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Thank you, Tim and Peter, for bringing up the elements of 'looseness' and 'purpose' when talking about drawing. These, to my mind, are important aspects of painting as well as drawing.
All too often, I've heard Forum members speak of drawing as though accuracy and modeling ability are the only criteria for judgment. I imagine that most of us are fairly accurate in our drawings, whether tight or loose, and learning to model with color and tone are not that difficult.
I believe Peter hit it on the head in an earlier posting when he mentioned "conveying the artist's full understanding of his/her subject matter to the viewer". Painting and drawing is, after all, about communication.
As artists, whether painting or drawing, we face the seemingly impossible task of transferring the sense of something very much alive and able to effect us emotionally to a 2D medium. To even come close we must do more than model our surfaces. We have to editorialize by emphasizing elements such as line, gesture, lighting, brush stroke, color, etc. In fact, to translate the sense of the moment (whether painting or drawing) onto a 2D surface we have to direct the viewer's focus.
While the photograph sees everything at once, we don't. If we act as though we do, I believe our work suffers.
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