Taboo Women's Body Types, Part 2

I don't really think of art as political.  I know past and present, art is often used towards politics ends,  but, ideologies aside, whenever any artist draws a figure? An opinion or a 'version of reality' is being suggested by the artists, don't you think?

Is the figure i draw Cute? Ugly? Plain? Average? Healthy looking? Emaciated? Pleasantly plump?   Obviously my version of  what's 'beautiful' may leave you scratching your had, and visa versa.

So what's my point?

Here's a portrait of a woman.  Really just a rough sketch.  Flawed. Her right leg is awkwardly placed at the hip, her left knee is off.  Heads too big.  All stuff i could fix, but i left it rough, unfinished. Because, the point isn't my rather modest figure drawings skills ( or,  ahem... lack there of.)

She's an imperfect woman.

I ask myself this question? What happens if i draw some women in the same pose... but CHANGE their body weight, skin texture, and even the style their drawn in?

Funny what we artists *edit*... whenever i draw a figure. All us artists do.

So what do we have here? Strip away whatever realism the First Woman had, and now we've typical comic book heroine's barbie doll proportions. Boobs way too big, waist impossibly thin.

There's a LOT you'll edit out to make a sexists (or idealized) drawing of a woman. I'm guilty of doing it, so are even some woman comic artists.  We sometimes succomb to the fans and publishers' desire for  idealized figures, or wildly distorted versions of them.

But in the second woman's case, (short of cosmetic surgery), it's wildly unlike what most of us even LOOK like isn't it? It strikes me as *political* because there's an agenda. I inviting the viewer to admire her, or maybe the viewer will roll their eyes, be disgusted or dismissive of her.

Now check this out...  for the Third Woman: were in Egon Schiele territory.. disjointed gaunt, sagging flesh, about as far away from the romanticized Gustav Klimt as it gets, let alone  super heroine barbie doll proportions. Some might say this style is stripped of pretense because it's not trying to be as sexy as Woman Two, or as 'natural' as Woman One.

But when we not only edit out the so called 'attractive' features, but also add things that most people find deliberately ugly.. or hard to look at. But to me this isn't any less or more 'true' a representation of a figure than the other two. But it still OMITS some things doesn't it? Almost goes too far the other way?

Now Woman Three.

She's illustrated in a lush brush style.. her bosom's bigger, but is allowed to droop a little. Fuller hips, but this too edits out lots of info. Glosses over 'imperfections' doesn't it? Yeah, it her bosom lacks the silicone of the second figure.  But she's he's also got a little more tummy than the barbie woman or the Schiele one, but we're still avoiding reality, it's just a slightly more romantic view than the previous two.

This is a woman i fall into drawing a lot. I get cut more slack from some female fans when i draw this type of woman, because at least she's got a FEW curve on her figure, but she's sill idolized isn't she?  It's just a more popualar idealized version than the other figures.

If you break it down to boxes and circles and tubes, the building blocks of  all figure drawing,  she's really just *this*... which may be the *least* prejudiced version. The least politicized or agenda oriented. It's also probably the ugliest too. Or most crude. It's drawn with sharp edges too, almost a sort of cubist 'in your face' style. I drew her bosom as little baggies of flesh or silicone taped to her frame, it's amazing how much focus we guys PUT on those things isn't it?

Now we may as well go full boar, FAT! We all know it, may hate it, but there's a little big of it in all of us isn't there? I myself do't even consider this a overweight woman, but i have my own affection for this body type, so i'm hardly objective. This may repulse you or you may have sympathy for it, but once again, it's not literal, i have edited out things here too.

I also used a soft leaded pencil to soften any hard edges, the *opposite* of the cubist woman above. I did so knowing how little tolerance many have for a rubenesque figure. Even Ruben romanticized this form didn't he? Another agenda, another version of reality.

So what am i saying?

I don't really *have* an opinion. My feeling is most artists opinions of their own work are pretty much pointless.  Especially my own.

My wife walked into my studio, didn't say a word, then and tapped an astrology clipping from the newspaper to my art table, which i just now took a picture of.

I'm not really much into Astrology, i got distracted by the inspirational message got absorbed in the damage various Exacto knife marks i've dug into the scotch tape on my table.

( Bonus: check out my yellow dyslexic page-spread? You'd think after all these years i'd have *memorized* ... 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, etc.. )

Maybe my wife's goal with this news paper clipping was providing me with some deeper message? Something about 'chaos' and 'process'?


Or maybe she was hinting i should, like, invoice some *pages* this week?


Or maybe both? 

" I don't get it..." Abstract vs Representational Art.

Glad everyone is digging the mixed media stuff, there's tons more out there, and I'll throw up more in the future, but there's an insightful post by Chris in the comments i wanted to get to first:

I don't wanna open the can of worms on Abstract/Post-Modern vs. Traditional Art debate, which I find really tedious at best. But Chris, I agree and totally get what your saying about abstract art. 

