Stipplers - you are missing the point ! - WetCanvas: Online Living for Artists

This topic has 26 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 10 months ago by RandyP.

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June 10, 2019 at 6:04 am #474308
Anonymous
Stippling is a part of traditional P&I technique & always has played a very small role occasionally, many accomplished P&I artists have never used it at all, Line is the natural voice of a pen.
It is only in very recent times that we have started to see drawings made up entirely from dots completely neglecting the pens natural voice.
P&I is a very different medium from all others with it’s focus being on outline , often with areas of abstract looking hatching to depict shadow.
This is entirely different to normal painting or pencil drawing practice where those mediums allow for shading that is is continuously variable in tone .
With P&I you realistically only have a few shades between light & dark & the outline is pretty much emphasised by it’s darkness contrasting with the whiteness of the paper.
Now it is these very “limitations” that give P&I it’s character, power & strength, operating within them- much can be said reflecting an artists unique touch all over the work giving a thousand different nuances of feeling & perception.
Now getting back to stippling -yes I know it is accessible to those who wish to avoid learning a completely new language with the inclusion of the infinitely variable tone & soft outlines – you’re on safe ground here, on your well trod paths.
The resulting work can be downright photo realistic if you want, after all you’re working with one pixel at a time ! BUT you have missed the whole point of P&I here.
& while I’m talking about missing the point entirely of a medium, why not put some colour in ? Never mind if you corrupt & weaken both mediums !
Yes it’s fine for quick sketched of getting the scene down in an immediate way- great ! but that is as far as it goes.
I am often suprised at how common it is to see artists who are accomplished in painting completely miss the aesthetic of P&I entirely !
Mike
June 10, 2019 at 12:20 pm #840012
Shaks
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Mike,

I am afraid I would disagree with you. All mediums have many different ways to use them. No one way is better than another. The only “natural voice” to any medium is the artist’s voice.

Using a pen, pencil, or even a crayon serves the same purpose. Getting an image down. How the medium is used is up to the artist. I would not say one way is better than another. I might say I like one better than another but that is a personal opinion. Stating that pen & ink should only be used in the manner in which you like is unfair.

That’s the great thing about art, you can be creative in any manner you see fit using any medium you desire in any way you want.

Enjoyed hearing a different opinion and we stipplers are always on the point!

Cheryl
June 10, 2019 at 3:02 pm #840022
Anonymous
Thanks Creryl , I think in any debate it is all too easy to to make an all inclusive catch all generalised statement which to speak against ,seems closed minded , opinionated & anti libertarian. However on closer examination such a response is merely a crude anti-intellectual response in an attempt to close any meaningful debate – like a wolf in sheeps’ clothing ! You will see it being used in politics nowadays ad- nauseam of course !

So yes art is about getting an image down , obviously ! and our specific task as as artists is to make that image as beautiful as we are able. -Right OK ,I suspect we agree so far. BUT our paths part when you are saying (to paraphrase you) Art is totally subjective ie. ALL beauty is in the eye of the beholder .
This is an often discussed subject in philosophy & any rational person must surely come to the conclusion that appreciation of art is NOT totally subjective.
As fellow human beings it cannot be purely subjective because so many people agree “this is a really excellent piece of art” ! or the very fact that art can be taught at all ! Yes the appreciation of art is experienced individually as a purely subjective gut feeling but that takes nothing away from the fact that you do get good art & poor art.
Yes there are art movements & art fashions in history ,different backgrounds & cultures over millennia But still good art is almost universally held up to acclaim be it the horses painted on the French cave walls 32,000 years ago or Rembrandts’ incredible depth of humanity shown in his P&I drawing – We can all feel the magic. Not just this week, this year or for just this century – The absolute quality of this “good art” is universal & eternal.
There is good art & lesser art & we shouldn’t be afraid of saying so, especially if we are artists who wish to progress & move forward.
Mike
June 11, 2019 at 8:05 pm #840037
Anonymous
Here’s my argument on “pen and ink stippling” for what it’s worth.

