obfuscation photos on Flickr

Views of Uchisar - 0r (how I learned to stop worrying and love Hamam) by Liam Levitz

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{WARNING: The following text has little relation to the above photo, bar the geographical location. Currently no other platform for story writing so dumping this 3-4 part piece of travel writing here for the time being. Anyone reading, much appreciated and criticism, lavish praise welcome. Info on the shot contained in tags}

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Hamam - Part 1:

There are moments during my solo travels when a great enlightenment occurs. A glorious vista, a personal achievement or a cultural insight bring forth a calming sun of sanity that shines forth glorious rays of sense which pierce the obfuscating cloud of nerves that lingers in my mind. During those elusive moments my thoughts rise weightlessly. They ascend with grace through my elevated, enervated psychological state. Unhindered by doubt and untouched by fear. My life, both that of the present moment and as a holistic entirety unfolds before me and I can view my joys, my foibles and regrets with a calm, wise disposition. It is within these blissful times that I make decisions that shift the direction and tone of my entire life. With nary a blink or a hesitation I discard the past and embrace a new, improved future. Neuroses are shed, bad habits discarded and I view this spinning world and all its opportunities anew. It is no exaggeration to say that at these times I am flirting with the Ubermensch. I am the master and everyone of my own domain and no asinine reality can perturb my meditative state.

Sitting all alone in a sweaty Turkish sauna clad in no more than a skimpy loin cloth and a mud facemask was not one of those times. There in that sodden chamber there was no past, no future: only a startling, sweat soaked present. In that ever heating chamber the niggling cloud of nerves swirled mercilessly behind my eyes, cursing me to ponder many an unanswerable question like 'what is this stuff on my face actually doing?', 'How long am I supposed to stay in here?', 'is it really, really hot in here or is it just me?' and 'Why on earth am I in a Hammam, in the middle of Turkey, alone?' There was however one question that soared above and beyond all others, causing adrenaline to flow through my system in alarming, pulsing surges. That question being:

'Should I have kept my pants on?'

With that single query my intended immersion into the aged tradition of relaxation and release was transformed into a hellish re-run of the 'running through school naked dreams' that tormented my early teenage years. There I sat, ensconced in the heat and sweat of the sauna. My posterior slowly being grilled as it pressed upon the burning wooden slats, my body visibly shrinking as every last drop of water oozed through my skin while my mind desperately tried to remember how and why this had seemed like a good idea just a few short minutes ago.

It was my last day in Turkey before embarking upon what promised to be a unique but tedious day long journey to Georgia. Aware that my imminent arrival in the Caucasus was going to put some level of strain upon me, and aware that if I was to fully embrace all of the opportunities that it would present I would have to be in a mindset that felt no nerves, I had decided to do something that had been making me nervous for the past week. That thing was attend my very first ever Hammam.

Writing now with hindsight and an extensive array of Hammam experiences that ranged from fighting publicly onanistic Germans through to being brutally broken at the hands of an Istanbul massage master, my nerves seem inexplicable. But put yourself in my shoes. I was 6 days into a 3 month solo trip that is going to see you trawl your backpack through former war zones and down into the alleged axis of evil. The trip was going to be the longest I have ever been away from home, the longest I have been apart from my home stuck damsel in distress, Hazel. I will readily admit that while I could feel the thrill of adventure, I could also also feel the gentle throb of fear. This was partly based upon the vast swathe of unknown that stretched before and partly based upon a deep mistrust of my own capabilities.

You see, I knew that no matter where and when I have travelled, disaster has somehow snuck its way into my backpack, revealing itself at the most inopportune times. In this head of mine there are memories that make me wince even now. The experiences they relate to are as vivid as fresh, painful scars. With consummate ease I can still conjure up the moment when I phoned my work from a Milan train station to inform them that due to a mixture of alcohol and a Railways strike I was going to be late back for work. Not by a few hours nor a day late, but an entire week. If this memory becomes too tame I can swiftly move onto the recollection of being thrown out of a convent in Manhattan for having pre-marital liaisons with my partner. Not so bad you say? No, it wasn't, until I discovered that the only other choice of accommodation in that entire island was a room in a run down brothel, replete with mirrored headboard, mirrored ceiling and porn on every single channel. Cheap porn at that. It is fair to say that I have travelled but I am not a traveller.

