Sketch Book for the Artist

PORTRAITURE

Poise

THE BALANCE BETWEEN a mark and a blank space is often a

tantalizing form of perfection. The aesthetic sense of a line

being just right can make a drawing sing. The Tightness of

a line is felt in its speed, length, breadth, and pressure as it

conducts our eye through the image. Here the grace and

beauty of two young women are held forever. We can read so

much about them by studying their gaze. Without faltering,

Picasso strikes and scrolls his pencil, whisking a timeless

girl onto the page. While with longer consideration,

Holbein maps the still landscape of Dorothea's body

in questioning marks, stealthily using his chalk to find

contours and mass, adding smudges of tone for weight and

solidity. Her face is drawn tenderly and with a luminous

glow. It is the portrait of a countrywoman, caught in her

last moments of youth, teetering on the brink of older age,

one eye already cast askew into the autumn of her life.

Frangoise au Bandeau

1946

660 x 505 mm (26 x 197 / 8 in)

PABLO PICASSO

PABLO PICASSO

Spanish Cubist painter (see

also p.30). Picasso has left

to posterity many hundreds

of magnificent line drawings.

Through exhibitions and

copies in books, we can enjoy

and learn from them. For the

beginner, they serve as a

great lesson that it is not

always necessary to add tone

to your drawing. How could

the addition of shadows have

enhanced this image?

Few strokes The simplicity of

Picasso's line is breathtaking. He

makes his flair and skill look easy.

We can actually count that he

struck the paper 40 times. There

is a common misunderstanding

that a drawing with only a few lines

is both less finished and easier to

make than a drawing with more.

The truth is often the opposite. It

takes a truly accomplished hand

to capture something well in only

a few strokes.