No Smudging!!!

My mantra for the first few weeks of a drawing class used to be “Bigger, fill the page!” Students would often say that they liked to draw small. There would be a very small image surrounded by a lot of white space. When they would ask me why, initially I would say that they were wasting paper. The further we proceeded in the year I would explain that formatting should be intentional. In other words, the images are thoughtfully arranged in a composition. Even loose and expressive action painters will either crop or reject works that don’t have a unified picture plane.

The next obstacle I would tackle is the smudgers. Of course charcoal is blended, but pencil smudgers who draw small are always tough to break. My goal is to get them to format, engage with the materials, and vary pressure and technique to control the effects. Smudging in and of itself was not the problem, it was more that they would smudge to the exclusion of everything else. So I would say, “Try it my way and then you can go back to smudging to your heart’s content.” With a pencil, an infinite number of effects are possible: pressure, character, quality, scale, density, value, and proximity can all be varied.

I know a whole army of smudgers are going to come after me. In the nightmare, I would be wearing all white and they’ll come after me with their lead coated fingertips. For me it is always about expanding an inventory of techniques. In the studio I explore that inventory. Whether a pencil, brush, or marker of some kind, each implement has its range and character, and within that range the possibilities are endless. Once a process is explored and specifics are identified, a vein is tapped and presents new avenues of exploration. I never really have a problem with being blocked or uninspired, because I know that not fully explored every permutation of every process with each idea. I guess if I hit the wall I will see what smudging has to offer.