Expressionism - Draftsmen S3E14

Expressionism - Draftsmen S3E14


Stan and Marshall discuss the importance of understanding expressionism and the purposeful rule breaking that comes with the territory. They both examine the work of notable expressionists like Kandinsky and Mondrian, and share their own personal experiences and opinions on the movement. Marshall also includes a few exercises that can help you discover and implement expressionism in your own work.

Timecodes:

00:00 - Intro
02:30 - Abstract Expressionism vs Expressive Drawing
09:58 - The Benefits of Studying Expressionism
18:27 - Fechin
19:47 - “Yes-And” for Artists
22:50 - Expressive Drawing Class
28:10 - Abstraction
34:52 - Uses for Non-Abstract Artists
41:16 - Memories Exercise
50:16 - Reveries Exercise
57:27 - What These Exercises Give You
01:00:09 - A Few More Exercises
01:04:08 - Doing a Reverie


***



Skip navigation
Search




9+

Avatar image



10:15 / 1:04:24

•
The Benefits of Studying Expressionism


Expressionism - Draftsmen S3E14

Draftsmen
91.3K subscribers

Subscribe

1.5K


Share

Download

Clip

Save

38,375 views  Jul 20, 2021  Draftsmen Podcast - Season 3
Stan and Marshall discuss the importance of understanding expressionism and the purposeful rule breaking that comes with the territory. They both examine the work of notable expressionists like Kandinsky and Mondrian, and share their own personal experiences and opinions on the movement. Marshall also includes a few exercises that can help you discover and implement expressionism in your own work.

Timecodes:

00:00 - Intro
02:30 - Abstract Expressionism vs Expressive Drawing
09:58 - The Benefits of Studying Expressionism
18:27 - Fechin
19:47 - “Yes-And” for Artists
22:50 - Expressive Drawing Class
28:10 - Abstraction
34:52 - Uses for Non-Abstract Artists
41:16 - Memories Exercise
50:16 - Reveries Exercise
57:27 - What These Exercises Give You
01:00:09 - A Few More Exercises
01:04:08 - Doing a Reverie


Show Links (some contain affiliate links):

Metropolis (1927) - https://amzn.to/3wNC3iJ
Nosferatu (1922) - https://amzn.to/3ivZqIy
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) - https://amzn.to/3eClrEi
John Canaday - https://amzn.to/3zhJQXP
What to Listen for in Music by Aaron Copland - https://amzn.to/3kGKJ8f
The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich - https://amzn.to/36LL5SS
Point and Line to Plane by Wassily Kandinsky - https://amzn.to/3xWhmm4
Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky - https://amzn.to/3kyMXqg
Simon Schama’s Power of Art (BBC show) - https://amzn.to/3it68z3
The Natural Way to Draw by Nicolaides - https://amzn.to/3wS6dS7
Royksopp playlist -     • Royksopp for Reverie 

Referenced Artists - https://proko.com/553

“Draftsmen” is available in audio. Subscribe on these platforms to keep up to date:


#expressionism #arttheory #artinstruction

FOLLOW PROKO:

Marshall's Art - http://www.marshallart.com
Email Newsletter- http://www.proko.com/subscribe
Instagram -   / stanprokopenko 
Twitter -   / stanprokopenko 
Facebook -   / prokotv 
Tumblr -   / stanprokopenko 
Pinterest -   / stanprokopenko 

ABOUT DRAFTSMEN:


CREDITS:

Hosts - Stan Prokopenko (http://www.stanprokopenko.com), Marshall Vandruff (http://www.marshallart.com/)
Production Assistance - Alex Otis (  / alexotisillustration  , Charlie Nicholson (  / shloogorgh  )
Editing - Charlie Nicholson
Intro Animation - Cody Shank (http://codyshank.com/)
Intro Jingle - Tommy Rush (  / tommyrush  )
Music Used with Permission Intro - The Freak Fandango Orchestra
Chapters

View all
Explore the podcast

38 episodes
Draftsmen Podcast - Season 3
Draftsmen

Podcasts
Transcript
Follow along using the transcript.


Show transcript

Draftsmen
91.3K subscribers
Videos
About

Subscribe

Watch Proko

Watch Draftsmen ; Stream

36
Draftsmen Podcast - Season 2
by Draftsmen

1:04:34
Flow States, Thinking in Pictures, and Abstract Figures - Draftsmen S3E12
by Draftsmen

49:30
Cartooning - Draftsmen S3E13
by Draftsmen

29
Draftsmen Podcast - Season 1
by Draftsmen
267 Comments
Yuri Slobodenyuk
Add a comment...

Pinned by Draftsmen
@Draftsmen
3 years ago
On a scale of 9 to 10, tell us how much you enjoyed this episode.

177


Reply


65 replies

@theyayo
3 years ago
Marshall is a diamond of knowledge.

53


Reply


@14watecolormore
3 years ago
Every time when Marshal shares his wisdom is 10 points.

10


Reply


@StClair008
2 years ago
I am shocked at how little Stan knows about art history.  I had an art education in public colleges (in the 70s - I'm Marshall's age), which I'm sure he would think was worthless, and yet I knew all of these artists and their works almost from the get go.  He has a career as an artist and he's oblivious to almost every major artist of the last 100 years (unless they are within the narrow scope of his training). If he is typical of those who attend ateliers, then this is a huge gap.  It's an eye opener for me because I assumed anyone who studies art would at least be able to identify a Mark Rothko from a Kandinsky from a Mondrian (even if they don't like them). Marshall is a good role model for Stan in many ways.  Stan keeps Marshall in line also.  They are a good team.  I think that's what makes these episodes so interesting.

15


Reply


3 replies
@PuppetMaster8707
3 years ago
Who ever does the thumbnails, give that person a promotion

84


Reply

@KoongYe
3 years ago
Marshall singing "Still Alive" is like the greatest revelation.

53


Reply


4 replies
@nuttanp
3 years ago
This is such an important subject. I have been struggling to be more 'free' in my art for years! All the tutorials I learn from has taught me to be afraid to make mistakes hence making my art look stiff. This episode is like an 'aha' moment for me. Finally, there is a name to the things I been looking for so long.

15


Reply

@Rice8003
3 years ago
"Looseness is not a frivolous departure from control, quite the opposite. It arises from the freedom which comes from superb control... Therefore, looseness should describe how a painting looks, not how it is done" - Richard Schmidt.

52


Reply

@shanghaitatoo
3 years ago
I love Marshall in this episode. There's so much course online teaching how to draw accurately, but so little on expression, exaggeration, abstraction... I feel like the latter are really essential to artistic training.

18


Reply

@oowaz
1 year ago
Kathe Kollwitz is one of my all time favorites. I found out about her quite early and was immediately drawn by it, and intrigued. All those years studying art I still haven't really found someone else that conveys so much emotion ,expressivity and simplicity like she does, remarkable stuff.

1


Reply


1 reply
@LizGridleyArtist
3 years ago
Loved hearing you dissect the value of emotive art - the pull on the heart not just the eyes of work is something I value incredibly in my work and others. As Stan said artists often get desensitized to emotive content in work and skip straight to the technical accomplishment of it - so when emotive pulls through it's truly a work that sticks with you - I love it!

8


Reply

@NickRossi
1 year ago
This is some of the best content I've ever seen.



Reply

@AnaEdigaryan
1 year ago
Julian Barnes, one of my favorite writers wrote "Keep an eye open". Highly recommend

1


Reply

@m.i.miller8008
3 years ago
a absolute 10 Plus...Get so much information and inspiration from these podcasts.  Thank you for these.

2


Reply

@neilgadsby3924
3 years ago
I’m so glad you mentioned Schama, he’s such a great writer on the subject of art, and his video essays in Power of Art are works of art in their own right.

