I got a message from an articulate and witty old friend of mine who had read "Some Useful Exercises." He included a vivid .memoir of a field trip on which I had taken my drawing class in New York City 40 years ago. Here is what he wrote, in part:
Thanks for reminding me of the times we spent in the seedy, dim New York bowling alley looking furtively, sketching frantically, alternately trying pencil, then charcoal stick, then paper stub covered in graphite. Look, remember, sketch, do it again. Head up, eyes flitting, mouth open, drawing hand floating over the paper.
The gray wash brush studies were especially helpful in capturing fundamental blocks of the bowler's stance: torso, angle of head, angles of upper arms, lower arms, upper legs and lower. No joints!
You directed us to select some moment in the flow of bowler's movement as the 'essence' of the delivery; for example, the moment the bowler releases the ball - one arm swung up and back, one leg bent and supporting, the other kicked back and poised in the air, the delivery arm thrust out toward the rolling ball.
In a flash it was over. We'd study our effort in disappointment, wondering what we missed, why the sketch looked dead. Did we kill it, or did we just not quite grasp how subtle it was and how immature our visual memory and mental extraction of everything at one time?
BOWLING! OMG, can we really be talking about bowling? That ponderous, oafish and clumsy pseudo sport! And to think we were tying to learn the ethereal arts with such earthy stuff.
Little things matter - a lot.