I read in Wikipedia that stippling goes back to the early 1500s as a means of printmaking. Later, the method of stippling became popular, along with hatching, to produce shaded artwork for printed illustrations in black ink.

I don’t know if stippling or hatching came first, but note this quote from Wikipedia: “Stippling has traditionally been favoured over hatching in biological and medical illustration, since it is less likely than hatching to interfere visually with the structures being illustrated (the lines used in hatching can be mistaken for actual contours), and also since it allows the artist to vary the density of shading more subtly to depict curved or irregular surfaces.” Unquote.

From the above, and from my limited experience and abilities, I have to believe stippling is the superior way to shade a drawing and still call it absolutely, “pen and ink.” Even with colored inks.

I personally prefer to use ink washes and watercolor with ink drawings, but that’s pushing the P&I definition. I have enjoyed doing some stippling and have no qualms about calling it pen & ink. Below, is one of the first stipples I did from about 10 years ago.

I don’t think I’m supposed to use links here, but if you Google: “Benjamin Kyle’s Million Dot Drawing,” you should see Miguel Endara’s pen and ink hand-stippled portrait of Kyle. Bottom line, I believe this absolutely beautiful portrait is proof that stippling is a bonafide part of pen and ink, and even superior to customary hatching, for shading and definition.

Now, if we all could stipple like Mr Endara…

——
[/QUOTE]
June 11, 2019 at 9:12 pm #840031
MagdaleneL
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Love your idealism pedlar’s pen and you are right good art is .. simply good art and not that subjective. However it seems to me people don’t even like what I think you mean by “good art”. I suspect you mean the old masters etc as good art and I agree. To me and I would say to most artists that IS good art. Rembrandt and other rennaissance artists mainly.

But art like civilization itself has decayed to the point where a kind of anti-art is art. And an example would be “Banksy” and artists like Modligiani and Chagall, Andy Warhol etc. And look how much people pay for that stuff.

I know it might sound simplistic but to me a measure of good art is when you stand in total awe and know there is no way in the world you could replicate that painting, sculpture etc. If you can actually go and sit down in front of a canvas and replicate it reasonably well.. well then it’s most likely NOT good art. At least that is how I see it.

https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1465628
June 11, 2019 at 11:58 pm #840026
Batman55
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But art like civilization itself has decayed to the point where a kind of anti-art is art. And an example would be “Banksy” and artists like Modligiani and Chagall, Andy Warhol etc. And look how much people pay for that stuff.

I know it might sound simplistic but to me a measure of good art is when you stand in total awe and know there is no way in the world you could replicate that painting, sculpture etc. If you can actually go and sit down in front of a canvas and replicate it reasonably well.. well then it’s most likely NOT good art. At least that is how I see it.

I hope it doesn’t sound disrespectful, but I’ve got to opine on this. I don’t think many folks could reasonably replicate the art of Banksy, Modigliani, Chagall or even Andy Warhol. Not sure if you were implying that such work is theoretically “probable” in terms of replication, for most willing to put their mind to it. In any case, the answer is no.

I’ve found that actually creating decent work is a humbling experience. Most of the work that I used to think “it can’t be that hard to emulate that style” actually is far more difficult than I thought. Besides, you are missing the point of innovation and uniqueness… creativity of an artist can be just as important (or even moreso) than the level of craft. The question of good art should not just be, “could I paint one of these myself?” you should also be asking, “Could I come up with something equally as creative, brazen, bold, and/or profound?”

The point COULD stand if you’re talking about late-stage Mondrian, Pollock, Rothko. Even then, the innovation and thought-process needs to be considered.

