Drawing Degas

Here is the trailer for my video featuring a large scale easel drawing. That longer video is available to my Patreon subscribers. It is a full start-to-finish of a 3 foot by 2 foot vine charcoal drawing where I respond to one of Degas' bather figurines.

As a result of seeing the Edgar Degas, A Passion for Perfection exhibit in Denver, I am on fire to adopt some of his techniques and moves. One thing I took away from his pastels was that I have been working too hard! What I mean is his shorthand for skin tones with pastels was earthshaking for me. 

Details of Edgar Degas pastels showing technique.

Your hand knows how to draw. Get out of the way and watch the magic.

After Degas (from Memory)

The Little Sculpture, aged 14. 2017. Pastel & Dry Ground. 11" x 7.5." Casey Klahn. Memory of Degas.

Degas With Keyboard Backup

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Chopin and Degas.

More Drawings, Especially Degas

I'm feeling the urge to really get busy drawing.  The change of season always does that to me.  Here is a post from the drawing archive.

Pastel-Box Famous

Edgar Degas

Georgia O'Keeffe

Degas' box picture from La Maison du Pastel website.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s pastels from Pilgrimage (Annie Leibovitz, 2011).

Impressionists at the MAC

Edgar Degas 

figurine, bronze posthumous cast

The Spokane MAC has an Impressionists exhibit, and I finally felt well enough to go today.  Good to be well, again.  Saw Renoir, Pissaro and Degas.  Also Inness.

Full report still to come.

Intermedio - Degas

The Rest of the Story - The Little Dancer

X-Ray of The Little Dancer, Degas.

By National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (ArtDaily.org) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

What Degas Said

Dancer

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas weighed in on the artist's ambiguity.  The irony is that he is a consummate realist, and on the short list of historic master draftsmen.  Yet, here is the great man's admission that art is too big for him to define in simple terms.  

"I have spent all my life trying to figure out what art is all about.  If I knew, I should have done something about it long ago."  Degas.

Video Series Takes You Into Degas' Studio, Home and Head

Drawing: Casey Klahn

Go here for a six-part video series that is a great tour of Montmartre and Degas' studio in the form of a re-creation.  The focus is on his later works.  Warning: pastel exposure.

Drawing Mary

First published November, 2009.

Mary Cassatt, After Degas - detail
@ 32" x 26"
Charcoal
Casey Klahn

At the Easel

I like studying the master works of artists like Edgar Degas. This work is a copy of his well known Portrait of Mary Cassatt.

Master Copies of Degas

Update - Update

You are owed another update of my studio activities. First, pour yourself a cup of coffee.



The studio is a buzz with framing for my upcoming show in California, the Sausalito Art Festival. I'm a little unsure of the number, but I may have around 35 - 40 originals for my upcoming exhibitions.



Have another cup? Dark roast, I hope. For some unknown reason my statistics at The Colorist have gone ballistic. Almost quadrupled on the best days. Much of this uptick is hits to this page. I cannot figure it out.

Other recent posts include 100 Things I Love About Art, and When Bloggers Meet.



Daily posting of miniature pastels, as well as an occasional medium sized work, is now going on at The Colorist Daily. This is the time to buy a small work under $100.



My search for gallery space and exhibitions may be yielding some fruit soon. I'll keep you posted when dates are firmed up. The Hoquiam River exhibition is penciled in for September 2011.



On the easels, I am developing my voice as a figure artist by studying the masters. Da Vinci and Degas are my current muses. I often post those at Pastel, but you may see some here, soon.

Two books I am reading are: Master Class in Figure Drawing and Degas, By Himself. Hale's classic instruction in Master Class has me drawing various parts of anatomy an area at a time. I am learning more stuff about the rib cage than I ever thought existed. My Nurse Practitioner wife brought home a medical anatomy book as reference material, too.




I continue to thrill at the works of Edgar Degas. His familiarity with proportion and anatomy are only the beginning. I never realized how much he departs from the real before. All because his gestures, forms and movement are so believable. The book - mine is published by Barnes & Noble Books - is richly illustrated, has a woven binding and nice, heavyweight paper. Lovely.

Edgar Degas
Dancer

Finally, in the subject of figures, our blogger friend Astrid Volquardsen, has posted one of her recent figure paintings: Eva in the Bath. Well worth your look.

