While paging through a dictionary one day last year, I came across something called a ruptured duck. (Now, I cannot locate this entry in my New Oxford American dictionary, and, without access to Lord Googlebot, I cannot do an Internet search. Help!?!) If memory serves correctly, the ruptured duck is an Old World heraldic symbol consisting of a detached human arm – bent at the elbow – embossed upon a shield with square top corners and a rounded bottom. I remember reading the description of the ruptured duck and finding therein few answers to pressing questions.
A few of my questions were as follow. 'Who chose the name for this emblem?' 'Is there an emblem of a whole duck, before its rupture?' 'Is the ruptured duck a secret image designed to enrage the simple-minded or is it merely a bit of medieval nonsense that somehow survived the ravages of time?' These questions well never be answered, but my initial puzzlement inspired me to start designing a coat armor, or coat of arms, for the modern street artist, graffito, and vandal. So far, there are two (similar) designs, found here and here. The goal is to develop a coat armor simple enough to recreate in less than sixty seconds that depicts both the tools of the graffiti trade and the graffito himself.
The rat represents street artists because they frequents hidden and scary places, bringing life to the ignored, the dirty, and the underutilized portions of their respective cities. And even though they tend to be interesting and productive people, graffitos are reviled by nearly everyone else, by cops and property owners, magistrates and fence builders, security guards and taxi drivers. Besides other graffiti writers and buxom female teenagers, the only persons who tend to applaud a vandal's work are ones who sell paint. The anarchy symbol seen in both pictures represents a common attitude held by Self Directed Urban Beautification Specialists, or SDUBS: no one person owns the world, it belongs to us all; therefore, we will make the drab spaces beautiful by risking life, limb, and liberty in order to paste, spray, draw, and bomb our art into and onto the boldest possible spots. My design skills are paltry, and my ideas want for much, but perhaps if I keep bashing my head against the wall for long enough, something useful might come out of it.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Showing posts with label draw. Show all posts
Showing posts with label draw. Show all posts
01 February 2013
31 January 2013
on drawing well
In the years since the author drew his last set of pictures, he has forgotten how difficult it is to transfer an image from brain-stem to paper. To expand his overall portfolio, however, he has added physical artistic expression to his daily protocols; in addition to his two writing sessions, he now allocates time for drawing, making sculptures, and graphic design.
This unworthy whorphan thought it hard to write well; then, he tried to draw well. Writing and drawing share certain fundamental rules, including those of symmetry, planning, composition, patience, and simplicity. Whereas, however, one can fix a broken sentence by following the guidance of Messrs Strunk & White and look in a dictionary for the correct spelling of a thousand different words, one of the only ways for the artist who works alone to correctly depict the bent leg of a kneeling woman is to act as his own model and hope that the interface between finger, hand, wrist, arm, and brain works well enough for him to accurately reconstruct the desired shape on paper.
Drawing the Grigovian coat of arms was easy compared to trying to capture a human form in motion, but with enough tries and dozens of body parts sketched out and promptly erased, he finally has something with which he is satisfied. The only way to get smarter is to play a smarter opponent (The Principles of Chess, 1883, as quoted in the movie Revolver, by Guy Ritchie); the only way to sharpen artistic skills is to practice them every day. As he works, the old lessons – those learned in gymnasium and college – float up from the sunken wrecks of distant memory, guiding his hand as often as they remind him of the need to be humble, diligent, and forgiving. Among the lessons he remembers most vividly is to not press too hard when drawing with a pencil. His mother taught him this when he was a child; it is as true today as it was then. In practicing yoga daily and getting better at it with something akin to painstaking slowness, he is learning another lesson passed down through the ages: piece by piece, the the treasure of the universe is amassed. Gradually, he may just make something of himself. Failure rarely kills. Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
This unworthy whorphan thought it hard to write well; then, he tried to draw well. Writing and drawing share certain fundamental rules, including those of symmetry, planning, composition, patience, and simplicity. Whereas, however, one can fix a broken sentence by following the guidance of Messrs Strunk & White and look in a dictionary for the correct spelling of a thousand different words, one of the only ways for the artist who works alone to correctly depict the bent leg of a kneeling woman is to act as his own model and hope that the interface between finger, hand, wrist, arm, and brain works well enough for him to accurately reconstruct the desired shape on paper.
Drawing the Grigovian coat of arms was easy compared to trying to capture a human form in motion, but with enough tries and dozens of body parts sketched out and promptly erased, he finally has something with which he is satisfied. The only way to get smarter is to play a smarter opponent (The Principles of Chess, 1883, as quoted in the movie Revolver, by Guy Ritchie); the only way to sharpen artistic skills is to practice them every day. As he works, the old lessons – those learned in gymnasium and college – float up from the sunken wrecks of distant memory, guiding his hand as often as they remind him of the need to be humble, diligent, and forgiving. Among the lessons he remembers most vividly is to not press too hard when drawing with a pencil. His mother taught him this when he was a child; it is as true today as it was then. In practicing yoga daily and getting better at it with something akin to painstaking slowness, he is learning another lesson passed down through the ages: piece by piece, the the treasure of the universe is amassed. Gradually, he may just make something of himself. Failure rarely kills. Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
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