Grids and graphs

Diego Rivera sends us on a graph paper drawing jag.

Hey DT Grown-Ups Table! How ya doin’?

Quick reminder that we have our in-person event at SFMOMA on Saturday at 2pm! RSVPs are maxed out, but if you want to come and space opens up, it will be first-come, first-served. Hope to see you there — I am so excited for us to DrawTogether!

Have you seen The Quilters on Netflix? It’s an incredible documentary about a group of men who make stunningly gorgeous quilts for local foster children. These men are artists, and they are also inmates serving time in a maximum-security prison in Missouri. Seeing how these men grow and bond while quilting is deeply inspiring.

These men take pride in crafting each quilt with a unique design tailored to the recipient. To design these, they use grid paper to map out squares and other shapes for fabric.

The grids they used for their quilts reminded me of this assignment that I based on a small, unusual sketch I saw in the Diego Rivera exhibit at SFMOMA a few years ago.

Grab a pencil, a few pieces of paper, some colors, and let’s do it.

If there is one thing I learn over and over again, it’s get out there and look at art. Looking at art in books and online is a great intro, but we miss 87% of the work. Go to museums. Galleries. Mural covered alleyways. When we’re physically in front of an artwork we can get up close, nearly touch our noses to the surface, and see how the artist made the thing. Line by line, stroke by stroke. Or, as in today’s subject, square by square.

A while back, I went with my friends Anne and Amy to see the Diego Rivera* exhibit at the SFMOMA. (For the uninitiated, here’s a documentary on the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, AKA Friday Kahlo’s husband.) The show is an awesome survey of his life’s work, and culminates with his ginormous Pan American Unity fresco which the museum temporarily installed on the ground floor. But what captured my attention wasn’t Rivera’s epic murals or historic paintings. It was this small sketch:

You should be able to click on this to enlarge. Look closely at the sketch on the left. The teeny tiny graph paper he used. Rivera said, “there is only one form of painting superior to fresco - it is mosaic.”

Diego Rivera typically worked in fresco for his murals (that’s where an artist paints into wet plaster on a wall.) But the when the Paramount Theater asked him to propose a mosaic for its facade, Rivera created used pencil and gouache on graph paper for his pitch. (That’s right, even Rivera had to do proposals.) The sketches were designed to scale up to 100-feet. Fun fact: The architect did not accept Rivera’s proposal and went in another direction. (That’s right, even Rivera got rejected.)

I was mesmerized by how Rivera used graph paper to work out his subject, composition and the mosaic’s pixelated form. Personally, I am so used to an unrestricted blank page and fluid lines… I wondered, what would it be like to simplify a drawing down to tiny building blocks?

So, my Grown-Ups Table peeps, grab your supplies. Let’s get square.

Grid Drawings inspired by Diego Rivera’s mosaic sketch

First, make some graph paper. LOL. Yes, that sounds bonkers. You can totally use store bought graph paper. I didn't have any, so I made some using a pencil and a straight edge. It took some time, but it was a calming, meditative activity. It reminded me of DT’s Podcast episode “Getting Griddy with Agnes Martin.”

Nothing fancy for a straight edge - I just used another piece of paper. Note the paper is tiny. I didn’t want to pull an all-nighter doing lines. Heh.

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