4


Reply

@Arcvein
3 years ago
Boy this dialogue really summed up the frustrations I had in my college art program. Excellent content and an enjoyable listen for sure.

7


Reply

@pjlewisful
10 months ago
art is communication / communication is art....that's what I learned from this today.



Reply

@mr.krinkle1177
3 years ago
"One of the reasons i don't like abstract painting is that i think painting is a duality and abstract painting is an entirely aesthetic thing. It always remains on one level. It is only really interested in the beauty of its patterns or its shapes. We know that most people, especially artists, have large areas of undisciplined emotion, and i think that abstract artists believe that in these marks they're making are catching all these sorts of emotions."
Francis Bacon

4


Reply

@cory99998
2 years ago
I love Marshalls interpretation of that song, I'm listening to it and can totally hear the road



Reply

@whitefantom
3 years ago
This episode is great and full of awesome ideas for shutting off the inner critic/editor that many of us are plagued with constantly, but my actual favorite part of this whole video is Marshall singing GlaDOS's song from Portal.

5


Reply


1 reply
Transcript


Search in video
Intro
0:01
Stan: All right, Marshall. Marshall: All right. Stan: It's time for you to sing a song about me going to the bathroom...
0:10
Marshall: - you go to the bathroom... You go do that thing, you go to the bathroom and just let Marshall sing...
0:25
[Intro] Stan: Marshall, I’m back.
0:31
Marshall: Hi Stan. Stan: Hi.
0:37
Marshall: I’m getting kind of eager to go for this topic.
0:42
What did we - what did you title? Did you title this podcast something? I titled it something and we might have given it two different titles.
0:49
Stan: I called it Expressive drawing, what did you call it? Marshall: I called it Abstract Expressionism.
0:55
Stan: Okay... Marshall: Do you have a lot to say about expressive drawing, abstract expressionism or whatever
1:00
we titled this? Stan: I have some stuff to say but - well, I’m hoping to have more of a conversation,
1:09
see where it leads. Marshall: I’m ready for this conversation. I’ve been thinking about it the last day. Stan: Okay, so first of all, is there any difference between expressive drawing and
1:18
abstract expression - expressionism? Marshall: Yeah, yeah. Stan: Yeah? Tell me.
1:23
Marshall: Yeah, there is. Stan: What is it. Marshall: There's two things we've got to deal with here; one is that from an art historical point of view, abstract expressionism is a specific movement that got named in the 1940s
1:37
but it has roots well before that in other artists which we can talk a little a bit about
1:43
that. I don't know that either one of us is prepared to talk about this from an art historical point of view.
1:48
Stan: No [Laughter]. I’m asking you about what it is. Marshall: But because there are - there are art historians in our audience and I’m around
1:57
college professors who know a lot about this and they know how little I know about it, we should at least acknowledge that there is a difference between the art historical
2:07
movements that get these labels of abstract art, non-objective art, expressionism, abstract
2:13
expressionism, I think those distinctions should be made somewhere here early on. Stan: Okay. Marshall: And then, then generalize the term.
2:20
Stan: Okay, so tell me what you know about the specific movement of abstract expressionism.
2:26
Marshall: Okay, and I’ll try to keep this to about two minutes. Stan: Okay. Marshall: It was named in the 1940s after World War 2 and the most famous abstract expressionist
Abstract Expressionism vs Expressive Drawing
2:36
who everybody knew who Jackson Pollock was and that's in New York and the U.S, but the
2:42
roots of abstract expressionism go back into Austrian artists like Oskar Kokoschka, if
2:49
I’m pronouncing his name correctly. Stan: Oh my god, do you - okay, first of all, I want to stop you. Do you know what Kokoschka means?
2:55
Marshall: No. Stan: In Russian? Marshall: No. Stan: It means poop... Marshall: Does it really?
3:01
Stan: Kaka, Kokoschka. Marshall: Is that where the term comes from? Stan: I don't know, but I assume his name isn't spelled K-A-K, it's K-O?
3:10
Marshall: K-O-K-O-S-C-H-K-A, yeah. Stan: But it's pronounced Kakaschka, right?
3:17
Marshall: I don't know. Stan: I think. Okay, anyway, sorry for that side trip. Marshall: If you look up his work, he really breaks the rules of traditional realism as
3:28
a number of those artists did. German expressionists in film also - Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau...
3:35
The most famous German expressionist film is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and it's characterized
3:42
by not realistic sets but really warped, distorted, frightening sets and maybe we should make
3:53
a distinction here. You know, one of the greatest roots is Russian.
3:59
Kandinsky is almost the father of abstract art. Do you know anything about him? Stan: Is he the one that drew the black square?
4:06
Marshall: No, that's - you're probably thinking of Mondrian - well, there were a whole bunch of these people.
4:13
Mondrian evolved into abstract expressive - abstract art, John Canaday would have made
4:20
a distinction that abstract art can be representational, but when it becomes entirely non-representational
4:28
where there's no object to be named, he called it non-objective art. Stan: Okay.
4:33
Marshall: And artists like Mondrian evolved into that, Kandinsky evolved into that.
4:39
Who was another one? Rothko - Mark Rothko evolved into that. Stan: Okay, Marshall, I’m starting to get confused - can you simplify it even down for
4:47
me? My hamster brain right now is overloaded.
4:54
Simplify this - simplify this for me as if I’m - as if I am Stan. [Laughter]
5:00
Marshall: Yeah. I apologize. I did exactly the thing that teachers do at their worst, which is just lamb base a whole
5:08
bunch of names. Stan: I don't even know what this is yet and you're telling me five people that do it. Okay...
5:13
Marshall: Okay, let me explain. Stan: Yeah. Around the late 19th century in particular with van Gogh...
5:20
He's doing observational art but he's making it wilder, more emphasis on the lines and
5:28
the way he puts down the lines in a manic fury quite expressive emotionally in the technique.
5:35
Well, that started to get more and more picked up by other artists and a Russian artist named
5:42
Kandinsky at some point saw a piece of his work - he was a remarkable painter - he saw
5:49
it at a certain angle in his apartment in a certain light where he saw that just the
5:55
abstract design - I think he used the word had such splendor that it reminded him of
6:01
a fairy tale and he thought "Why not just pursue the abstract design and make that the
6:07
art?" this was in some ways - in a major way, revolutionary in the 20th century to just
6:15
dispense with subject matter altogether and do this as abstract design.
6:21
And then by the time Jackson Pollock came along and started taking it to absurd extremes
6:27
where you're just doing drip painting and randomness and chance and all that kind of thing, it really took as a movement.
6:34
Does that help? Stan: It does, but I guess I still don't know the difference between abstract art and abstract
6:45
expressionism or is that the same thing and it's just a longer version of the same word
6:51
or the same movement? Marshall: Here's the main thing I’m doing - Stan: Yeah. Marshall: I’m covering for the fact that I’m not an art historian and that there
7:00
are people who really know the nuances of these terms, but we do know this - when abstract
7:07
expressionism took as a movement, everybody knew it and made fun of it and the most - I
7:13
mean, the people who didn't revere it, the most common thing was "That's art?
7:19
My kid could do that". Stan: Right. Marshall: And so, that split in preference.
7:24
Stan: Well, isn't that the point, though? Isn't that kind of the point - your kid can do it? Marshall: No, I don't know about that.
7:30
Stan: It's not like to show off how good you are as a craftsman, it's more about feeling...
7:36
Kids have feelings too, right? It's like about expressing just something beyond the craft or beyond - Marshall: Beyond
7:46
controlled craft and realism? Stan: Right, yeah, control - that's a good word. Marshall: Yeah.
7:51
Stan: Where you know, a kid - it's actually more impressive that an adult can do it [Laughter],
7:57
right? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Because kids naturally would kind of do that, right? When a child holds a crayon for the first time, they naturally just kind of express
8:06
whatever they're feeling at the moment, right? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: You don't have to teach them that but an adult feels weird doing that.
8:13
Marshall: Yes, but that still doesn't quite hold because Mondrian's work was very controlled,
