
I have used this MacKillop quote a lot in my essays and drawings and particularly in a large drawing in one of my recent exhibitions.
“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”
Saint Francis of Assisi
I have also used this Saint Francis quote often in my art and essay writing but it still speaks to me.
“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.”
Paul Klee.
I love this quote by Klee and feel that drawing is just the imagination taking a walk as the mind connects to the hand.
“I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen.”
Frederick Franck
This quote rings true as I feel with my, on drawing that I have not really seen something until it has inspired one of my drawings.
“Drawing is a form of probing. And the first generic impulse to draw derives from the human need to search, to plot points, to place things and to place oneself.”
unknown
This unknown quote also speaks to me as I feel drawing is an intellectual and creative probing and to place things and one’s own place in the world.
“We live in a fractured world. I’ve always seen it as my role as an artist to attempt to make wholeness.”
Anish Kapoor
Kapoor is most famous for his sculptures but his drawing is also remarkably spiritual in their stunning simplicity and I discovered them in a book after returning to art school from a break.
“I look at a lot of artists. I’m inspired by – I suppose I shouldn’t say ‘inspired,’ but it’s not really influenced. I am inspired. Art comes from art.”
Cy Twombly
I like this quote by Twombly as I also feel in my own drawing I am inspired by several artists and that is at its best when I don’t imitate them but when their art opens up a door in my mind for my own creative discoveries.
Oppenheim is most well known for her sculptures but her drawings are also incredibly sensitive and intuitive.
“The figure is still the only thing I have faith in in terms of how much emotion it’s charged with and how much subject matter is there.”
Jim Dine
I like this Jim Dine quote and I also have a deep faith in the figure in my drawings. I also discovered his drawings while in art school in a book from the COFA library.
“I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”
Georgia O’Keeffe
I agree with O’Keeffe that one can say things in visual art in a way that there is, no words for but also at other times words and images can bounce off each other.
“Leading contemporary female artists known for drawing, sketching, and intricate figurative work include Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Emma Kohlmann, and Amy Sherald. These artists redefine contemporary drawing through mixed media, charcoal, ink, and portraiture, often exploring themes of identity, race, and personal narratives.”
“Njideka Akunyili Crosby: Known for using charcoal, pastel, and collage, creating large-scale, intricate drawings that blend Nigerian and American cultural experiences.”
I like how there is a mixture of American and African culture in Akunyili Crosbys drawings. They also remind me of David Hockney’s early paintings that featured figures and interiors.
“Toyin Ojih Odutola: Known for her detailed, mixed-media drawings (often using charcoal and pastel) that focus on the skin and the topography of blackness.”
I love Ojih Odutola’s work and her drawings remind me of Chris Ofili’s paintings, drawings and collages about African culture too using elephant dung in his paintings.
“Emma Kohlmann: Creates expressive, abstract drawings often using ink and watercolour, noted for her unique illustrative style.”
I feel her paintings remind me of the late collages by Matisse but they are in a female’s contemporary perspective. I also like her simple use of colour to depict figures and plants and trees.
“Amy Sherald: While recognized for painting, her portraiture is heavily defined by a precise, graphic, and drawing-focused approach, featuring figures against flat, coloured backgrounds.”
I feel Sherald’s drawings remind me of movies I’ve been watching on Netflix about the plight of African Americans over the past one hundred years but life is much more different now.
“Erin M. Riley: Uses a drawing-based approach to create hand-woven wool tapestries that focus on themes of sexuality and women’s issues.”
I find it interesting that Riley uses drawing approach to make tapestries about women’s issues.
In conclusion contemporary drawing is deeply spiritual as it is incredibly immediate and often is a mixture of the rational and subconscious mind connecting directly with the artist’s hand. In this essay I included more female artists however many, work in other mediums too and Australian artist Del Kathryn Barton even made a film’s including Blaze 2022 but is most famous for her painting’s. I went to what I think was her first solo show at Kudos Gallery in Sydney and the art collector Ray Hughes was there and recognised her talent and bought some of her drawing work and offered her a show at his gallery.