I think you are simply off-base here, even though your post is about something else, directed to another user… I felt I had to chime in.
June 12, 2019 at 6:40 am #840023
Anonymous
Hi John , I can find nothing to disagree with in the quote from Wikipedia .
Basically stippling is THE technique to use when doing tight medical & botanical drawings , their sole purpose being to convey scientific technical information in as clear a manner as possible – the P&I technique of stippling performs this role very well & is STILL preferred in academic circles for it’s clarity despite modern advances in photography & photoshop .Stippling is the standard drawing method used in such circles because stippling is very quick & easy to teach/ learn & available to all.

However the getting across of scientific technical information in as clear a manner as possible is only of interest to scientists wishing to educate & not to artists who want to communicate on an infinitely broader & more subtle manner to include such intangibles as beauty,psychological insight & their feelings , their perception about the subject.
A magical thing happens when a pen is held in a human hand & a line is drawn ! Even without any conscious effort that line will reflect his feelings & psychological state at that moment as surely as the line on a electrocardiogram oscilloscope screen measuring your heart beat.All of your experiences , emotional reactions & perceptions are there down on paper to see – you can’t but help this – it is just a snapshot of your current being !
Now that is magic ! No two hands have the same touch or leave the same mark ,the way that you draw in line is as unique as a fingerprint.
When you use stippling that link to the unique character of a fellow human being is broken into a depersonalised staccato white noise.The whole feeling of the piece falls down the gaps between the dots ,the sheer courage & directness is entirely lost,any chance of deep human communication between the viewer & the artist is gone.
Sorry stipplers but this is not arrived at through a thought process it is just what I see with my own eyes & how how I feel about the method ….yes “feel” is the right word because without communicating feelings – well then it’s just not art is it ?
Cheers Mike
June 12, 2019 at 9:01 am #840013
laika
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I hope it doesn’t sound disrespectful, but I’ve got to opine on this. I don’t think many folks could reasonably replicate the art of Banksy, Modigliani, Chagall or even Andy Warhol. Not sure if you were implying that such work is theoretically “probable” in terms of replication, for most willing to put their mind to it. In any case, the answer is no.

I would dearly love to paint like Chagall and wish I had just a thimble’s worth of Banksy’s clever brilliance.

As for Rothko or Pollock, while certainly not my cup of tea, can you imagine the difficulty in attempting to accurately replicate their work?

The point COULD stand if you’re talking about late-stage Mondrian, Pollock, Rothko. Even then, the innovation and thought-process needs to be considered.

Well put. And some of that will continue to please the eye and be appreciated for the experimentation and intention behind it.

Lamar

Art is life's dream interpretation.
- Otto Rank
June 12, 2019 at 9:02 am #840024
Anonymous
Love your idealism pedlar’s pen and you are right good art is .. simply good art and not that subjective. However it seems to me people don’t even like what I think you mean by “good art”. I suspect you mean the old masters etc as good art and I agree. To me and I would say to most artists that IS good art. Rembrandt and other rennaissance artists mainly.

But art like civilization itself has decayed to the point where a kind of anti-art is art. And an example would be “Banksy” and artists like Modligiani and Chagall, Andy Warhol etc. And look how much people pay for that stuff.

I know it might sound simplistic but to me a measure of good art is when you stand in total awe and know there is no way in the world you could replicate that painting, sculpture etc. If you can actually go and sit down in front of a canvas and replicate it reasonably well.. well then it’s most likely NOT good art. At least that is how I see it.