8:19
absolutely non-objective, what you would call abstract and very precise and controlled.
8:25
So, the definition gets wide. Hey, you know what, we better do. We'd better just move away from abstract expressionism as a movement and move to what you're talking
8:37
about because to me, the value of expressionism - Stan: Okay, now what's expressionism?
8:46
You just separated that. Marshall: Yes. Stan: So, what to use expressionism? Marshall: We've got two words here - Stan: Okay.
8:53
Marshall: Abstract would mean different from representational realism.
9:00
Stan: Okay, so then when you say "expressionism" and you don't include the word "abstract"
9:06
in there you're saying that it can be representational expressionism? Marshall: That's right.
9:12
Stan: Okay, I got it. Marshall: And expressionism, which can be representational, it could even - I don't
9:19
want to get too nuanced here - expressionism is something that what you were addressing
9:24
is that once you learn craft, you start to submit to rules and logic and form and traditions
9:36
and forget what a child knows, which is that "I want it to be this way and I have a mood
9:43
right now and my mood affects this". That to me is closer to the spirit of expressionism and that's what I get excited about because
9:53
that's what can help art students. Hey, you know, studying abstract expressionism - abstraction and expressionism, studying
The Benefits of Studying Expressionism
10:02
it as an artist is hardly necessary for abstract expressionists because they already know that
10:09
they don't have subject matter. So, they've got to make this painting work on its own terms.
10:16
The people who I think get the most value out of the lessons from these artists are
10:22
the realists because of the temptation to rely on subject matter as opposed to the other
10:31
thing that is at the core of the basic elements of the painting; how they are arranged as
10:37
an abstract. So, that's where I want to go with this. I know we spent - I spent way more than two minutes...
10:44
Stan: Well, I think we got there, we're good. Marshall: We got there, okay. Stan: We got there, okay. Marshall: Why don't we have you ask questions so that you can guide me because right now
10:51
my mind is racing all around to what I should qualify and what I neglected to mention. Stan: Well, this makes me think about my experience with this, and to me it feels like a problem
11:05
and I’ll get to in a second - and I think that maybe a lot of our audience can relate
11:12
to this as well because so much of what we kind of talk about is craft and study and
11:19
being disciplined and like you know, realistic stuff, like the academic training.
11:25
It all kind of points towards the same thing which is trying to represent reality as much
11:30
as possible and staying true to nature, that kind of thing, right?
11:36
Most of our audience is probably kind of headed in that direction. Marshall: Yeah, I think so because the term Draftsmen alludes to classic drafting skills,
11:47
orthography and perspective and those kind of things, yeah. Stan: So, the problem that I feel a lot is this fear of being inaccurate, right?
11:57
Again, I think a lot of our audience probably can relate to this [Laughter], I see it all
12:03
the time - people are worried about being inaccurate, which is good for academic training,
12:12
right? The goal is to be as accurate as possible, to get your proportions right, to study your
12:18
anatomy so you know how it works so that you're accurate with the way you're depicting the forms.
12:26
And this fear of like being judged for not doing it correctly the way it is in reality
12:34
I think is what holds me back from being more expressive because of that very rigorous training
12:45
I went through to focus on accuracy that now it's just like ingrained.
12:51
It's so deeply ingrained as a pattern of my thought process when I create to just be accurate.
13:01
It's so difficult for me to relax and like let go of that and be more expressive.
13:08
Marshall: Stan, I think what you just described is one of the most common phenomena of people
13:17
who get well trained in their craft is that we get too well trained in our craft and forget
13:24
that there's more that it's supposed to be a vehicle for something else. Let me tell you what a fellow teacher - he was my teacher actually who I admired very
13:34
much for his expressivity... He did just great work, Bob Miller, and I said "If you had four years with an ideal
13:44
student, say at the age of 18, and you're going to train them for four years to make them the best they can be, what would you do?"
13:50
he said "I would spend the first year teaching them the craft", that's anatomy and perspective
13:57
and rendering and control of the lines and all that, "I’d spend the second year teaching
14:02
them to forget all that and draw like a kid and then I’d spend the third and fourth year teaching them to fuse the two, to be working with both".
14:12
Now, that may - that four-year program - I wrote that down and I’ve been thinking about it ever since that it might be better to just start the fusion a little earlier but still
14:24
his concern - this is an old guy who knew a lot about how to train artists - trained
14:31
one of my friends really well in expressivity, that was the big balance is don't forget to
14:39
be a kid once you've learned to be a grown-up. Stan: Yeah, this kind of relates to what I said in last week's episode or maybe a few
14:48
weeks ago where I was talking about how at the Russian Academy you know, while they're
14:53
training, they're trained to be really accurate, all that stuff and then when they're done,
14:59
it's like 'okay now, let's move on from these exercises and let's not create art', and so
15:05
they usually - I don't know if usually but a lot of times they'll go away from being realistic and more expressive.
15:12
Marshall: Yeah. Stan: I remember when I visited the Repin Academy, I don't know how long ago - six,
15:24
seven years ago? Eight years ago? I saw there was - there was like separate exhibits and in one room, it was like the
15:34
post graduates, right? It was people after they graduated and I was walking through - I didn't know that this
15:40
was people that already graduated and I was like "Ooh, these are rough...
15:45
What is this?" Marshall: Huh... Stan: Right? And then - and then I went into the next room and it was like the students at the time and
15:52
I was like "Oh my god, this stuff is awesome!", it was like, it's beautiful. And then I was told like "Oh, well, those are the ones that graduated".
16:01
I was like "Oh, what's up with that?" it's like well, they're trying to forget, like they don't want to do that anymore [Laughter]. Marshall: Your bias was toward the ones that displayed more skill?
16:10
Stan: Yeah, yeah. They showed off their skill. They were practicing the skill to try to you know, grow it.
16:17
Whereas when they're done, they try to forget it and work on something else, right? Marshall: Yeah.
16:22
Stan: It's kind of like what you just said, like the first year you learn the craft, the second year, you learn to forget the craft - I guess there they spend four years learning
16:32
the craft and then when they get out, they learn to forget it on their own.
16:38
Marshall: Yeah. Andrew Wyeth who emphasized in one of the Thomas Hoving interviews that he did not want
16:47
his work to be just realistic, he wanted it to be abstractly exciting as well as realistic
16:54
and he said he strives for that balance. And yet, somewhere later in his life, he said that when he looked back on his work, the
17:02
thing that he didn't like was subject matter. He said there was too much of it which means that he was so concerned with subject matter
17:08
that apparently he felt like he went overboard with making it too realistic. Stan: Yeah and I hate to constantly bring up Fechin - well, actually, no, I don't hate
17:16
it at all, I love it. Marshall: I don't mind that you bring up Fechin over and over because people don't know about him and he was such a great artist, yeah.
17:23
Stan: Yeah, top three ever in my opinion, but I think he's like - to me he's like as
17:29
close to the perfect balance of those two as it gets, to me. I don't know if I’ve ever seen anything closer where - he has enough abstract qualities
17:38
in his art but they're still very much representational of reality. Marshall: Yeah.
17:43
Stan: And the abstract qualities of it are just so attractive. Marshall: I agree. Stan: And it doesn't even matter that there's also a human there being represented and actually
17:54
just in a very beautiful way. Even if you take away the abstract qualities of it, it's still just like a really well
18:03
drawn human, right? There's still a lot of accuracy to it, right?
18:09
He's not breaking things, he's designing them and pushing them so far - much farther than
18:17
most artists, most realistic artists or most representational artist but they don't break.