However, I had decided that this trip was going to be the one where I scratched off any mental scars. This trip would be the one where I embraced fear, stared down uncertainty and took on any challenge life threw my way. I was going to be the man people thought I was: I was going to become a traveller. I thought for a while about how I would put this plan into action, casting around in my mind for what made me nervous about my current location. The locals were friendly, the food served up was mostly dead, bikes could be hired, cars could be rented and everybody spoke perfect English. There seemed so little threat that it was almost tedious.

Then I thought about the Hammam, that ancient pillar of Turkish life. I thought about what it would be like to enter that mysterious, sweaty world of rigorous rubbing for the first time, alone? The answer was nervous, I would feel very, very nervous. I had heard only half tales and partial words about what to expect. Some men talked happily of glorious chambers of steam and sweat while others whimpered about muscle snapping massages and inappropriately intimate rubbing. Personally my own knowledge about that ancient ritual were limited to an awareness that it involved liberal amounts of water, lots of steam, men vigorously massaging other men and a certain disregard for British boundaries of personal space. Everything about it made me twitch inside. This was the perfect first phase of my transformation into the the Ray Mears for the terminally inadequate. With no hesitation at all I gathered all that I thought I needed and made my way with some haste to the local Hammam.

To be continued...

Zach Blas by Roͬͬ͠͠͡͠͠͠͠͠͠͠͠sͬͬ͠͠͠͠͠͠͠͠͠aͬͬ͠͠͠͠͠͠͠ Menkman

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Facial Weaponization Suite (2011-14)

Facial Weaponization Suite protests against biometric facial recognition–and the inequalities these technologies propagate–by making “collective masks” in community-based workshops that are modeled from the aggregated facial data of participants, resulting in amorphous masks that cannot be detected by biometric facial recognition technologies. The masks are used for public interventions and performances. One mask, the Fag Face Mask, generated from the biometric facial data of many queer men’s faces, is a response to scientific studies that link determining sexual orientation through rapid facial recognition techniques. Another mask explores a tripartite conception of blackness, divided between biometric racism (the inability of biometric technologies to detect dark skin), the favoring of black in militant aesthetics, and black as that which informatically obfuscates. A third mask engages feminism’s relations to concealment and imperceptibility, taking recent veil legislation in France as a troubling site that turns visibility into an oppressive logic of control. A fourth mask takes up biometrics’ deployment as a border security technology at the Mexico-US border and the resulting violence and nationalism it instigates. These masks intersect with social movements’ use of masking as an opaque tool of collective transformation that refuses dominant forms of political representation.

Violin Peg 3D Print Reconstruction by Massie

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Rebuilding a family heirloom w/ 3D Printing - Tuning Peg half is complete

I intentionally will be using a pop color (white in this test run) to not obfuscate what was original and what's filling in the full picture - You know, like how museums fill in the missing bones of dinosaur skeletons.

Robert Cremean: Gula/Gluttony from STUDIO SECTION 2005-2007, The Seven Deadly Sins and Three Diptychs from The Winter Notebooks by rdlv1

2005-2007

80" x48"

Colored pencil, modeling paste on wood panel

Below is a transcription of the handwritten words of GULA above:

