Do over, over and over again and you might get something right.
I have been drawing pretty non-stop since I was a kid and lately I've been drawing and drawing and drawing again from a postcard of this painting I saw when in Atlanta. I'd seen it a million times reproduced, reproduced, and reproduced so it was a bit of a shock to stand in front of the big thing and think only about the sandals. It was a hot day, I was thinking about feet, we had only about an hour in the museum and when I turned to see this, I saw only the feet.




As I draw it, I am seeing hands and more hands. Poussin always seemed cold and bland but more than hands and feet are pulling and kicking me back to the process of drawing and hopefully seeing this painting. The little color card looks much different (scale, size, color, detail and texture are all warped) and from the postcard I can only really learn more about what interests me, how often can I draw the same sandals, the same pointed fingers, the same bends and turns.
It's nice to know that other artists have learned, and certainly grown from drawing Poussin.

Kossoff obtained permission to enter the Royal Academy galleries at 6:30 each morning, before public admission, bringing with him a drawing board, paper and materials. "It was physically quite demanding," he said. He stood for hours drawing from Poussin's pictures of mythological scenes, like The Triumph of Pan, or religious subjects, such as the Holy Family on the Steps.
After two months he decided, "I'm not really getting closer to the paintings. I wonder if I could be more direct." So he began to draw with an etching needle directly onto the waxed copper and zinc plates. Explaining this decision, he says, "You've got no chance to change your mind with etching, while drawing is endlessly restating. Plus, with etching, you can't really see what you are doing very clearly, it's all intuition."
from this Hunter Drohojowska-Philp review of Leon Kossoff's Poussin drawings and paintings on artnet



I'm back to looking, drawing and thinking.
Take care,
Rachael