18:25
He pushes them so far but they still don't break, right? And that ability to do that is just so amazing to me.
Fechin
18:30
Marshall: You're right, he abstracts. Stan: You know, one thing I was thinking about for like - like how can people that were trained
18:40
in this more academic approach learn to be more expressive and let go of this?
18:47
I was just thinking about this for myself and I thought of the whole improv you know,
18:53
"yes and" - Marshall: That maxim of respond with "yes and"... Stan: Yes and, so, as you're drawing - and this could just be more of like an exercise,
19:00
not for professional work- it's just everything is "yes and" to yourself and just keep practicing
19:09
- don't erase, just keep going. Everything that you do is correct. Just imagine, everything is correct - nothing is wrong and you just keep going and you try
19:20
to adjust based on what you've already done. So, instead of thinking it's wrong, you think "okay now, like what I just did, how can - I
19:30
how can I keep going with this to make it good?" if it still looks ugly. Marshall: So if I steer it wrong, how can I steer - Stan: It's not wrong, exactly.
19:37
Marshall: Right, and if I steer wrong again - right, you shouldn't even use the word "wrong", but if I steered away from what I intended, how can I turn it into something...
19:45
Stan: You will most likely usually steer in a direction you didn't intend - Marshall:
“Yes-And” for Artists
19:50
Yeah. Stan: You try to enjoy the journey [Laughter]. You try to be okay with seeing where it goes.
19:57
It's kind of - I mean, it's like you just have to let go of the idea of accuracy because
20:03
the whole thing of like this is - I steered wrong, it's all based on the belief of something
20:12
even capable of being wrong or inaccurate, right? Marshall: Which means there's got to be a right way.
20:17
Stan: Exactly. You don't think about whether this is right or wrong, you just kind of go along for the
20:23
ride and you see where it goes. It's like if you go for a walk and you're not - your purpose isn't to get somewhere
20:32
specific, it's just to kind of enjoy the outside, think about stuff, just walk, right?
20:39
If you get lost or if you're not really sure - you've gone somewhere and you're like "oh, hmm" but you just like keep going, it doesn't matter, you're just gonna enjoy walking and
20:47
then eventually you'll recognize something, you'll be like "okay, I gotta go that way" and then you'll steer back and come back home, but you'll still enjoy that walk.
20:56
That happens to me all the time, actually. I’ll sometimes intentionally just kind of like go somewhere new based on what I feel
21:04
and then I don't know where I am, but I just keep walking and eventually I’ll recognize
21:12
something and I don't think that where I’m walking is wrong because I’m not trying to get somewhere, I’m just walking, right?
21:19
So I hope that kind of makes sense. It's like just draw, just draw, just do some stuff and maybe that'll teach us to let go
21:29
and be accurate in our normal work where we're actually trying to produce something intentionally
21:34
that has a goal. Marshall: Yeah, it's a different spirit than trying too hard.
21:40
It's the value - part of what you mentioned there, is the value of unstructured time. The value of exploring.
21:47
It's an experimental mode. In fact, one of the key words in the expressive drawing class that I teach at the community
21:55
college is experimenting. Stan: You teach an expressive drawing class? Marshall: I teach a class, I’ve done it several times...
22:02
Stan: Marshall, how many classes do you teach? [Laughter] Marshall: Lots of them. Stan: You're always mentioning this class you teach.
22:08
Marshall: Yeah, I’ve taught about 20 different titles of semester course.
22:13
Hey, the expressive drawing class - Stan: Yeah, tell me more about this - what's your structure of this class?
22:18
Marshall: The first half of the semester is to experiment, experiment, experiment with
22:25
uncontrollable media. Stan: Oh, interesting. Marshall: Like wet media that you can't really know what it's going to do because water has
22:35
its own personality, with randomness, with things where you just mess about with this
22:43
medium and make random marks and then look at them and respond to them and more, a half a semester on that and we continue with that through the end of the semester.
Expressive Drawing Class
22:52
But in that second half of the semester, we use some of those expressive experiments to
23:00
conjure, to look at them and say "Do they give me ideas for representational pieces
23:08
so that I’m starting not on a foundation of carefulness and tightness, I’m starting
23:14
on a foundation of freedom and exploration" where you do a hundred pieces or more that
23:22
you lose control over but then you say "There's accidents that happen in this.
23:27
There's things I would have never planned that really look good". I had students find - I had one student in particular, in fact it was Christina Cornett
23:37
who - she was already a professional by that time. She took the class and she helped evolve her style by that half a semester of experimenting.
23:45
It was that unstructured time that meandering, let's play, there's no right or wrong and that I could do this and she came up with characters based on the randomness.
23:54
It's also turned into a very popular way to do character designs, right? You start with a shape, you start with a random shape, you start with a blob, you look at
24:02
it and see if you could turn it into a character. That's sort of the structure of the semester.
24:07
First half is absolutely experimenting and the more you can relinquish control, the better.
24:12
Second half is to continue doing that but also in the process see if there are some of these things that you might segue into representationalism.
24:21
Stan: Yeah, that's kind of like you go for a walk and you know, you don't care where
24:26
you're going and you end up just stumbling upon a new burger joint that you end up going
24:31
to every day because you ended up liking it so much [Laughter]. Marshall: Yes, that's right. And I’m also aware, just in having said this that there are people who would say yeah,
24:42
but once you find that burger joint and you say "I’m going to go into this", you're turning into a hardening shell of tradition and there are people I think who are so committed
24:51
- Stan: Wait, what? What do you mean? How how's that hardening into a shell? Marshall: Because now you're going to do it repeatedly and you're going to lose the sense
24:58
of wonder. Stan: Yeah, and some things will stick. It's not like you can go on a walk to discover new things that you never end up doing ever
25:05
again. Like the point of discovering new things is to discover the things you really love and keep those.
25:10
Marshall: In yours and my opinion. Stan: Well, exactly. Marshall: The reason I mention it - Stan: What? [Laughter] Wait, what? Marshall: There are people who are so committed to abstract expressionism as a philosophy
25:21
that just to take the second half of the semester and segway into representationalism means you're missing the whole point.
25:27
You've gotta get your subject matter in there, don't you? Gotta get your representationalism in there and there are people with that bias who feel
25:36
like that you've compromised the whole point which is to get rid of the subject matter
25:41
and make it work on abstract terms... Like do you really have to put lyrics to the song?
25:47
Stan: No, you don't have to put lyrics, but if you discover - what I’m saying is not
25:52
about adding representational elements to it, I’m saying if you go on this journey and you discover something that you like, you can keep that thing that you like.
26:03
That thing that you like might not be something representational but you might discover a new technique for splattering paint on the canvas that looks really cool.
26:10
Marshall: Yeah. Stan: That could stay - you can keep that, be like "I just really like the way it looks" and I’ll use that whenever I feel like I want it or the way - whenever I feel like
26:19
bringing that out, right? You can still use that to express. Like there's nothing that - it's not like whenever you're doing expressive work, you're
26:28
always doing something you've done before - you've always held a brush in that way and for some reason you stuck with it, right?
26:35
You can't possibly not repeat things. You are always repeating things that for some reason you thought worked, you liked.
26:45
You're not gonna hold the brush differently every single time. Marshall: Yeah, okay. Here's where I think we need to start going back to some structure of what we're discussing
26:56
which is that when we're talking - we know what abstract is - abstract is - actually,
27:02
let me take another minute on abstract because abstract - Stan: Abstraction, yes.