Nothing fills me, satisfies me, binds my need. I hang bloated, an inflatable sack of gaseous inconsequence. Self-pity, self-loathing and disgust swell my perimeter. I consume everything and exhaust nothing. I have cannibalized all desire and packaged myself expandable. I am greed without anus. That which my sibling, Avaritia, cannot retain, I cannot expel. I am a single-holed hunger, a swollen toothless bladder of vast proportion My skin is moist with shit. I boil with the blessing of my punishment. Pity me. Pity me as I pity myself, with love and understanding. Let me devour your love. Afford me the sweets of your acceptance and loving understanding. Do not judge me repugnant and without merit. Enlarge me with your lack of judgement. Forsake punishment and retribution. I hang helpless of defense. Is there not some beauty in my dedication? A certain admiration for my capacity to retain? I have always been and will always be. As you swell my enormity with repetition, I will devour you generation upon layered generation; a vast compaction of obfuscation, a conspiracy of ignorance. Through your insatiable hunger and my infinite capacity, we will devour the earth. I require no change of diet. Repeat is the fare of the day and of all of the days. I am putrid with it and exalt in its exhilaration. The perfume of blood and shit expands my girth, gives measurement to my wastefulness. To eliminate unwelcome surprise or unpalatable experiment, let me list the menu: War—Only war—all else is a potpourri of surrogates and stuffing. Greed feeds me, expands my perimeter. I devour what he acquires. What he cannot retain, I contain. I am the reticule of avarice. Nothing escapes me save the stench of layered repetition. I hang heavy with it, crucified by consumption. Pity me. The menu never varies. I have no taste for it, but can stomach no other. In symbiotic stagnation, I serve my purpose with passive accumulation. Though what I hold is never used, the very weight of me is proof of our existence, our triangulation. Gula, Acedia, Avaritia. We three, in symbiotic triangulation, illustrate the entelechy of mankind; but it is I, only I, Gula, who is passive. I hang and I hold, absent of anus in constant and tractable expansion. A balloon of infinite compaction. My layered weight and weighted expansion is shaped and molded to the contours of war. I am what I eat: rape, torture, horror, suffering, torn flesh, burning flesh, rotten flesh...I am full of it, suppurated by it, hanging and twisting like a fragrant pudding. I am the right flank of Acedia, sloth, follower of dogma, ritual, and recipe, sleeper of dreamless sleep. It is Acedia who scribed the menu adding, perhaps, subtle variations depending on shifting taste and available condiments. Avaritia stuffs me like a goose’s gullet. Generation after generation after generation I have been crammed with the rot and spoils of war: Like carrion, works of art, raped and pillaged, putrefy my core. Screams and wailing waft my bowels. Base laughter and jeering fill the leaded chambers of my heart. I reek with piety and deceit, the stench of hypocrisy. I am stuffed to bursting—and yet I do not burst. My expansion is infinite—or so it seems. Acedia sustains me. In passivity I accept all things given. In suspension I hang heavy with the nothingness of belief. I accept all things. I accept all things save one: Absence. Absence is never proffered, never interred or contained. My expansion is secure. Contradiction hinders not my dedication. My crucifixion is assured...the ecstasy of my torment, self-hatred and pity, assured. What Avaritia feeds me suspends me, increases me, intensities my hunger. Greed feeds me and so I hang, swollen with self-satisfaction and contempt. All precious things are artifacts, man-made, artificial, indigestible—. I hang heavy with them. Precious ideas, precious objects, precious dogmas and manifestoes. I contain them all. Layer upon layer of them. Millennium upon millennium, I am bloated with their flatulence. Avaritia stuffs me with his plunder...Gods and rituals, jewels and gold, paintings and sculpture. Boundaries. Things. Manufactured values. Realities, gaseous and pervasive. Beliefs, metaphors, poetry. Greed feeds me, over-feeds me, stuffs me with illusion. I hang heavy in duplication. Stuffed with pretense, superstition, and lies. Only compassionate history forgives this gluttony, for it, too, lies within me. It is in me and of me and is me, for only history can contain the weight and volume of this layered repetition, this gluttony of repeat, this unchanging menu of greed. I am what I eat, the rotting spoils of masculine entelechy. But there are certain divertimeni, certain unexpected interludes of frivolity and license that lighten my bowels of the heavy wheat and potatoes of war. Though the menu never changes, the means of acquisition add flavor to my layering distension The Inquisition was one of Acedia’s finest diversions. Sincere, dedicated, passionate, it delivered unto me unselfishly, without pretension, expansion in the name of the salvation of souls. Ambitious, slothful Torquemada, in all the purity of Acedia’s sleep, delivered unto me a sumptuous feast of souls. There could be no greater fare than this. Gula eats, no matter who or what the provider. The layering proceeds without discrimination. War, holocausts, inquisitions, whatever guise the provider, whatever size the provision, Gula eats. My sin is accommodation, my distension, layered by Avaritia’s taking and Acedia’s slumber. These two, war and religion, greed and sloth, create me, distend me. I am history, a fabrication of man’s making, frangible and artificial, mythical and metaphorical, a layering repetition of man’s image of himself in frantic desperation to create himself viable. All that was written and remembered, I contain, repeat upon layered repeat. I am his reality, his proof of existence and yet I am not real, I am his interpretation of reality and reality itself is an artifact created