Derek Brueckner's Drawing Courses Information and Examples of Student Work: Assignment 2: (Option A) PURE ABSTRACTION/ MODERNIST DRAWING

Pure Abstraction/Modernist Drawing Assignment (Assignment Text and Examples):
Intuitively exploring formal languages and physicality of materials within the drawing discipline

Assignment Instructions and Objectives:
Complete a large-scale drawing (3 x 4 feet) with 3 or 4 small studies demonstrating the language of drawing. Studies can be analogue or digital.
(The Language of Drawing meaning the physical act of drawing with traditional drawing materials as a language in itself).
The work should demonstrate a variety of formal concerns in the picture plane such as the use of colour, shapes, scale shifts, composition and mark making using primarily drawing materials. You have the option of developing collaged materials into the drawing provided the above objectives and the points below are followed. All attempts should be made in the drawing assignment to not reference anything representational.

1) Your drawing should consist of as many forms and spaces as possible with a complex but unified composition in each work. Consider intervals between elements and allow for focal points where there are areas of multiple overlapping shapes that interact with each other while simultaneously interacting within the overall composition.

2) Space should vary from deep to shallow with a variety of line and shapes. Also consider variations of visual weight in the line and shapes.

3) Avoid literal or conventional methods to depict shallow and deep spaces. (Rely on overlapping of elements instead of depicting converging planes to vanishing points). Spaces and forms can be fragmented and or abstracted through experimentation with drawing materials.

4) Consider the reality of the drawing medium (language of the medium) on the 2 dimensional surface of your picture plane. (thick and thin applications of drawing mediums and mark making) and consider your options in terms of a surface. Some areas will require numerous layers of drawing materials while other areas will work with minimal applications of materials. As well during the drawing process some areas of the drawings should involve scraping and erasing.

Suggested Drawing Materials and Process:
-It is suggested people use the coloured oil bars for this assignment but many other options are also available in conjunction with the oil bars.

-Drawing materials such as oil or chalk pastels that cover large areas of your drawing quickly and offer good colour and have strong physical presence on the drawing surface allowing for an investigation of mark making will also work as well.

-Over all you can use all other types of coloured drawing materials for detail work such as coloured pencils, coloured inks and coloured markers, but keep in mind these should not be your primary drawing tools since they do not cover a large area quickly nor do they offer any sort of physicality in terms of the mediums presence or mark making.

-As well you may use acrylic or watercolour as a base or intermittently as long as the work emphasizes drawing materials.

-It is recommended that you use a fairly thick paper as your drawing surface. Some people have used canvas in the past but keep in mind the texture of the canvas causes the drawing materials to erode and ware out considerably quicker than if paper was used for a drawing surface.

-This 3 x 4 feet work can be one large sheet of paper or it may be smaller sheets of paper joined together. Consider how the seems of smaller paper will be integrated into the drawing and or hidden in the drawing.

Studies or Smaller Preliminary Works:
The purpose of the studies is to assist you in the investigation of this assignment. All the objectives do not have to be met in each study but rather should be used to take risks and experiment with to find all the required objectives. The studies are not about making something small and then duplicating that small study at a large scale. Instead the studies and the larger work should feed off each other.

During the process of making the assignment there should be a back and forth of working between the studies and the large work (especially at the beginning stages of the drawing) As well studies may include manipulations of digital photos of the large work taken while in progress. In general it is strongly recommended that you photograph the work in progress and periodically make some inexpensive prints at home to work on in order to consider all potential directions to develop the work. Overall experiment and investigate various options thoroughly with the studies and the large work.

Steps of Process to Consider for Developing Drawing(s):
Avoid having every formal and conceptual component of your drawing pre-planned or “figured out” before you begin. This will eventually suffocate any desire to work, because it is almost impossible to pre-plan every step in the process and get positive results.

If you are stuck with no ideas it is best to immediately start drawing with vague ideas and some random organic and geometric shapes such as in some of the examples posted below.

Prepare yourself mentally for a process of: risk, unexpected direction, layering, reworking, researching, making small preliminary works, applying criticism, generally experimenting with conviction in your drawing, and you will have a very successful work or series of works.

Optional Readings (Assistance in developing assignment):
Also there is the option to consider excerpts from Search for the Real a small book by Hans Hofmann, or excepts from survey books such as Art Speak by Robert Atkins (small book), The Visual Arts: a history by Hugh Honour and John Fleming, 7th edition p 844, and essays: Modernist Painting by Clement Greenberg. Considering the Hofmann, Atkins, Honour/Fleming and Greenberg's readings may assist you when developing ideas in your drawing.

For a broader view outside the modernist drawing assignment objectives other texts such as Art of the Postmodern Era, by Irving Sandler, Contemporary Art: Art since 1970 by Brandon Taylor, Five Faces of Modernity by Matei Calinescu and essay: Action Painting: Crisis and Distortion by Harold Rosenberg. These other texts offer debates, alternatives and opposition to Greenberg’s ideas regarding Modernism.

Evaluation (Formalism) Criteria:

40% for the following:
Variation of interesting organic and geometric solid shapes and shapes depicted with line (different sizes)

Variation of drawing materials (Focus on pastels, with some paint as the bottom layer, but also think of other art and drawing materials as well)

Overall good visual variety and complexity but also work is still unified

40% for the following:
Maximized layering process in major parts of drawing

Physical presence of materials on surface (Layer drawing materials thickly in some areas of drawing)

Variation of mark making and physical textures (organic and straight, short and long, etc)

Variation of Line and Shapes (this is connected to variation of stencils/templates and mark making)

20% for the following:
Experimentation and innovation

Overall uniqueness

EXAMPLES for GUIDANCE
The examples presented here for the Modernist assignment are meant as a guide. Not all examples below meet all of the objectives/requirments for the assignment but instead offer a range of partial ideas that can be cohesively comprehended, synthesized and applied to the specific requirements of the modernist drawing assignment in a unique and innovative manner.

For additional student examples of a similar assignment from my painting courses please view the following link:
http://derekbruecknerpaintingcoursesimages.blogspot.com/2009/09/modernist-pure-abstraction-assignment_09.html