Pamela Wissman - Sketchbook confidential 2: enter the secret worlds of 38 master artists

After earning her BFA from the University of Texas, Joe Anna Arnett worked as a senior art director at a New York advertising firm before resuming her fine art studies at the Art Students League of New York. Since then, she has been featured in North Lights T HE B EST OF F LOWER P AINTING , written her own book, P AINTING S UMPTUOUS V EGETABLES , F RUITS & F LOWERS IN O IL , and appeared on Passport & Palette, a PBS art instruction and travel series that shes also written for and produced. Arnett exhibited in the Prix de West show at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum for fourteen years.

A drawing is a rich thing, a romantic thing, a personal thing. When I see something I like, I start the drawing before I take the record photograph. The photo diminishes. The drawing lifts up. Things that are ordinary, plain and common can become heroic when you devote some of your time and your passion to them. Give me a tumbling-down barn over a chateau any day. A tall, thin, perfect model is not half as interesting as a person who has their life written in their face. Theres real beauty there. Sketching forces you to truly see.

If I see something that I think could develop into a painting, I want to get something down about it. If there is no time to paint, or perhaps, no opportunity, the drawing is more valuable to me than a photograph. A photo is a good reference for content and details, but it cant record your idea or the way you feel about something. A photo just reports. So often, I have photographed something, thinking that it could be a wonderful subject. Later, looking at the photo, I wonder what I was thinking. Why did I bother? That is never the case with a drawing.

For me, drawing is where creative license begins. This is where I begin to move things, change values, construct or deconstruct. It is the start. Working it out in the drawing stage is a lot more fun and more productive than beginning a painting before you are ready and missing a good opportunity to make it a better piece of art.

There are subjects that are simply fun to draw that would not make a good subject for a painting. Drawing them sort of gets it out of your system. Youll either learn that the subject is worthy of development, or youll learn that it isnt. It is liberating.

There are subjects that are wonderful and may suggest that they are a piece of a painting, or a detail that you may want to add. I include chickens in some paintings. I have taken a chair and sat in a barnyard doing gesture drawings of roosters and hens just to become acquainted with their movements and forms. This exercise has given me a library of forms to call upon.

With every drawing, I see things that I wouldnt have noticed with a quick look. The experience becomes richer. Its like really getting to know someone, not just making their acquaintance. We are in such a hurry. We insist on sound bites. We twitter a few dozen words. We text with ridiculous abbreviations and flash off e-mail and post quick quips on Facebook. A drawing makes me settle down and center and observe. Life and art are both richer with focus and concentration.

I dont sketch every day. I should draw every day, and every artist I know says the same. I do sketch often and I keep paper and pencil with me, as I love to scribble down ideas whenever and wherever they may occur. The idea could be a few lines with notes about content, or it could be a drawing of something I am considering painting. These would make no sense to anyone but me.

When possible, I love to do life drawing. I rarely hire a model, but I will join whatever groups I can. Life drawing keeps you honest. It is the most difficult drawing, and I not only enjoy it, but also think of it as calisthenics. It keeps me sharp.

Farm on Stinking Creek Road
Joe Anna Arnett
Oil on linen (finished painting)
Chapman Collection
8" 14" (20cm 36cm)

When I am sketching I feel connected. I feel a relationship with the subject. I am learning the forms, becoming involved in the shapes. As the work progresses, I begin to feel a sense of power, almost command of the subject. It is hard to describe the sense of accomplishment when you realize that you got it, you caught it, you understand it and its now a part of you.

With every drawing, I see things that I wouldnt have noticed with a quick look. The experience becomes richer. Its like really getting to know someone, not just making their acquaintance.