27:07
Marshall: -is ironically the most concrete art of all because the things on the canvas
27:18
do not pretend to be something else as a representational illusion.
27:25
They are yellow rectangles, black outlines and red squiggles.
27:30
So, you've got this irony that abstract art is the most concrete of all because it just
27:37
is what it is. And there's a spectrum from the stuff that's entirely abstract to the stuff that is representational
27:47
and looks like a window into a world and the more we move in the direction of abstract, the more people tend to call it stylized, like a cartoon.
27:55
Stan: Okay, yeah. Marshall: A lot of Fechin's appeal is how he stylizes the surface.
28:00
Now, that's the abstract part. The expression part - what is it that we're expressing?
28:06
I think there's two things that we would express in art, one is experience and experience would
Abstraction
28:16
be mostly with subject matter. In the 19 - early 19 - early 20th century, 1930s in particular, there were these wonderful
28:24
painters, many of them in New York - George Bellows and Reginald Marsh who did city people
28:32
doing city things, really evocative of their experience of living in cities.
28:37
That would be - I would say subject matter tends to express our Idaho childhood or the
28:43
African city we lived in but the other thing that we express is more difficult, it's emotion
28:52
and somebody said that a line is a seismograph - a line on paper is a seismograph of human
29:03
emotion. Ah... Stan: What's a seismograph? Marshall: It's a device for measuring earthquakes.
29:08
Stan: Oh, okay. Marshall: If this is a jittery line, it might be because I’m irritated or fearful, if
29:15
this is a lyrical flowing line, it might be because I’ve got a certain mood that is calling that up.
29:21
And so, the analogies to music may be the most useful analogies between pictorial art
29:30
and music because lyrics in a song are like subject matter - "oh, I know what the song's
29:38
about, that he's in love. He's got a broken heart". If you put the lyrics in a foreign language, you don't know what the song is about for
29:49
subject matter but you still might get an idea of what the song is about because of the vibe of the rhythms and the lilt.
29:57
And then if you take the lyrics away altogether, you have pure abstract music but nobody's
30:03
gonna say that their favorite music without lyrics isn't expressive.
30:08
It's expressive in that the composer - Aaron Copeland made a big deal of this in his What
30:15
to Listen For in Music... The composer has a specific intent, an emotional intent to evoke a mood and the listener who
30:25
likes it and listens to it over and over, to them, it's evocative. It does conjure up that mood.
30:32
This is what all pictorial art should do. When I use the word "should", it's what all pictorial art can do.
30:43
Even though abstract expressionism in the 20th century was a major revolution in the
30:48
value of art and the perception of the world, it was nothing new at all because abstract
30:54
expressionism has always been around. When you look at Islamic art where they did not represent the nameable world because of
31:05
one of those ten commandments, they spent centuries evolving designs and tapestries
31:25
Marshall: Two things and the first one is less than a minute - maybe 30 seconds. Stan: Okay. Marshall: Learn a little bit about the movement.
31:32
Learn a little bit about 20th century and what happened with the changing perceptions; cubism, fovism, futurism - there's a whole bunch - even surrealism because surrealism
31:43
had a quality of take the rules of the rational mind away. Stan: Yeah, and study it with an open mind.
31:49
Marshall: Yeah. Stan: I feel like a lot of people approach those different genres as if they're like
31:55
competing characters or something. Like "oh, I’m only realism" and then they look at the other artists that did other styles
32:02
or you know other types of art and it's like you got to be against that or for something
32:08
but you like - if you just study everything with an open mind and see that they're all just artists doing something, you could learn from them, something from them.
32:18
You don't necessarily have to learn how to paint from them but you maybe learn a little bit about how to think or how to feel or whatever.
32:26
Marshall: The best book I know on it that opened my mind to it was The Story of Art
32:34
by Gombrich. Stan: Who's Gombrich? He's an author? Marshall: Yeah, he's the author. It's a long read but it's an easy read.
32:41
It's very geared toward people who don't know anything about art history.
32:48
Stan: So it's geared for stupid people like me... Marshall: Not only does he not complicate things, he treats it as a story so that one
32:56
thing leads to another and then people felt this way and then there was too much of this and there was that...
33:01
So, he takes you with a through line all the way into the 20th century. The first time I sat in art history classes trying to understand abstract expressionism
33:10
and abstract art and it just - I was 19 years old and I wanted to be a representational artist, it bored me until I got interested in Kandinsky.
33:19
I chased Kandinsky for a while but I still didn't understand it. Kandinsky wrote two books - Point And Line to Plane and Concerning The Spiritual in Art
33:28
and I got both Dover versions, read one of them and could not get through the other one because it was too philosophical.
33:34
But Gombrich, I keep wanting to say Arthur Gombrich, E.H. Gombrich, I’m not even sure what his first name is...
33:41
Stan: I just looked him up - Ernst Gombrich. Marshall: Gombrich makes it really easy for you, and I think you'll enjoy it too.
33:50
It's a mind-opening read. Stan: The beginning of the description of this is "The story of art, one of the most famous and popular books on art ever written" [Laughter].
33:58
Marshall: And rightly so. Stan: That's okay, great, I need to read this then. Marshall: Yeah, you'll enjoy it.
34:03
It can be a couple months of reading. Stan: Why doesn't this get passed around in all the circles online.
34:12
It's all you know, Loomis Bridgman - you know, it's the same five books that everybody talks
34:17
about. Marshall: Let me tell you why - I know this from being in colleges for almost 40 years
34:23
- there is a division between the people who want to be mere illustrators and comic book
34:31
artists and entertainment artists and the pop stuff and the rabble and the ones who
34:36
really care about the evolution of art with a capital 'A'.
34:42
As much as you might wish there wasn't a division, there is a division. I’ve watched it happen in art departments where there's almost land mining each other's
34:51
classrooms and - Stan: That's what I’m talking about... Marshall: The people on one side don't even know it's confirmation bias as you've talked
Uses for Non-Abstract Artists
34:58
about, the ones on one side are never going to study it... Everyone's on this side are never gonna st - but if there could be crossover, that's
35:04
a really good book for crossover. Simon Schama's - do you know Simon Schama.
35:09
Stan: No, how do you spell Schama? Marshall: S-C-H-A-M-A. Oh don't miss his videos, The Power of Art.
35:17
They are so involving and intense. There is not a single one of them that will bore you and they'll open your eyes up to
35:26
several key artists in art history with opinions.
35:31
Simon has opinions. Stan: Does he have like episodes on different artists? Marshall: Yeah.
35:37
Stan: Okay, cool. How many does he - does he have like a giant series or is it just -? Marshall: I’ve only seen eight of them. There were eight in the - I think there were eight in the DVD series that I bought right
35:46
when it was new. Stan: And is it all the like most famous artists from the 20th century that you hear about?
35:55
Pollock and Rothko? Marshall: No. Stan: No, okay. Marshall: No, he goes back to previous centuries.
36:01
He's got one on Bernini. Stan: Oh, cool. Marshall: Oh, I love the one on Bernini. Stan: Cool.
36:07
Well, I like videos. Marshall: These are - if you sit down and give them one hour attention, you will not
36:13
be disappointed. Stan: Okay, what was your favorite one? Well, which one should I start with? Marshall: I think the Bernini one.
36:19
Stan: Bernini one, okay. Marshall: It's where he made an analogy between physical ecstasy and spiritual ecstasy and
36:28
its manifestation in Bernini's ecstasies...
36:34
[Chuckles] Stan: Simon Schuma's Power of Art Bernini, that's what it's called.
36:39
Marshall: Oh, that's all it's called? Okay. Stan: Yeah. Marshall: Does it have any synopsis after it? Stan: It's so slow and they just played 30 seconds of music after everything [Laughter].
36:48
Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Come on, start talking already! Marshall: All right, anyway - Stan: Okay, you were just talking about ecstasy from the
36:58
