Strife
When push comes to shove.
It is surprisingly difficult to draw figures bumping into each other or packed together. It’s almost as if the characters repel each other as you are drawing them; they want to be apart; you can’t get the lines close enough. It’s a visceral feeling.
Maybe it’s that your mind wants to keep them apart. Maybe it has to do with our sense of personal space. They say personal space varies between cultures. Do different cultures have a different intuitive sense of how much distance is “natural” between figures on a page? Somebody should do a study.
Nobody’s happy in a crowd. Maybe that’s why they are hard to draw. Grumpy people, grumpy with themselves and each other, and you for drawing them!
Even trying to place figures apart, but on a collision course with each other, is challenging. It’s illogical.
Apparently, people pushing and shoving together is a art thing. Here’s a whole essay on crowded art: https://www.artforum.com/features/all-together-now-crowd-scenes-in-contemporary-art-170556/
My interest stems back to some political nonsense, I think, like this drawing from 2020. Angry crowds are such a thing these days. Minnesota, oof!
More recently, I got into a jag about primary colours competing with the other, “lower class” secondary and tertiary colours, and each other. For example:
And then there’s that bullying no-account #47. The current tenor of strife is on him, 100%.
I remember back in 2016 seeing a video of the G7 get-together in Japan (I think it was). The leaders were gathering for a group photo. 47 was at the back but as soon as he saw the camera, he shoved his way into the front row, muscling the “lesser” nations out of the way. It was crude and rude. “Uh oh,” I thought.
As always, thanks for reading. I would ask you to consider upgrading, but really, would it be worth it? Instead, I have another idea: bringing two unique series of artworks, about 50 in each suite, to Substack. For the price of a subscription, you would get one delivered to your email inbox every week, plus prints will be available for sale to subscribers.
Until next time, pay attention, notice things.
- Robertito