Hello, and welcome to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's
Virtual Drop-in Drawing session.
In this program, we bring The Met to you
with a series of drawing activities
meant to challenge and grow your creative skills.
My name is Jacqueline Cedar,
and I am an artist and educator
at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In my own practice,
I focus primarily on drawing and painting.
And in the past year,
I have been independently curating exhibitions
with a wide range of media.
I typically lead art making sessions on-site
at The Metropolitan Museum.
And today, I am joining you from my art studio
and home in Brooklyn, New York.
During today's session, we will be exploring expression,
gesture, movement, and dramatic lighting
as we create our own figurative sketches
inspired by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's studies
of urban entertainment.
We'll be using Toulouse-Lautrec's "The Clown: M. Joret"
from 1885 as a starting point
as we experiment with mark-making,
as well as consider how we might use
an economy or a sparseness of line,
a limited number of lines in order to create the essence
or to capture the overall experience
of a character's expression and persona.
You can use in this activity, a variety of materials,
be it from charcoal to markers to really any form of paint.
I'll be focusing on watercolor and ink
because of the fluidity of the media,
but whatever you have available at home is awesome.
And so you can use a variety of materials.
You can feel free to follow along with this video
or come back to these ideas independently on your own time.
Either way, we really just hope that you will be thinking
of this time as the beginning of an exploration
into Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's painting and process.
So let's take a closer look at this first artwork
of inspiration together.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's "The Clown: M. Joret"
is five inches tall by four inches wide
and was made with pen and black ink,
which has now faded to brown.
Toulouse-Lautrec drew caricatures throughout his career,
beginning with the albums he filled
with small drawings as a teenager.
Spending time in Parisian clubs and cafes
years later as an adult,
he continued to develop playful and humorous sketches
of the people he observed on-site.
His hundreds of caricatures were varied in style,
and "The Clown" is one of two distinct examples
we'll draw inspiration from today.
Let's take a moment to note our overall impression
of this figure character.
Toulouse-Lautrec has drawn a portrait of a person
described in the title as a clown.
The clown's face, neck, and shoulders
are the focus of the image.
The clown's head is tilted slightly to the side
with eyes peering in the opposite direction.
His expression appears quizzical
and possibly surprised or reactive.
Bold brushstrokes made of darker marks
describe the clown's mustache,
which takes up the majority of the image from right to left.
Energetic marks above the clown's forehead move in a variety
of directions describing either chaotic hair or hat.
There are brushstrokes around the clown's shoulder as well
that suggests tone, atmosphere, energy,
and potentially even reveal the artist's testing
of materials and mark-making techniques.
Some brushstrokes around the ears and eyes overlap
and reveal the artist's early attempts
at finding the form as he develops the face.
Overlapping crosshatched brushstrokes around the chin
and neck are used to describe tonal shifts
that aid the artist in building depth and form in the image.
Let's look more closely at the variety of ways
he's assigning marks to the surface of his paper.
The image of the figure, "The Clown,"
is made up of a diverse range of brushstrokes,
some that appear more quick and energetic,
and some that appear more slow and methodical.
The artist applies just the tip of the brush
to achieve a thin line,
and the side of the brush to create a thicker line.
Toulouse-Lautrec is also varying
his pigment to liquid ratio as he thins down the ink
to create lighter marks and adds more ink to create
darker tones that contrast the white of the paper.
Many of Toulouse-Lautrec's lines overlap
in different directions to develop the illusion of depth
or movement in the overall image.
A second point of inspiration,
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's "Madame Abdala" lithograph
takes a different approach stylistically,
yielding a more dramatic visual experience.
This work is slightly larger than the first discussed,
approximately 11 X 8 inches,
and was part of a portfolio of images
celebrating the cafe concert and its diverse range
of performers and audience members.
In this image, Toulouse-Lautrec describes
a performer on stage standing near a curtain
or textured wall, illuminated from below.
The dramatic lighting and perspective of the artist
looking up at the performer gives us a sense
of the relationship between spectator and stage.
Medium and dark tones dominate the image,
with just a few specks of light revealing
the figure's face and expression.
Madame Abdala's gesture and near silhouette
takes up the majority of the frame,
yet she leans or stands primarily in shadow.
The figure's eyes near-closed,
we might read the scene as if we were watching
a more stiller, quiet moment in the midst
of a likely bustling atmosphere.
The overall scene reads as if Madame Abdala is
either about to perform or has just completed her set.
So today, we'll consider how we might use
expression, gesture, movement, and dramatic lighting
to create our own figurative sketches
inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec's studies.
Take a moment to consider the character
you wish to describe,
the person that you're choosing as your subject matter.
You might choose to work from Toulouse-Lautrec's subjects
as a starting point,
or you might consider working
from your own imagination, memory.
You might even use a personal photograph
as a reference material.
If you choose to work from memory, I invite you,
I encourage you to consider the last time you encountered
this person that you wish to describe.
And you might even take a moment to close your eyes
and think about the last time you saw them,
where they were standing, what time of day it was,
what colors you saw, what sounds you heard.
If you're using Toulouse-Lautrec's images
as a starting point, you might also consider
your first impression of these images,
when you saw that clown's face or expression.