very beginning. Marshall: Okay. So, Gombrich and Schama both are good introductions but there are many others.
37:07
Ask your art history teachers and tell them you're easily bored and that you want the
37:13
stuff that's going to help you. Now that we've spent 15 minutes on something that I said it would take one minute on - Stan:
37:20
Isn't that - don't you expect that at this point, Marshall? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Why don't you just always say "I just need 15 minutes on this".
37:25
Marshall: Yeah, and then I can surprise you by spending 14. Stan: Oh, exactly. Marshall: Okay, that was the first thing - get to know a little about what people call abstract
37:38
art, non-objective art, abstract expressionism. Stan: We're almost an hour in, that was the first - how many things we got? Marshall: The second one is the one that is the most valuable besides knowing it historically...
37:47
Some people who don't know anything about the history of this could be the ones who
37:53
do it best because they've got another thing and that's what I aim at as a teacher, not
38:00
to teach art history but to train artists to bring out their best talent.
38:05
And I found two ways to train that are balancing skills - I call them memories and reveries,
38:13
we use them in the composition class. And memories - memory drawing is simply Nicolaides exercise number 14 which he calls The Daily
38:26
Composition. He says it's the most important thing in the whole book of the natural way to draw.
38:32
So if you want the one most important thing is to take 15 minutes to draw something that
38:38
you remember that you experienced and to do this every day and there's a page detailing
38:44
in it. Stan: How long do you spend on this drawing? Marshall: No more than 15 minutes. Stan: Okay.
38:49
Marshall: And don't try to do them well, just try to do them because it is an exercise to get your mind recalling experiences and imprinting them better when you're living your life.
39:00
Stan: And what does he mean by "don't try to do them well"? You can judge if it's good or not but if it sucks, keep going anyway is that.
39:08
Marshall: Yeah. I need to make a distinction - Stan: Okay. Marshall: Nicolaides has an exercise called memory drawing that is not what I’m talking
39:16
about. The one I’m talking about that I call memories is what he calls The Daily Composition which
39:23
is a drawing from memory of an experience you had. Stan: Daily Composition. Marshall: Yeah, exercise 14.
39:28
And he says "These compositions do not have to be right, they can be all wrong" and then
39:35
in all caps "THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO DO THEM, 365 of them between today and this date
39:42
next year". Stan: What if it's a leap year? Marshall: Well, see, he's not accounting for everything, we're supposed to say - Stan:
39:49
Agrrr - now I’m confused. Marshall: Yes and 366 every four years.
39:56
It will be helpful if you keep this up for a year and it will be twice as helpful if you keep it up for two years and so on.
40:02
Now, that is - that is one exercise which is about drawing on experience and I add to
40:11
it, I suggest that students limit these drawings to line only so that we simplify it - I’m
40:18
just trying to get a line drawing of something I remember, so they are a record of experience
40:24
that is only trying to remember the experience and then later potentially transformed into
40:32
a whole new compositional treatment. Stan: I’m going to do one real quick and you tell me if I did it wrong or right.
40:41
I’m not going to spend 15 minutes on it but I just want to see if I’m even going in the right direction of what this exercise is supposed to be, okay?
40:48
Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Because I have some - I might do some things and you'd be like "no no no no, don't
40:53
put it in a rectangle". Marshall: You do it and tune me out - Stan: I have the right spirit, if I have the right spirit of this exercise.
40:59
Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Okay. Marshall: You do it, tune me out and I’m gonna talk to our audience. Stan right now, who was earlier mentioned that this business of right and wrong and
41:09
should is something that can be set aside for creative processes and now he is concerned
Memories Exercise
41:16
with whether he's gonna do [Laughter] his memory drawing, rightly or wrongly.
41:22
Oh, isn't it delightful. Stan: And I’m not worried about any kind of accuracy or anything being wrong...
41:30
I could totally see already. I’m like "oh god, this is bad, this is wrong" and I’m like "you know what?
41:37
Shut up". Marshall: Turn it off! Stan: It is not wrong at all, it's perfect.
41:43
Marshall: Turn it off! Spin around! Smile! Embrace! Say "it's good to see you".
41:49
Stan: Okay and this is this is from memory but it's a very um, recent memory.
41:56
Marshall: I’m so glad you're doing it. Stan: Yeah. Marshall: - look at me still talking when there's science to do.
42:03
Stan: Feeling this out, okay? Marshall: Okay. Let's see. Stan: Okay.
42:08
Marshall: Yes but you did one of the things that I said "let's leave it out". Stan: Shading... I shaded, right?
42:14
Marshall: Yeah. But that's exactly it - Stan: But you said that I could - I could say "fill this in", didn't you say that?
42:20
Marshall: Yes, but my recommendation as part of training - we're training an experience
42:27
and emotion while all we're dealing right now is experience- here's what I saw, I’m trying to recall something accurately, do it with lines.
42:33
Stan: Accurately? Wait, what do you mean "accurately"? Marshall: That's somebody in front of a window in a room? Stan: That's you [Laughter].
42:40
Marshall: Oh, yes of course. Stan: Somebody in a [Laughter] in front of a window.
42:47
I love how you just described yourself. Marshall: Hey, just go read the Nicolaides page detailing all this.
42:58
I recommend keeping it to line only and here's why - Stan: Okay. Marshall: Later - Stan: I more expressive?
43:04
Am I not supposed to like lift my pencil off the page? Marshall: No, that's not important. Stan: No, it doesn't matter? Okay.
43:10
Marshall: There is one struggle and that is to within that rectangle or on that page,
43:17
get a line representation of something you saw this week, something mundane, something
43:26
that was in your field of vision. It is an exercise not something that has to be done right or wrong but you're trying to
43:37
get it representational. Stan: Oh, I am trying to make it rep - I’m trying - I’m just trying to like draw some
43:43
funny shapes [Laughter]. I’m doing this wrong, Marshall. Marshall: You're doing it wrong because you're yanking the rug out from under my entire training
43:52
thing of the memories and reveries. I haven't even gotten to reveries yet. Stan: Okay.
43:57
Marshall: Memories exercises the part of your brain that recalls and tries to get it accurate
44:05
enough - correct enough but to struggle with it. Stan: I’m doing this totally wrong then because - Marshall: Yeah, because you're turning
44:10
it into a composition, you're jumping ahead. Stan: Yeah, I’m trying - ohhhh, that's - okay, I’m thinking of just like shape design and
44:17
stuff. Marshall: Don't think of shape design, think of who was where, what, there were several people over there by that counter, there were a couple people putting food in their plate,
44:25
there were two others sitting down, one of them looked bored... Stan: But if I try to be as accurate as possible, I’m just going to start like constructing
44:31
things and figuring out the perspective of stuff. Marshall: Which is okay, but in service of getting on that paper, the thing you remember
44:44
from earlier this week, 15 minutes not to do it well but just to do it the best you
44:49
can over and over to exercise a muscle to get it strong "oh, I’m doing these jumping jacks but they're not - they're not creating any electricity.
44:56
I’m doing these jumping jacks but they aren't really like a dance. I’m doing these jumping jacks but nobody's recording them. I’m doing these jumping -". We're doing the jumping jacks so that you can get exercise.
45:06
This is an exercise in recall. Stan: Yeah. Okay.
45:11
Marshall: I’m limiting it to lines so that we don't turn it into a decorative composition.
45:17
Forget about making it look good. Stan: I did another one. Marshall: That's better. That's the idea. Yeah, that is the idea.
45:23
Stan: But I was trying to follow that thing that he put in - the thing you read, his quote
45:30
he was saying "don't worry if it's right or wrong", and so I’m just like "okay, I don't
45:36
care if it's wrong". But now you're saying you got to try to make it accurate, which is like well then you have
45:41
to worry if it's right or wrong. Marshall: Yeah. I am not teaching it exactly the way that Nicolaides did.
45:47
Stan: [Laughter] But it seems like too contradictory. Marshall: He does later - he does later make you evolve the exercise to where you have