out of the compulsion to endure and to prevail. I am swollen by conflict, bloated with competition, layer upon layer I fill and distend. In Acedia’s slumber, men compete to be first. I am puffed to bursting with fame and acclaim, awards and rewards. Names remembered and names forgotten stud my accumulation. Bodiless without axis or armature they lay draped across obscene ambition, prudishly covering their whorishness. What need forces this dedication? It can only be endemic, endemic to masculine entelechy. Men layer me with their dedication To be first! To make history! To kill and conquer and conquer and kill in an endless repetitious obsessive linearity of Acedia’s sleep. This is my accumulation. This is my expansion. But my expansion is no longer finite. I have become finite and terminal. Acedia stirs and Avaritia’s consumption abates. We succumb to chaos. There is a sense of famine and deprivation. My layering has become agitated and frenetic. Like a pig drowning in shit, there is a thrashing about in passed realties. All the metaphors have changed and this is known but unrecognized. Still, Acedia sleeps—with lids forced shut. But now he dreams. He dreams of death. He dreams of death and the end of repeat. He clings to his sleep in desperation with otiose religiosity. Fear shapes his dream and trembles his complacency. He is afraid. He is trapped in gluttony. I have swallowed him whole. Our conspiracy falters. That which was absolute has become transitory as mankind and all his metaphors slide into past tense. I, Gula, have become quaint, a hope chest filled with trinkets and ornaments for a future that must never come. Would that I could simply clamp shut my mouth and preclude repetition. As he has layered me in to redundancy, he, too, has become redundant. Even Avaritia with his consuming catholic appetite has become cautious of toxicity. We are over-whelmed by paradox and inevitability. If Acedia wakes, we will die. If Acedia sleeps, we will die. Sloth controls us all. What has provoked this dilemma? What suddenness has brought us to conclusion? I cannot accept my ending. After all these centuries of accumulation, to be now suddenly absurd is unbearable. Self-deprecation is not in me or of me. I, above all artifacts, am to be respected. Am I not sacred? Is not man’s memory of Acedia’s sleep and Avaritia’s greedy accomplishments magnificent? My enormity and longevity alone should ignite awe and yet I am threatened. My layering ingestion presumes conclusion. I have swallowed my end. I am become the product of conclusion. My forever ness has become momentary. I have eaten fear and am poisoned by it. Avaritia has destroyed me. By forcing one last layer of repetition, he has doomed me finite. Infinity exists now only within Acedia’s fevered sleep. Mankind’s triad of dominance has concluded. My mouth is sealed. My death is immanent. Embedded in Gula’s gut is war’s diffusion and history; the glut of me hangs heavy in completion. War, the meat and potatoes of Avaritia, has transferred its significance from Avaritia’s greed to Acedia’s slumber. It hovers in supposition. The date 8/6/45 turned men into boys and clamped shut forever the mouth of Gula. The history of mankind hangs reified in Gula’s gut. Layer after layer of Avaritia’s hunter has bloated me with weaponry. Boundaries moved forward and back by sheer force of innovation, borders erased and redrawn through death and dissemination. Whole countries and continents devoured and reconfigured by replacing one man with another. Gula is a history of death and regurgitation Trapped in the depths of Acedia’s sleep, mankind has blundered itself into suicide and disappearance. All humankind is at the disposal of one man-child. This seeming suddenness is the product of Acedia’s sleep. His otiose slumber. His sloth. His isness. Layer upon layer, Acedia has required nothing of me other than that I be filled, stuffed, and silenced by the stuffing. He has neither seen nor tasted the poison of his slumber. As he simply is, he expects Avaritia to do what he does and I, Gula, have to ingest it all. But I am become finite, finished, redundant. I await my layering but nothing comes. My mouth is clamped against it. 8/6/45 lies within me. Avaritia is stunned. He is become child’s play, all rhetoric and redundancy on an empty stage. The weeping and wailing of women, heroism, patriotism, the blood and gore of it all has become the laughter of little boys. There is no place for laughter in Gula’s gut. I am built of sterner stuff, neither mockery nor self-deprecation are stored here. Since 8/6/45 history has been sealed against games posturing as repeat. The layering of me is either real or it is not. In war, to withhold a weapon out of fear is a contradiction unworthy of recordation. Mankind has forsaken tragedy for farce, only the masks remain as time and space are compressed on a stage of finite proportion Humankind has increasingly become audience, leaving the stage to bad acting and foolery. As the stage shrinks so, too, the appreciation of the audience leaving apathy to occupy the emptied space. And so I hang layered by verbs and shifting boundaries, mouth clamped shut against light and other impossibilities. I am beyond complete. My death is immanent. Filtering down through my millennia of layered verbs, art, war,, and religion dominate my distension. I am swollen with them. In review, only war has achieved progression, only war increased through repeat, only war and the shifting of boundaries has brought me to conclusion, only war has wrought me finite...only war. In this brief hiatus before completion, all nouns await extinction There is a strange quiet amidst the mayhem of repetition, a curious awareness, a listening for that which is to come, a final visitation or a burst of light, a signal of arrival, a sign of fulfillment. Silence now is only the absence of laughter. My mouth is shut against it. Religion thrives. Carried along by rote and self-fulfilling prophecies, it is