Stephen Farthing has a variety of drawings on his website using ink and watercolour, crayon, charcoal and mixed media. He employs a variety of styles from loose diagrammatic drawings (Taxonomy of Drawings, The drawn history of painting) abstract drawings (Drawing the atlantic) and rough childlike drawings (HMS Victory) I think that the best drawings on his website are A man reading a newspaper which were influenced by Jean Helion's painting The big daily read. They look as though they have been done from life and are full of energy created by the loose scribbled lines and bold use of charcoal. As a professor of drawing he has written extensively on the subject.
My research led me to this video lecture in which he draws drawing and discusses what it is. His definition of drawing is ; "a 2 dimensional representation of multi dimensional events".
Until I watched the video I did't understand the diagrammatic drawings on his website. I like the way that he includes maps and writing in his classification of drawing. I believe that if you can write you can draw, its a skill you can learn if you are sufficiently motivated to practice. He also says that the judgement of whether a drawing is good it whether it conveys what it set out to, not whether it is aesthetically pleasing. On this basis a map is an excellent drawing and the drawings of drawing are better than the man reading a newspaper. My judgement is swayed but what is aesthetically pleasing which is probably why my primary interest is in illustration.
Kelly Chorpening works in 2 and 3 dimensions. Her statement talks about works that focus on the unseen back of a painting and her 3 dimensional work is flat pieces peeled off the wall. Her older works are reminiscent of complex cityscapes, interiors, and scaffolding. She also has some great, restrained, text based work which becomes more lively when projected onto a wall creating layers of image. I think that this is her best piece of work.