Ballerina Sketch - Degas Copy

Degas Copy - Ballerina 1
10.5" x 8"
Pastel & Charcoal
Casey Klahn

This post originally at Pastelsblog, March 7, 2010.

If I were to quit landscapes and just spend the rest of my days copying Degas, I would still be a happy man. Photos with a point and shoot - better quality ones to follow.

Pastel

Ballerina Sketch in Charcoal & Pastel

Degas Copy - Ballerina Sketch

12" x 8.25"

Vine Charcoal, Graphite, Compressed White Charcoal and Pastel on Paper

Casey Klahn

This post originally published at Pastel, Ballerina Sketch. March 17, 2010.

These Degas copies are helping me on the path towards my own voice with the figure. Meanwhile, enjoy these, and keep a good thought for the master, Edgar Degas.

The Colorist

Degas Copies

Degas Copy - Ballerina 2
15" x 12"
Pastel & Charcoal
Casey Klahn

This post originally published at Pastel, Degas Copies - Irrelevant; Not Irreverent. March 11, 2010.

These Degas copies were done by free-hand copying from Degas' sketches, with some measuring for proportions. The one posted today was then transferred to a La Carte board the old fashioned way by making a charcoal negative and rubbing the backside to leave an outline. The color is added by imagination, and with heavy influence from memories of Degas' style and color choices.

I have decided that he truly was focused on the drawing component of his pictures, and his "candid snapshots" of figures relied on draftsmanship and his realist ideas.

On The Easel

These copies cannot be sold, or submitted for juries, because of their derivative nature. They may be irrelevant, but they are not irreverent.

The Colorist

Copy of Mary Cassatt, After Degas

 

Mary Cassatt, After Degas

@ 24" x 36"

Charcoal & Pastel

Casey Klahn

See my hommage to Mary Cassatt here.

A Wolf Kahn Curriculum

After Wolf Kahn, #1
9.5" x 6"
Pastel on Paper
Casey Klahn

"Painting is easy, till you know how."
Edgar Degas. h/t Wolf Kahn.

Speaking of Kahn, I found an interesting lesson plan at the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts: Wolf Kahn, A Curriculum of his Life, Work and Influences. I didn't like the section where a teacher assigns common meanings to colors, but if you stand back from the whole lesson plan, you see a nice hodge-podge of data on contemporary beliefs about color. Actually, it is a collection of various lesson plans on color, with an emphasis on Modern art and current artists. There are also a lot of art and education links embedded in this plan.

The Wolf Kahn images are enough to recommend this pdf. file to you.

Quote, Hoyt Center curriculum,

These lesson plans are the result of the work of the teachers who have attended the Columbia Education Center’s Summer Workshop. CEC is a consortium of teacher from 14 western states dedicated to improving the quality of education in the rural, western, United States, and particularly the quality of math and science Education. CEC uses Big Sky Telegraph as the hub of their telecommunications network that allows the participating teachers to stay in contact with their trainers and peers that they have met at the Workshops.

Becoming Better

Intent, After Degas
@ 7" x 5"
Charcoal & Pastel
Casey Klahn

Degas Figures

One way for me to become a better artist is to study and copy master works. I am more interested in Degas' figures every time I look at them. When I copy them, I get a sense of his real mastery of the human form. He challenges me to get the stance and the attitude right. Above is a master study from a Degas painting. The photo, again, is from my point and shoot. I will provide a better photo when time allows.

This is the second one of these I have done copying Degas, and I noticed that he likes a dark area above the head. I am trying to see if it works for me, and I wonder if that element has more depth in real life versus the jpeg or book photo that I have.

Goals

The intent of my next few posts about reviewing my goals will not be to dissect each artist's trait one by one. See this reference for this thread. I just want to think about the words and see where to go next. Maybe some of these will remain on my list, but my new list will contain other traits I am thinking about. I aspire to improve my art, first and foremost. Are there some attitudes and behaviors that may help me grow as an artist?

Stay tuned, colorist readers. Speaking of reading The Colorist, I have made a little badge for those bloggers who want to brag about this (see below). I don't anticipate that artist bloggers will post this, since they have links to me already. But, my friends in other blog genres may like to post this handsome bling on their blogs - it's already sized to fit. Thanks!

Master Copies

Mary Cassatt, After Degas - detail
@ 32" x 26"
Charcoal
Casey Klahn

At the Easel

I like studying the master works of artists like Edgar Degas. This work is a copy of his well known Portrait of Mary Cassatt.