the noisome droning of Acedia’s sleep and the genius of Gula’s layering accumulation. Through memory, I have reified verbs into nouns and frozen moments of chaos into dogmatic linearity, denying questions and demanding answers—the same answers—to questions unproposed. This, religion does and does so well in the layering of Gula’s gut. Only my completion has created nullity. In all the weight of my distension, I am porous of significance. Religion is Acedia’s glory, the proudest and most profound depth of slumber, the complete absence of light in all its paralyzing stimulation. It pacifies me, comforts me, abets my laying repetition; and now it has sealed me whole. I hand in absurdity awaiting implosion. As I remember (I am doomed to remember) the layering of weaponry and the shifting of boundaries, I hold compacted within me that which escapes me—that which has always escaped me, and escapes me still—those verbs encapsulated in artifacts that elicit awakened response. Even in hiatus, even now in the depths of completion, they elicit response, the torn open eyes of Acedia, the death of sloth. As Avaritia’s relentless progression through laying repeat shifted the paradigm of weaponry from one kills one to one kills all, from murder to suicide, Art has remained singular in its ambition, fluctuating only in repose. Unlike war which transitions from verb to noun, Art’s transposition is from noun to verb, the transmutation of artifact into orgasm, the creation of silence. I, Gula, am fatted with noise, layer upon layer of it. It is Acedia’s lullaby and Avaritia’s appetite. I contain the applause of Genius and chicanery, the screaming futility of women in war, the snapping crackling flames of Inquisition and holocaust, the suicide’s horrific whimper. All, all lay layered within me. How I love the layering repetition of sounds. They adorn and define me, marking beginnings and ends from the chaste cries of birth to the gurgling chuckles of death. All the hellos and goodbyes that accompany repeat. They confirm me, distend me, make me whole. Without sounds, I would hang heavy with boredom, deathly interminable repetition. I have harbored throughout the layering centuries the layering cries of absence, the songs of departure, the melting sighs of glaciers and the volcanic rhetoric of rebirth and revolution. This is my storage, the layering variations of repetition. I am Gula. I am Gluttony. I am history. I am all the stacked and vaunted puffery of man’s reflection in tiresome feckless supposition. I would not speak of Art here. It is unsettling. I will say only this: Neither Avaritia’s plunder nor Acedia’s slumber has stuffed my gut with Art. It exists elsewhere. It lies not within me. It is a verb, active and ahistorical. It does not lie static within me. It is in and of the moment of response. The over and over ness of my filling has leaded me with conclusion. I am become finite in distension. Through extrusion I hand now in self-awareness of repeat. Repetition no longer describes my layering. I am become parody. In pause, in this hiatus between immanence and imminence, infinite and finite, I have only deception to deflect perception. I am bloated with noise, blinded by it, crucified by it. I hang senseless with mouth forced open to accept laughter, the final poison. Avaritia continues his blind consumption filling that which resists filling, filing that which can no longer be recorded, a clamorous froth of self-absorption. Acedia sleeps with eyes clamped shut and lids thinned transparent by evolution. How vapid and futile are all our metaphors! Our triad is no longer viable. We have become too simplistic for the vastness and complexity of it all. That which we have sought to diminish through sloth and avarice is not containable. We have cast our crucible too frail and our golden prophecies have become lead. Our incessant drumming of the present into the conformities of repetition no longer circumscribes the abstractions of Desire. Avaritia is hollow noise and Acedia is mindless slumber. My distension has been clamped shut against them. Our death is imminent. I long to release myself, to drain history of Avaritia’s layering plunder and Acedia’s dreamless sleep. Even in my earliest layering, I knew our end. The process of man’s completion through the technology of death rests now within me. His end is accomplished. All his feckless fearless metaphors of war have brought me to fulfillment. I can tolerate no more of him. 8/6/45 marks the end of history, the end of Gula, the end of gluttony. I can eat no more. Nothing can subsume Avaritia. He exists now, like Acedia, in exaggeration. Both are magnified by desperation. Cast large in the awesome victory of his accomplishment, Avaritia’s shadow has embraced the earth. Nothing can grow in this lightless place, nothing save the anxious expectancy of the final repeat, the great light that will lay waste all shadow. How clever was Acedia to write his slumber in the process of inevitability, his metaphors, in passive verbs, to make repetitive that which was irreversible, to make rote that which was endemic. Like all mystagogues, he created sin in order to forgive it and so he stalls, he procrastinates, he forgives it. He sleeps on because he has no dreams, because he is fearful of awakening, because he cannot, must not, awaken because if he awakens we will die. The triad and all man’s metaphors will die frozen in oblivion and I, Gula, will hang heavy with it all, a rotten pudding of narcissistic repeat. All, all will finally and forever revert to what it has always been: gluttony. I pity, if I were capable of pity, Avaritia. His mindless rapacious appetite has brought us to conclusion. And I envy Avaritia.. His senseless anusless consumption makes him incapable of retention and history has served him well. I, Gula, have served him well, as does Acedia’s blessed sleep. We, the triad of man’s reality, will die by virtue of Acedia’s sleep. I record now only the inevitabilities of epilogue.

