Day 18. Break the Seal!

The Background Seal, that is.

Hello gorgeously handsome, fun, and incredibly witty GUT members. So happy you are here. It’s Day 18 of 30 days of Drawing. Hope you’re feeling chuffed.

Yesterday, I gave you an experiment to draw combining lines and shapes and asked you to pay attention to what felt best to you. From what I see in the community chat, some people had strong feelings one way or the other. And everyone’s preference is…. different. Shocker.

You now have a suite of drawing techniques in your tool belt that you can apply anytime, to any subject: Line Drawing, Shape Drawing, Line and Shape Drawings (two ways!) Of course there’s light/shadow and color to reckon with, but we’ll get to those later. For now, celebrate the crap out of how far you’ve come, inside and out.

To wit, this may be a good time take a few minutes to jot a few sentences down in your sketchbook. Ask yourself:

• What have I enjoyed and can’t wait to do again?

• What was challenging and I absolutely hated and am furious at Wendy for making me do? And would I do it again?

• And… did I surprise myself in any way?

Alright. Today is a good one for those of us who like to make meditative doodley drawing. And also don’t mind a little boundary pushing. 😘

Breaking the Background Seal

Many of us drawers tend to focus our attention on our subject and leave the background, or negative space, alone. Our subjects often live in the white space of our drawing paper.

Why do we do this? Any number of reasons:

• We want to focus the viewers attention our subject. The contrast and emptiness of the white space helps with that.

• Our drawings are studies and we don’t really care about their context. (Think: drawing a collection of shells in a sketchbook.)

• We are creating an illustration that will ultimately live in a publication, likely printed on white paper next to some text.

• Honestly, we’ve never really thought about it?

• We just like it.

Those are all legit and real, but there is one more that I think many people experience but don’t admit:

• We are afraid we will mess up a perfectly good drawing.

Yup, I think a lot of us leave out subjects floating in space because we are scared. WHY? It’s totally normal to get a little precious and protective with our drawings. Especially if we like them! So we never push them - which is to say ourselves - beyond a safe place. We don’t experiment with adding a background. Not even a background color.

But friends. Remember: it is just a drawing There is literally no such thing as the drawing police. Nobody can see what you draw unless you choose to share it. And seriously, what is the worst that could happen? It’s fun to draw, but you don’t love the result. Then you curse my name, crumple it up, burn it in some kind of cleansing ritual and start fresh again tomorrow. That’s fine! Curse away. I can take it.

Well, today we break the white background seal, and add some color. (Or Black or grey, those count, too.)

I have a feeling you’re going to like this.

Before we start here’s a little colorful background inspiration. We start with a return to Amy Sherald¹:

I love it when things don’t work; it leaves room for something else that’s going to happen next. - Amy Sherald

Amy Sherald, They call me Redbone, but I’d rather be Strawberry Shortcake, 2009; Oil on canvas, 54 x 43 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the artist and the 25th anniversary of NMWA; © Amy Sherald, Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

David Hockney, Rufus Hale, part of the piece 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Irises (May 1890), oil on canvas, 92 x 73.5 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Wikimedia Commons.

Kehinde Wiley removes his subject from their setting and creates detailed backgrounds for them that inform the meaning of his subjects, like the famous portrait of President Barack Obama.

Kehinde Wiley, Barack Obama, 2018

And another powerful Amy Sherald:

Amy Sherald, Breonna Taylor, 2020

Finally, I can’t help but include the artist Titus Kaphar’s work here. While it isn’t exactly an example of what we’re doing, I think it’s important to think about when we’re talking about subject and background in art. Some of Kaphar’s work shifts the spotlight away from the intended subject, and shines it on what - and who - is in the background: Black people who have been ignored and oppressed by Euro-centric history and art history.

Titus Kaphar. Sacrifice (Diptych), 2011. Oil on canvas, 73 x 52 x 2 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York ©Titus Kaphar.

Next time you see a painting, notice who is in focus. And who is not.

Okay, I realize these are all paintings, and we are drawing and we only have ten minutes. But don’t worry. We’re going to use what we have.

So, Without further ado….