What were some words that came to mind when you saw
Madame Abdala's gesture or pose, did you think serious?
Did you think playful, quizzical, focused?
You might even take a moment to write down these words.
I like to begin with broader ideas,
and I often come back to these ideas later
as I'm working in making choices in process
about mark-making, and gesture, and tone.
We'll try two different techniques during this session.
The first technique will involve testing a variety of lines
to describe the energy of the expression you're observing.
You might test your materials
on a separate piece of paper first
as you pay attention to how these elements behave.
Notice how light a mark you can achieve as you add water
to dilute the ink or paint on your palette.
Try using the side and tip of your brush
to generate both thick and thin lines.
Start working from light to dark
as you build up the overall image.
This will allow you to cover, conceal,
or edit marks as you go.
Since we are working lightly and loosely to capture
the initial impression of a person's expression
inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec's "The Clown,"
we don't need to worry about details.
Think about finding the lines
as you move across, around the face and feel free to cover
or overlap areas as you develop the overall image.
You'll find that if you work across the whole page
instead of fixating on one area,
you'll allow yourself more time for each section to dry
and you can return to initial marks and cover
or overlap them more easily once drying time has passed.
Focus on the dominant sections of the face,
the ones that stand out to you
in your first impression of the person.
Is it a facial feature or particular expression?
Focus on capturing those qualities,
and maybe even try to exaggerate them.
These exaggerated features are what move an image
from portrait to caricature and help us to understand
the artist's perspective or attitude.
In the case of "The Clown,"
think of the scale of the mustache or hair
in relation to the overall image
as an example of this kind of exaggeration.
As the face develops,
consider adding shading with hatch marks,
overlapping lines, or brushstrokes.
This will help to build depth and volume in your image.
You might also experiment with lines around the face
to suggest a tone or atmosphere.
Quick and chaotic marks versus slow and repetitive ones
can either amplify or contrast the expression
on your figure's face.
For your next drawing or painting exploration,
consider working in overall shapes or tones
as you develop the image.
Taking inspiration next
from Toulouse-Lautrec's "Madame Abdala,"
try finding the overall shapes
of each section of the figure,
as well as the space around them.
Lay in larger areas of tone first
with the side of your brush,
and wait for them to dry before adding thinner,
more detailed contrasting lines or marks
with the tip of your brush.
If you're working like Toulouse-Lautrec,
primarily with one color,
consider leaving some areas of the page white
to add contrast to the darker and more medium shades.
As you consider developing expression, gesture,
and movement in your drawings and paintings,
you can keep these ideas of brushstrokes,
light, and shadows in mind in order to develop depth
and atmosphere in your overall image.
I began working loosely,
sketching the overall composition of my painting with paint.
I like to encourage beginning painters to get comfortable
using their brush in the same way they might use a pencil.
This way you can avoid mixing graphite with pigment
and approach purer colors in the final painting.
For my first exploration inspired by "The Clown,"
I focused primarily on using the tip of my brush
and developed shading with layering,
and hatching line, and tone,
finding the lines as I continued to add and edit the image.
For my second exploration inspired by "Madame Abdala,"
I blocked the overall shapes of the figure
with large areas of watered-down paint,
and then continued to build areas of shadow
by darkening the pigment in specific sections
across the overall composition.
You might consider where your light source is coming from
before you start assigning shadow to your overall image.
In the case of "Madame Abdala,"
the light from below signifies a theatrical space.
Consider what kind of light exists
in the place you are aiming to render,
and how that affects the tone and atmosphere of your space.
You can explore these ideas with charcoal,
markers, or really, any form of paint.
I'd recommend watercolor or ink since they tend to behave
more fluidly without many material additions.
I'm layering ink because it has
a tendency to dry more quickly,
and so I'm able to layer tone
over a short period of time more easily.
Consider an absorbent ground like watercolor paper,
so your paper won't curl or tear as you add
layers of watery and washy pigment.
Once you've laid out the overall composition
and spent some time rearranging segments
of the face, figure, and shadows,
you might also consider adding more details
with different-sized marks to increase the contrast
between detailed and larger areas of the image.
I always like to take a step back from my work
while in process and look at it from a distance
in order to pay attention to which areas
stand out and might need reworking.
I'm interested in discovering new ideas along the way,
and allowing the process to guide me
toward more experimentation, and ultimately, completion.
I try to stay open to making changes
and taking chances along the way.
Here's an example of two finished versions
of these explorations.
I shifted the light source and added some details
to the space to shift the focus of the overall image,
expression, gesture, mark-making, and lighting.
Once your drawing or painting is complete,
we hope you'll share your work with us
on social media by using the #MetSketch.
Please also make sure to share your work
with friends and family.
I always find that getting feedback from a community
of artists and thinkers who support your ideas and practice
is a great way to encourage further exploration.
Again, my name is Jacqueline Cedar,
and it was such a pleasure sharing
Toulouse-Lautrec's work and process with you.
Please share, again, your work with us
on social media by using the #MetSketch.
And we hope you'll join us again
for another session of Virtual Drop-in Drawing.
Look forward to seeing you all again soon.