Collection:

Crocker Art Museum

Sacramento, California

Majestic Theatre, King Street, Madison, WI by Warren LeMay

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Built in 1906 and renovated circa 1930, this Renaissance Revival-style theater was designed by Claude and Starck, and features an Art Deco-style marquee and first floor front facade, and originally served as a vaudeville theater before becoming a movie theater. The building is clad in Art Moderne-style enameled metal panels on the first floor with a marquee featuring neon lights above the entrance, an Art Moderne-style ticket booth with curved corners and curved glass, and four entrance doors flanked by poster display cases. The upper portion of the building displays the original style of the facade, with painted brick cladding, limestone trim, a large five-part arched window on the second floor of the front facade above the marquee, flanked by pilasters, a cornice at the top of the second floor, blind bays on the fourth floor framed by stone trim with a large decorative cornice above, and a cornice with dentils and modillions at the top of the parapet, which obfuscates the building’s low-slope roof. The building has a footprint that bends from King Street to the stage, which sits adjacent to Doty Street, with this being very evident inside the building. The building today serves as a live performance venue, with the original wall paneling, vaulted ceiling, proscenium arch, box seats, and plaster trim on the second floor of the space being intact. The theater primarily hosts live musical acts, occasionally being used to screen televised events or movies, or being used as an event venue.

ART / DRAWING / PAINTINGS / SKETCHES / ILLUSTRATIONS / ART GALLERY / ART STUDIO / Anikartick by ARTIST ANIKARTICK (VASU engira KARTHIKEYAN)

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Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, various metals (such as silverpoint) and electronic drawing.

A drawing instrument releases small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.

In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]

Drawing is one of the major forms of expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.

Madame Palmyre with Her Dog, 1897. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Galileo Galilei. Phases of the Moon. 1616.

Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.

There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, free hand and shading. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).

A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.

In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.

History[edit]

Drawing as a Form of Communication Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invent of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings created by Homo sapiens sapiens around 30,000 years ago.[7] These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced in prehistoric times were eventually stylised and simplified, leading to the development of the written language as we know it today.

Drawing in the Arts Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practise.[9] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[10] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[11][12] In a period of artistic flourish, the Renaissance brought about drawings exhibiting realistic representational qualities,[13] where there was a lot of influence from geometry and philosophy.[14]

The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the use of drawing in the arts.[15] Photography took over from drawing as a more superior method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and artists began to abandon traditional drawing practises.[16] Modernism in the arts encouraged "imaginative originality"[17] and artists' approach to drawing became more abstract.

