I have been stressing “essence” drawing and may be running the word into the ground, but I feel strongly about the word. Anatomy and mechanics are always present, too, but in the end the essence of each pose must prevail if we want to win the award for best-animated scene (‘ scuse me — scenes). Things to think about include proportion, anatomy, line, structure, weight, negative space, angles, squash and stretch, perspective and more, but you can be off in lots of those areas if you have the essence of the pose. The word essence to me is almost philosophical in meaning — “that in being which underlies all outward manifestations….” Applied to drawing it is the motive, mood, or emotion as displayed through the gestures of the physical body.
Ideally, of course, there will soon suddenly, then hopefully, constantly appear in your drawings all of these elements in a satisfying blend. A little study each day spent on one or another of them will net wondrous results. You will be pleased and much prospered when they all start to fit together and the exhausting battle with each separate one is over. We are all at different stages of development so must search out our own weak areas and concentrate on those. I’m not a master in any sense of the word, but would relish the opportunity to discuss your class efforts or your studio work in a one-on-one attempt to analyze your weak and/or strong areas. If I bomb out — so what! If I can hit home with some effective and fruitful suggestion then let’s hear it for the spirit of search and discovery. Any time is a time to be adventurous if it spurs you on to some worthy goal.
The essence thing appears in all the arts — not just sketching. In literature it is when the writing goes beyond just words, beyond just reporting. In music it is when it goes beyond just notes and lyrics, when there emerges an essence that touches the heart. There are only 26 letters in our alphabet — only a couple honored words we use in daily communication — but the artful way those are juxtaposed set them apart as memorable and meaningful. In drawing you have 360 degrees in which to vary your lines and the choice and variance determines whether or not your drawing will be worthy of the effort you’ve spent on it.
There used to be the belief that certain muses attended to the inspirational needs of the artist, today we speak of using the right side of the brain. Certain metaphysical teachings speak of expanded consciousness or awareness. In Psalm One it says the man whose delight is in the law of the lord…whatever he does prospers. Regardless, it is a shifting of the mental gears from the ordinary to the inspired area of creativity.
Here are a few bars of Mozart. How can anything so beautiful be put down so simply? When a good pianist plays it, it sounds like an ethereal orchestra playing God’s own symphony.
“Popular” music has its essence passages too. Here’s one that came from our own studio.
Guys like Robert Frost, the poet, spent their whole lives on the razor-thin edge between the ordinary and the inspirational. How thought provoking, his poem The Road Not Taken.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down as far as I could
To where it went in the underworth;
The poem goes on for three more stanzas but ends with these three exquisite lines:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
How pithy the first line of his Mending Wall, it has the essence of all our feelings about being fenced in.
MENDING WALL
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
As for drawings and sketches that “tell all” they are all around us and we recognize them immediately. They imprint their vivid essences on our mental retinas. Fancy talk, eh, well this is fancy stuff. You can’t just pass over this stuff with a “Hey, Man,” you’ve got to worship it and make it your religion.
This is getting out of hand, but I feel compelled to…well…overkill.
It all starts with preparation, which is the “open sesame” of all genius. Even the geniuses admit is 99% hard work and 1% genius.
Here are two drawings by Forain — a master of simplicity and gesture.
A playful caricature by Ward Kimball.
The cartoonist too has to get at the essence of his subject
and in the business so dear to our own hearts — animation. Cliff Nordberg was a genius at simple, direct action. This is the latter part of a weightlifting demonstration.
Ollie Johnston has done some of the most sensitive animation and drawings this studio has seen. I give him the title of “Mr. Essence Man.”