45:55
to go back and compare so that you divided that rectangle to where there was a certain
46:01
amount of bookshelf space and a certain amount of window and you're trying to remember 'what was it?
46:06
How much was the ratio?' Stan: I wasn't trying to remember exactly the overlap of the win - in fact, I got it
46:12
wrong but I didn't care. Marshall: But then you notice it next time, it is a pattern of every day drawing something
46:20
you recall and trying to get it representational of the thing you saw.
46:25
I call them memories and I say "limit them in a line so that you can put the tone in
46:32
later when you're in a creative mode". Shall we move to exercise number two?
46:38
Stan: Wait, how many exercises are there? Marshall: Two. Stan: Okay, yes. Let's move on to exercise number two.
46:44
Marshall: Exercise number two I call reveries. These are abstract inventions composed within a rectangle that you do for the joy of them.
46:58
Stan: Sounds like what I just did. Marshall: Well, you blended the two which is the whole point of this is to separate
47:04
the two. Stan: Got it. Marshall: You can do them in response to the names of emotions, you can do them in response
47:12
to music - oh, that's a whole thing to pursue - to listen to a piece of music and do a little
47:18
abstract expressionist design within a rectangle. Stan: Oh, so these don't have to be representational, these could be shapes that do - that mean
47:28
nothing? Marshall: They are best not representational. Stan: And can they be tonal shapes?
47:34
Marshall: They can be tonal shapes, they can be memories - Stan: Can it be colored?
47:39
Can I do this with oil paint? Marshall: Yes. Stan: Oh god, that sounds so much fun [Laughter]. I’m gonna do that after this.
47:46
Marshall: The memories one is to hold you accountable to some kind of objective criteria
47:51
which is that I saw this. Memories are what I saw, reveries are what I want to see and the only constraint we put
48:01
on them is try to make them not subject matter representational.
48:06
Try to make riffs on circles, riffs on cactus shapes, riffs on the way that music - oh,
48:15
when you do it in expressive drawing, one of the things we do is we listen to short bits of music without lyrics and do reveries to them.
48:24
And then when you've played Gregorian chants and then polyphonic choral music and then
48:31
Led Zeppelin and you put the drawings up on the - put these reveries up on a wall to look at everybody's, you can tell which is which style of music.
48:38
Now, this is a highly creative exercise that children do naturally.
48:45
You can tell a kid to draw something that sounds like this music and they will run with
48:50
it, so we've got two different parts of the brain that we're training and we're training them separately; one more factual, one more fanciful, one representational, one abstract,
49:01
one what you've seen, one what you want to see and then we're exercising both sides of
49:07
the brain and these are only exercises. However, the memories ones if they're done in line only can be looked at later in a different
49:17
frame of mind and say "What if I darkened all that area and clumped it together?
49:24
What if I fragmented this and started to put light on there that breaks it up?" and you can take these memories which are like the genre painting of Dutch masters who would
49:33
just do a woman pouring drink out of a picture. You've got something that's mundane but as you study composition and master composition,
49:41
you can take the mundane and bring wonderful patterns to that line drawing. So, the memory drawings which were only an exercise can turn into finished pieces if
49:50
you're inclined to and then the reveries, the reveries - I love doing reveries.
49:56
I want to spend - I’m going to teach expressive drawing for the rest of my life as long as
50:01
I have opportunities to, just for the opportunity to take an hour and do little doodles within
50:10
a rectangle and say "hmm, oh, ohh, hey, uhh, wow!" and if they don't work but you do a
Reveries Exercise
50:17
hundred of them, there's going to be some in there that are so you. They are expressive of your experiences, of your - of your visual biases and of your emotions.
50:29
Stan: Can you show me one of your reveries? Marshall: Yeah, I’ll be back in one minute. Stan: Got it.
50:37
There he is. Marshall: Stan, my sketchbooks tend to be about 60 or 70% reveries.
50:48
You've seen - Stan: Really? Marshall: Yeah, you've seen some of these before. Stan: I usually just see weird things, but they're all - they're usually representational
50:56
things. They're usually something real. See, those are - those are real things. That looks like a cell.
51:03
Marshall: Well, the reason that they're real things is because I know how to draw spheres
51:11
and blocks and stuff like that, so I tend to find three-dimensional forms in there.
51:20
But enough about my reveries - Stan: Wait, no, I want to see more reveries, keep going. I’m really curious about these reveries.
51:28
Marshall: Some of them are not within rectangles. Stan: Okay, let me see those. Marshall: In fact, many of them are not within rectangles.
51:33
Stan: Let me see that. Oh yeah, yeah. That's a spherical thing - that doesn't represent anything real but it's just a blob of stuff
51:44
- Marshall: Yeah. Stan: -but it's still the same concept that - it could be a flat shape that doesn't mean
51:49
anything or it could be a three-dimensional shape that doesn't mean anything and it's just a volume that you're designing.
51:55
Marshall: Yeah. I assign these to the composition students and some of the composition students do wonderful.
52:00
Just even in the last few weeks, we've had a few students that have done wonderful reveries
52:06
and they've turned into finished compositions. And you say "yeah, but they're abstract".
52:12
Well, remember, we can take those memories which are not abstract, they're representational
52:18
and find abstract patterns in them to turn them into compositions we like and we can
52:23
also take some of these reveries that are purely abstract and see images within them
52:31
- representational subject matter within them and now we've got the composition mostly worked
52:36
out with the mood. So it would be like - one is like taking lyrics and putting them to music.
52:43
The other is taking music and imagining lyrics on it.
52:49
And so, that's why memories and reveries are two balancing exercises for composition students
52:58
to get you strong with both representationalism and abstraction.
53:05
Stan: Now I got a question. Marshall: Okay. Stan: Well, first, before my question, I have another question [Laughter]. Marshall: Go ahead.
53:11
Stan: My first question is - that second exercise, reveries, do I also do that one for 356 or
53:17
365 or 366 days? Marshall: This is like "do I have to eat food every day for 365 days?"
53:23
Stan: No, I’m just saying, the way he prescribes it, is that you do - Marshall: He doesn't. Stan: Well, he did the first one, he said 365 days.
53:29
Marshall: He did the first one. The second one is kind of my own invention. Stan: So, this is not a legitimate exercise?
53:34
Marshall: Yeah, I thought it came from a dead guy... Stan: Yeah, exactly.
53:40
The only things that are good are from dead guys and girls. Marshall: No, I’m sold on this as a dynamic of training because I’ve been teaching the
53:48
subject for a long time and this is - one of them is hard, ones of them are fun, this is a great way to do it.
53:54
Stan: Okay, got it. Okay, so here's my real question now. Marshall: Okay. Stan: How - after doing this for a year, let's say, how do I know that it was worth it?
54:05
Because he says that "it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, the whole point is that
54:11
you do them". Now okay, I did them how do I know if I should do another year of them?
54:19
What am I looking for as the cue of this was successful. Marshall: I think that the only one who can answer that question is the artist who says
54:31
- hang on, let me finish. Stan: Okay, how do I judge that? Marshall: You judge it by saying "do I need this anymore?" and you look at your work and
54:42
say "it's missing a quality" and then you look for the prescription - you look for the
54:49
regimen that will help that. Stan: What is it supposed to help me improve in? Composition?
54:55
Marshall: The memories. That one is to train you to notice things more.
55:00
Stan: Notice things... Got it. Okay. Marshall: You drew what you remembered being at the gym or on that walk and you - oh, you
55:08
struggle with it, then when you go there say "hey, I didn't notice how -", oh, it's opening your eyes.
55:13
Stan: And does it also train you to remember things? Marshall: Yes. Stan: Okay, great, cool, awesome. Okay, that's great.
55:19
Now what about the second one, how do I know that - what was this one training me? Marshall: The second one trains you in the freedom to do whatever you feel like doing