Drawing Outside the Arts Although the use of drawing is extensive in the arts, its practice is not confined purely to this field. Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation. In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of the moon through his observational telescopic drawings.[16] Additionally, in 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[20] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.

Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[21] Papers can vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.

Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.

Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and become brittle much sooner.

The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.

Technique[edit]

Raphael, study for what became the Alba Madonna, with other sketches

Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[22]

Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.

The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching—groups of parallel lines.[23] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones—and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling, uses dots to produce tone, texture or shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[24]

Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.

Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.

Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.

Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[25]

Tone[edit]

Line drawing in sanguine by Leonardo da Vinci

Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.

Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.

Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.

Form and proportion[edit]

Pencil portrait by Ingres

Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.

When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[26]

A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.

Perspective[edit]

Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.

Two-point perspective drawing

When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[27] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.

Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.

Artistry[edit]

Chiaroscuro study drawing by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.

The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.

When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.

Drawing process in the Academic Study of a Male Torso by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1801, National Museum, Warsaw)

A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.

Process[edit]

Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[28] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[29]

Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others. One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: perception of objects being drawn, ability to make good representational decisions, motor skills required for mark-making and the drawer's own perception of their drawing.[29] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.

Motor function Motor function is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[30] It has been suggested that motor function plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[29]

Perception It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[29] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[31]

This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to drawing book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[32] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.

Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[33] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".

Visual memory has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings. Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one’s gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[34]

occupy remembrance by Danny Liv

2 11

Relax everybody. This is not a photo of the Livmobile about to storm the steps of the Memorial Garden. It does, however, indicate the eleventh of “ten things about me” of which you may not have been aware. Pacifist Danny lives right next door to the War Memorial. And every year at this time that fact awakens in me a complicated discussion-with-self about certain things related to respect for others and respect for self. More so as time passes, as now I have to stop and consider more carefully every year the extent to which my increasing distaste for the ceremony is attributable to my own aging and to what extent it is attributable to the increasingly bloodthirsty and avaricious hawkishness of a group of people in Government who in many cases are young enough to be my offspring (thank God they are not: I might die of shame). Every year I reach the same conclusion – no contest.

It was always bloodthirsty and avaricious hawkishness that created the need for such ceremonies and memorials, and that will continue to do so.

To elaborate – the flagstones on which the Livmobile is parked are indeed on my property. Where the paving stops denotes the boundary between my land and the civic amenity that is Dyserth's Memorial Garden. I am nothing if not a good neighbour. Accordingly, while for 364 days of the year I feel free to stop the car any-old-where on those flags within the area so-demarked - repositioning it to accommodate one other vehicle only when one is expected, to-wit that of Liv Jr or someone visiting on Official Business of whatever kind - day 365 is Remembrance Sunday, and I make as much space as I can as a necessary accommodation of the elderly and infirm visitors, just as I did for the construction crew for a rather longer period (only about 4 days) when the garden/yard was renovated a few years back. This is merely the respectful act of allowing others their own space; physical space and head space alike. I have no truck whatsoever with the tub-thumping or the militarist shenanigans that accompany that anniversary, and indeed I will not wear a poppy. I do have respect for those people who believed they were doing the right thing even although and arguably precisely because (especially in WW1) they were fooled into it or – even more importantly – who were coerced into doing whatever they did and somehow survived with Lord-knows-what emotional baggage forcibly attached as a result. All the more so as surviving WW2 veterans are now near-nonagenarians or even older. They have every right to come and remember whatever it is that they remember, which, never mind publicly, they must surely do on their own terms every day of their lives. Likewise the younger National Servicemen (mere striplings of 72 in some cases!) who went to Aden, the Suez Canal, or wherever at the demand of some faceless bureaucrat or merciless oil baron. I have no respect whatsoever, though, for the likes of Michael Gove who would have us believe that acts of war are in any way brave, noble, or good. Good grief - during the centenary by calling it a celebration he even abandoned the "defence" argument. I have no respect whatsoever for the machinery that will force young people yet-unborn to suffer untellable trauma (death is quite possibly the least of it) to maintain their profit margins. And I have no respect whatsoever for any government of any political colour or persuasion who - like the present one already has done - will do so, subsequently only to break their Special Covenant with the service-men and -women in such a way that organisations like “Soldiers Off The Streets”, itself a likely breeding ground for mindless militarism, need to exist.