Another way to look at it is with music, I used to listen to  Zappa,  Stockhausen, Laurie Anderson, Bjork, John Cage, Captain Beefheart, Mr. Bungle, Eric Dolphy, the 'Raleigh Soliloquy' from Sublime, these and tons of other artists mix up melodic music.. with just plain weird-ass crap. Often in the same song. The fans who liked this may like the weird parts just because it sounds cool, others feel it's pretentious or indulgent to have 'weird for weirdo's' dissonant music s.. and i can see that too. Both are valid. Captian Beefheart,

I discovered what called 'abstract-modern-surreal' art books in my local library as a teens.  No one told me to like it or what it meant. Same time I was checking out the musicians above, their sounds and visual totally blew my mind. Yeah, sometimes bored me too, or seemed indulgent… or just.. went no where, or seemed "didactic", meaning message or idea  focused.. or as you say Chris, seems to lack feeling or emotional context. 

I'm glad your digging my stuff, and no one should sweat or worry if something i do, (either in comics or abstract art)… leaves them cold, or scratching their head asking "huh?" That's valid and does happen when one experiments in 'weird' areas. It's expected... and welcomed - - some of it hits for some folks, and some just misses. 

It's also why I wanna work abstract pairings into Dana stories, have Dana comment on it, because then the art is placed has some sorta context, it doesn't  risk of an abstract coming off as just a cold remote work.. like the example above with no text at all..

I got my share of puzzled looks for tons of abstract Maxx panels and Wolvie Marvel Comics covers too. But Like Frank said, I too no longer dismiss, but kinda *enjoy* my old detailed stuff like… Epicures, Wolverine, 'detail for detail's sake'... 

...if i didn't dig that 'classic' noodley stuff, (heck… I wouldn't have done it in the *first* place.) 

So, yeah.. I'm flattered if anything I do strikes an emotional (or cerebral) chord. 

Just like now-a-days I am pleased to do stuff i couldn't dream of doing back then... like this portrait: 

In fact, this is one of the FIRST portrait I took a stab at.

I wasn't going for realism, (not that i'm skilled enough to pull that off anyhoo), but I wanted to capture a certain mood/feeling of her face, rather than technical accuracy?

I started off making my usual self-critial doodles...

I'm always trying to escape chasing down some spark of life in simple little gesture pencil, marker rough i do. I really prefer the little face on the lower left, it seems less labored than the bigger one on the upper right.

The sketches above are same 'bowl cheeks' and ' pouty lips' I always do... somehow these cliche's followed their way right from the sketch into the finished painting. plus the ever drifting eyes...

Looking back, I sorta wish I'd kept the finished painting loser... like these sketches are..

I always have mixed feelings about my women's faces. I wanna capture the imperfections, but there's just a limit to how much illustrative skill i posses, plus, even as a teenager i was struck by abstract, post-modern and conceptual art I'd read about.

One of my favs, Paul Klee, also Willem de Kooning, and Joan Miro, were all artists I developed a love for totally... outside of any art school education. Not slamming that. Just found them from books I'd dig up at libraries.  Most of these dudes were trying to break free of constraints of a previous school of art. 

Drawing 'weird'... was something I personally didn't have the chance to explore in my art until the Maxx, when I had a chance to cut free and fumble towards the trail blazed by Sienkiewicz. Electra and Stray Toaster were the first direct bridge to these other artists above. 

It does my heart good to know, before most modern artists who were canonized and swallowed up by academia and collectors...  In their life own times, most they were like us. Dumb schmuck living in a studio and minds.. trying to paint themselves out of their problems... forging some sorta new paths. 

Even Schiele was both inspired by, (and emerged from the shadow of) Klimt's glamorized portraits of women's portraits. Sienkiewicz was inspired-emerged from Neil Adams and Barron Storey.

Then, I inspired/emerged... from my Dad. See, my Dad was an artists too.  I grew up watching him paint realistic portraits. But he also tried his hand at abstract paintings.

So for me, it's kinda a personal linage.

I lucked out, discovered the sub-culture of comics allowed me to dabble in slightly abstract styles, and later do art books.

Here's getting back to simple vs. detailed... here's that drifting eye on the upper left side in the finished piece, come on... doesn't the first tiny little marker sketch one just seem to ' breath '? It's apples and oranges, i know. But i STILL say the one one the left has it's merits.

I'm telling you... 'simple drawings' really call to me. 

But then why do I waste my time doing this big-ass elaborate paintings then?

I dunno. 

I just like to swim through a variety of styles and periods, good bad, intricate, crude. I hear some artists bitch "..it's all been done so what's the point?" True. But since it's all been done, the pressure's off your shoulders isn't it? Like Sondheim says in Sunday in the park with George, "..let it come from you, then it will be new."  May sounds trite, but it rings true for me.

Maybe it's like my dad. Both sides are inside of me... normal and abstract... even when they don't always see eye to eye with each other. 

So there you are.