Hi Magdalene, Reading your post I get the strong impression a number of times that it is admiration of the craft of art that you admire most ,so inevitably you point at the renaissance where it was honed to the highest degree.
This is a very commonly held perception (especially among artists!) but I feel that it misses the fundamental point of art its self ! ie. what’s it for,what’s it’s function & why bother with it at all ?
Well for me – the fundamental & basic point is communication , first with our own internal world & then secondly sharing that with others. Some famous wit whose name I can’t remember once said ; “Yes I like talking, it is interesting to hear what I think” ! & it is the same with making art . You explore & organise your vague impressions of thought & feeling then make a defined solid thing of them – The result may well be a surprise to you ! You might even like to share it with others, they might not have seen things quite that way,it may be of interest to them &/or they might find beauty in it. -Great ,then it was worthwhile first for me in the first instance & then secondly for others.
This is what art is fundamentally all about,why & how it is created.
BUT in the real world outside of this ivory tower we become lost in the contamination of life & forget in this confusing & cluttered world.
All sorts of perversions & distortions of the noble truth of art creep in , it is about craft excellence is one of them when the fundamental aim is to explore your inner world & make it solid. Some craft skill is a vital part of it,it might even be a central to your vision of what you want to say BUT it can’t be all you have to say. That ends up as a slick polished empty vessel ,shining brightly but empty.Ultimately void & useless ,without any real worth. Often in art history that has been the last refuge of a stale & dead art movement – just like the Paris salon paintings that ridiculed the first french impressionists .”you are so crude & vulgar” they’d cry,whilst being universally supported by the establishment & all noted art critics.:lol:
Perhaps we should judge good art as art that has stood the test of time.
No,not even that !
We should judge good art as that which communicates with us,that is what it’s all about & nothing else.
Cheers Mike
June 12, 2019 at 9:11 am #840014
laika
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But Mike, the stippled dot is a line, albeit a line with a very tiny distance from one end to the other.

Embrace the dot, Mike, for the miniscule line that it is

Lamar

Art is life's dream interpretation.
- Otto Rank
June 12, 2019 at 10:54 am #840019
Watercolour lover
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Interesting debate. I came to the party late in life as an experienced watercolour painter struggling to master a medium I’d used only fleetingly in my careers as a graphic artist. Most of my life I’ve been required to portray realism as my commercial clients required it. Time is money in commercial art and stippling simply takes too much time to achieve the desired effect. At my advanced age, I haven’t the patience to spend hours dotting away so I don’t. I find a mixture of line plus wash solves my problem of achieving a decent grey scale, accepting the fact that it’s a compromise. I guess all art is subjective but I often find stippling projects a little tiresome and often lacking in punch and contrast. That comment takes nothing away from those who prefer this technique. I have no patience with most abstract art either, but that’s probably generational prejudice. I will continue to admire and praise stippling projects that appeal to me, and my admiration is partly based on the sheer patience and skill of the artist. I suspect that if artificial intelligence ever starts to compete in pen and ink, the computer software will prefer stippling to line and cross hatching – maybe this has already happened and I missed it? Long live pen and ink in all its forms.
John
June 12, 2019 at 1:42 pm #840017
Bill
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We all have our opinions and limitations, but that’s all they are. There are no rules. I’ll continue to dot away because that’s what I like to do, and I especially like it’s effects. So, I’ll continue to post with my particular style and accept any criticism offered.
I am not hurt by Mike’s opinions because I know that is not his intention. He offers some very good points to consider and I appreciate what he has to say. Mike is the most knowledgeable pen and ink artist here and I appreciate all the knowledge he shares. Thanks, Mike.
Bill

Be kinder than necessary
June 12, 2019 at 3:00 pm #840025
Anonymous
We all have our opinions and limitations, but that’s all they are. There are no rules. I’ll continue to dot away because that’s what I like to do, and I especially like it’s effects. So, I’ll continue to post with my particular style and accept any criticism offered.
I am not hurt by Mike’s opinions because I know that is not his intention. He offers some very good points to consider and I appreciate what he has to say. Mike is the most knowledgeable pen and ink artist here and I appreciate all the knowledge he shares. Thanks, Mike.
Bill