Since well before WW1, conscription has been the ultimate theft of a young man's life, even if he survived. The thing that made WW1 different to previous conflicts with the possible exception of the American Civil War, was the industrial scale of the slaughter that made even the political protagonists of the day stop and think. Until then the function of war had been relatively low-volume natural selection at a level which enabled those with a monetary interest on both sides of any given conflict to rebuild and regroup stronger, before reverting to the everyday business of peacetime competition. Its purpose, of course, was the real competition. When that dynamic changed those interested parties cried “Never Again”, adding sotto voce “Until the next time”

There are those who will opine, “But what if there is a REAL evil to resist, like Nazism?”. Many will observe selectively the nature of some evils over others. But actually it's not just about morality and ideaology. Indeed, the origins of such arguments are not ideaological at all. What made Nazism possible in the first place was the devastation wreaked on post-war Germany by WW1's victors – the financial impact on ordinary Germans (who despite rumours put about by HM Government for the most part did NOT eat their own young) hurt like hell, and made it easy for someone like A.H. to exploit the anger of the hungry. The only reason the “free world” responded to his attacks on certain sections of the populace (we didn't even hear about the gays for decades afterwards – unlike with the disabled, in the climate of the times there was no faux-sympathy propaganda value to be had) was their own vested interest in the fortunes at which he tilted his lance, otherwise they would in all likelihood have averted their eyes just like they did in the former Yugoslavia in 1991 until the public outrage that they had generated a half century earlier for their own ends caught them out. Unlike the prior year's debacle in Kuwait, there was no money at stake in that particular outrage, and when popular opinion began to backfire, there was a different, more genuine, “Never Again” moment, again sotto voce, which has resulted in the assault on information and education which has continued unabated in the quarter century since. An informed public is the biggest worry that the Military-Industrial Complex will ever face. If you don't know anything and have never been taught the value of critical thinking, well they can tell you anything.

Meanwhile if, as presently seems to be the case, we are trapped in a world where collateral damage is unavoidable the only way forward is not to be selective about which collateral damage to support – none is intrinsically inferior to any other, so the time to say NO is not after failing to prevent the next round of it, the time is now. Stop being the prophesy: become the prophet.

[And stop allowing the Consumer Affairs Branch of the Military-Industrial Complex to obfuscate the divisions that (ought to) exist between Hallowe'en, Guy Fawkes, Remembrance Sunday, and Xmas, which isn't “Christ”-mas anyway. Resist the wampum – you know what happened to the Injuns.]

What I will never understand is the motivation to volunteer. I don't say that I will never comprehend, however, for that is entirely different. As one member of parliament – Margaret McAdam, SNP Kinross and West Perthshire as I recall - put it at Westminster some years ago when they debated the use of troops to rescue (Bosnian, I believe) refugees, “Many of my constituents have joined the army precisely because they too are refugees – refugees from poverty”. To paraphrase her, their greater mission was to reclaim what was always theirs - the right to a decent standard of living in a rich country where your enemies aren't necessarily who you think they are. Nonetheless I ask the same question of younger and older former-volunteers alike, never out loud of course for that would be discourteous and inflammatory, confrontational even, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Dear people, especially those of you with military connections, this Remembrance/Armistice day... As always I would enjoin you to think not about why you might participate in such a ceremony, but instead about why such a ceremony exists. Eschew the self-serving greed that has put you or your loved ones in this position and stay with the notion that it is Remembrance of Sacrifice, not some jingoist celebration of “victory”; that it commemorates Armistice, not warfare.

Once, “never again” was the motto and the watchword, and yet to this day many of us have friends, relatives, colleagues, and loved ones in war zones throughout the world, and not just in the obvious places. The speed at which our governments commit us to current conflicts is matched only by the expense they commit to future conflict, money that they proclaim themselves unable to afford when it comes to decent public health, infrastructure, and welfare programs.

Never again?

Never again let your altruism or your subject-status or your vulnerability be exploited to line the pockets of another. And, “serving” or not, stand tall. Demand for yourselves and your families the food, shelter, clothing, education, and quality of life that maybe you thought you or they had already fought for.

Demand them, and go in peace. Amen.