55:31
within that rectangle knowing that if it doesn't work, there's no consequences. Stan: So if my fear of being inaccurate gets less intense after a year of doing this, then
55:45
this was successful... Marshall: Yes. Well, with that, we're overcoming - we're overcoming the fear of doing something wrong
55:53
because I’ve got hundreds of these that I get to do. Stan, what it really is, it's playing around with composition without any restraint of
56:03
subject matter. And therefore, you can see how I compose.
56:09
My compositions are obvious - Marshall composes where he packs everything in there that he
56:15
can pack. If there's anything empty, it has to be filled and there's a lot of bulbous shapes and that's
56:21
just the stuff that I’ve found myself drawing by instinct for years.
56:27
Somebody called it a visual jungle... There's different ways to describe these things.
56:33
Describing them metaphorically is good too. Memories and reveries are two exercises that help balance each other out.
56:42
They are not the only two exercises in composition - studying masters and taking photographs
56:48
are another set that balance each other out nicely. We're mentioning these because our topic today was abstract expressionism and when you're
56:58
doing a memory, you're not trying to do an abstract expressionist piece, you're trying to do something that is based on reality and representational, and when you're doing a
57:06
reverie, you're trying to take the subject matter out of it as much as you can and just do an abstract expressionist piece.
57:13
Stan: I think that's why I was confused when I was trying to do the memory one - I kept
57:21
trying to add some kind of expressionism in there because that's what we were talking about. Marshall: Because you weren't paying attention to what the whole criteria was.
What These Exercises Give You
57:28
Stan: I was paying attention to the episode, Marshall. Marshall: Thank you, that is more important.
57:34
Stan: Okay, cool. Okay, how do master studies help you be more expressive? Marshall: Well, they don't help you be more expressive, that's - they could if you're
57:44
if you're studying - Stan: Expressive artists. Right, okay. Marshall: Van Gogh was not called an expressionist because the term hadn't really been invented
57:51
that time but van Gogh was a great expressionist before expressionism. Do you know K;the Kollwitz work? Stan: Oh, of course, of course, yes.
57:58
Marshall: Oh, she is one of the greatest expressionists although I don't know that label is put on
58:03
her but mainly expressing grief and of the experience of war.
58:08
Stan: Yeah, no, I love this. There's - I forgot what this one's called.
58:14
The one where it's a yellow background and it's like someone holding a little child or
58:20
something and it's obviously just so much pain in there. Marshall: Lots of people losing their family members, which she did too.
58:27
Stan: Yeah, I remember seeing that one, I think it was last year or two years ago and
58:33
I was - it like - it made me feel like real emotion which is really rare for me when I
58:40
see a painting to feel emotion based on what's happening.
58:46
I usually just feel like inspired by the craftsmanship when I look at art, but this one really I
58:51
was like "oh!", right? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: There's so much - yeah, that's why it's such good expressionism, huh, because she's
58:57
expressing a feeling and I feel it too. Marshall: Yes, and - Stan: It's too beautiful.
59:03
Marshall: It's with the subject matter but it's also with the treatment of the subject matter; the composition. Stan: Yeah.
59:09
And it's everything. Marshall: Yeah. They had a show of her work at the Getty just before the lockdown that I went back to twice
59:18
to look over those works. They are so moving. And about 30 years ago at L.A county museum of art, there was a self-portrait.
59:26
I was walking through the museum and I caught this woman's face in black and white which
59:32
was her face about life size and I looked at that for 10 or 15 minutes to have a good
59:43
talking to from her to me about life and pain.
59:49
It was just a really - a resting image and it was not just because of her face and the
59:57
subject matter, it was also because she treated it with a gravity that was emotionally expressive.
1:00:05
Stan: Yeah. Everything it seems like - all her art just seems like there's so much pain.
A Few More Exercises
1:00:10
Marshall: There is so much pain but there was so much pain in her world that that would
1:00:18
be an example of expressing experience and emotion.
1:00:23
Stan: Well, cool. That's a great one to leave off of - Marshall: Realists who want to get good at composition
1:00:29
would do well to see every piece metaphorically as an abstract expressionist piece.
1:00:36
Stan: Why don't we do a reverie together. Marshall: Okay. Stan: And that's how we'll end the episode and then it'll end with the image of the - our
1:00:45
two reveries. Why don't we somehow get in sync - no, not right now, after this - after this.
1:00:51
We'll do a real one where we'll spend like 15 minutes on it or something. Marshall: Yeah, okay. Stan: Right?
1:00:56
But let's get in sync somehow. We can we can play the same music, we can think of the same something...
1:01:02
You were talking about cacti - cactuses - cactus? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Yeah.
1:01:08
So let's pick something like a cactus and Gregorian chants [Laughter], you know?
1:01:13
Marshall: I’m gonna let you choose the music and let me choose the phenomena. Stan: Okay.
1:01:19
Marshall: I like fruit shapes and lots of strands going through them. Like wisps of smoke going around things, foreground and background.
1:01:26
Stan: That kind of look like the reverie you just showed me on the last page. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: So you gonna just use that one...
1:01:32
Marshall: I do that all the time. Stan: Oh, no no no no, Marshall, you got - you have to also get away from your own patterns
1:01:40
and just do something different. Marshall: Do I? Stan: Yeah, you just described the reverie that you just showed me.
1:01:45
Marshall: Every one that comes to mind is one - another one is something with radiating
1:01:50
lines out of it. I do a lot of radiating lines. Stan: But stop - okay, I’m picking it. You're just describing your own stuff.
1:01:57
I really like the cactus one. Marshall: Okay, then let's do the cactus one. Stan: Okay, cactus one. It's got so many things coming to mind.
1:02:04
Okay, and then as far as the music, do you want to pick the music? I got - Marshall: No, you pick the music.
1:02:11
Stan: Okay, fine. Okay, do you know the band R;yksopp? Marshall: No, I don't. Stan: I’ll send you a specific album so that we're like in sync and on the same sounds.
1:02:20
Marshall: Are we gonna do this while we got the 4k camera on? Stan: No, we don't even have to film it, you could just do it - Marshall: I would like
1:02:27
to do it where we don't - yeah, well we don't film it. I’d like to do it where I get to go private, yeah. Stan: Yeah, go private.
1:02:32
I don't want to be watched, I want to be able to let go and just be in the zone on this.
1:02:37
Marshall: I like it. Stan: I’m going to do an oil painting. Marshall: I’m going to do a micron or pilot G2 pin because that's what I’ve been using
1:02:48
lately because I like to work small. Stan: Okay Marshall, thank you for your brilliant lists of things [Chuckles].
1:02:57
Let's reveal what we did or will do, but did, depending on where you are chronologically
1:03:04
at this moment. Marshall: Okay. Stan: Okay, here goes, boom! Marshall: Whoa... Stan: That's yours...
1:03:10
Marshall: There we are, that's what we did. Okay, there's the fruit of it. Stan: There's mine right there. That's our stuff.
1:03:16
I don't know if we did a good job or not but there it is. Marshall: But you should go and do better. Stan: Yes, I need to do 364 more of these or is next - is 2022 a leap year?
1:03:28
2020 was a leap year. Okay Marshall, thank you. This was fun. I actually really enjoyed this episode.
1:03:33
Marshall: Thank you. I trust that there was goodness in it. Stan: Hopefully the listeners will also enjoy it.
1:03:39
Marshall: What are we going to have them put in the comments if anything? Stan: How much they enjoy this episode. Marshall: Yeah, whether you like this episode.
1:03:45
That's - Stan: No no no, no, how much they enjoyed it. Marshall: Oh, how much - yeah, not whether you - whether - but if liked it - Stan: Oh
1:03:51
no, they enjoyed it, they enjoyed it. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Now tell us how much. From a scale of - Marshall: Nine to ten [Laughter]...
1:03:58
Stan: Cool, thank you guys, we'll see you next week. Marshall: Thank you everybody, bye.
1:04:04
Stan: Bye. Marshall: -Look at me still talking when there's science to do...