Thanks for your kind comment Bill – I am the ONLY P&I specialist left here nowadays ! so I won’t let it go to my head
No there are no hard & fast rules in art but might there not be a place to at least stop & ponder why all pen artists down the ages have only very rarely used stippling & even then only in brief passages in any drawing done with aesthetic intent ? Looking through my eyes the strengths & weaknesses of the method is immediately apparent.
Completely disregarding that – a big YES! may everybody continue to post any type of P&I work here ,I am only continuing the culture on this sub forum for it to be a place to discuss P&I art & advance our mutual understanding of it rather than it been a pat on the back sort of set up. Hell, art on the net thanks to social media sites IS that alone !:eek: A few thousand views & “likes” but no comments of any substance at all.No thanks.
I just mention that so you know where I’m coming from & in no way want to put folk off. Quite to the contrary, I assure you.
Cheers Mike
June 12, 2019 at 7:20 pm #840032
MagdaleneL
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Thanks for your reply Pedlar’s pen but no that is not what I admire most about what is to me personally REAL art. It is not just a question of Rennaissance artists perfecting their craft it is so much more than that. It is the fact and it is a fact that they can turn the most mundane of objects into something sublime, something worthy of veneration. Something so beautiful you can look at it every day and never tire of that thing of such beauty which speaks more to your soul than any other language can. Those old masters created paintings that glow like jewels, And I suppose that is where the communication you speak of comes in.

And to get to that point in art .. SURE you have to be a total master of your craft, you have to have spent years learning everything about colour and your tools something which modern artists never bother with. In my be it ever so humble opinion.. most more modern art is all about being cutting edge, and there are now so many tools and colours and paints available yet nobody even comes close to the renaissance artists with their much more limited range of paints colours and tools.

I think it is people who changed so their art reflect the changes that occurred inside of them.

We can debate all day long what good art is opposed to mediocre art but that wont change anything. Since it is people who make art and they make it usually because it reflects what is inside of them and inside of society. And since today’s art is so mediocre (in what is once again my opinion) I guess it says more about society and us than about art.

I am stippling a butterfly to kind of prove my point about my assertion that sometimes stippling is the only way to convey the form of something you are working on portraying. I will post it soon as I finished. As I said, I am not that much of a stippler but sometimes it is just the best way to convey a specific form I found.

https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1465628
June 12, 2019 at 7:53 pm #840033
MagdaleneL
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I hope it doesn’t sound disrespectful, but I’ve got to opine on this. I don’t think many folks could reasonably replicate the art of Banksy, Modigliani, Chagall or even Andy Warhol. Not sure if you were implying that such work is theoretically “probable” in terms of replication, for most willing to put their mind to it. In any case, the answer is no.

I’ve found that actually creating decent work is a humbling experience. Most of the work that I used to think “it can’t be that hard to emulate that style” actually is far more difficult than I thought. Besides, you are missing the point of innovation and uniqueness… creativity of an artist can be just as important (or even moreso) than the level of craft. The question of good art should not just be, “could I paint one of these myself?” you should also be asking, “Could I come up with something equally as creative, brazen, bold, and/or profound?”

The point COULD stand if you’re talking about late-stage Mondrian, Pollock, Rothko. Even then, the innovation and thought-process needs to be considered.

I think you are simply off-base here, even though your post is about something else, directed to another user… I felt I had to chime in.

Well I’d say having a different opinion is not being disrespectful. I always enjoy debate how else do we ever learn anything after all but through disagreement, if you only want to hear from people who agree with you, you never learn anything outside your own frame of reference after all.

But I am still sticking to my point after reading what you said. What IS creativity? A person can have creative impulses but without the necessary training and the right tools that is all it will remain. Just raw talent and desire to create, it’s like the difference between being a GREAT pianist and a wannabe. The great pianist needs years of training as well as the creative impulse and a good piano not just one or the other. Not to mention a teacher since he can never achieve the heights he aims for without the input of all the people who came before him. To become great takes hard work and dedication not JUST talent or creative impulse.

Banksy Chagall et all don’t seem to have either I have to say. I dont find them profound, brazen or anything like that, the last people in the art movement that seemed to have been brazen were the impressionists who really attempted to honestly portray what they painted in a totallly different way using different painting techniques.

I know it might be barbecuing some people’s holy cows but some of the modern day artists seems to me to be charlatans who make money out of people’s naivety. Anyhow if that makes someone angry I apologize for that but that is my firm opinion.

https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1465628
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