Willie
11″ x 14″ acrylic on paper
click on image to see detail
Willie with the Curly Horns
9″ x 12″ charcoal on paper
click on image to see detail
I consider my drawings to be stronger than my paintings. I prefer to draw. Participating in discussions during my college years, my idea of a drawing as being the primary art piece was always shot down. “Great drawing. Now take your sketch and paint it bigger.” Why???? What makes a painting more valuable as an art piece? Why paint big? I’m not talking about a Rembrandt. I’m talking about visual arts now. Write to me. Let’s have a conversation.
Tags: Abstract Art, animals, California, drawing, Painting, pets, travel sketches, Visual Arts
June 23, 2012 at 7:00 am |
That is a very interesting question. If your forte is colors then maybe you could color your drawings. You draw very well. Perhaps that is your best art. RLTE
June 24, 2012 at 6:29 pm |
What comes easily to me is line drawings. I think that is my best art. Thanks for getting into this discussion!
June 23, 2012 at 7:14 am |
I feel like there’s a definite bias against drawing, maybe because so many painters in the past did “sketches” that then served as studies for paintings. But I never went to art school, so I could just be internalizing prejudices from years and years ago that have nothing to do with what people think now.
With my own work I think it’s time. I feel like my paintings that take hours do somehow count for more than my drawings that take minutes, but I also do a lot of quick paintings and some longer drawings, and time spent doesn’t necessarily indicate how good something is. So who knows!
I really love your painting in this post, though.
To me it has a power that the drawing doesn’t, though the drawing is more articulated and has a peaceful feel. 
June 24, 2012 at 6:27 pm |
“Drawing is form without color” I don’t know if this has anything to do with what we are talking about but I read it in a wonderful new book I have on drawing The Art of Drawing by Bernard Chaet. Yes I can do a drawing that takes hours and a painting that I like that came very easily and quickly. I think drawings can be as important or more important than a painting. Some pieces work and some don’t!
June 23, 2012 at 8:09 am |
I know what you’re saying. I think it depends on the drawing or the painting. For example I consider some of Picasso’s drawings equally -if not better- than some of his paintings…
June 24, 2012 at 6:17 pm |
I agree with you there. I remember more drawings done by Picasso than paintings and look at those beautiful Matisse drawings!
June 24, 2012 at 11:21 pm |
Oh, yes, or Klee, or Da Vinci… Not to mention great Japanese painters [in their cases I really cannot distinguish the difference between painting and drawing!]
June 23, 2012 at 10:30 am |
I get all mixed up in thinking I have to do something IMPORTANT in the first place. My drawings are a lot better than most of my paintings because they are not important. Sometimes I want to work on my drawings with paint, and that can either take them to another level, or it can kill them. I still get hung up in wanting to make something “good” even if I get over “important”. I wish I could let all of that go. I have to remember that none of it matters.
June 24, 2012 at 6:15 pm |
That’s the thing. I think many of my drawings are more important than my paintings. And I think that is OK. I think in the “olden” days we thought of drawings were sketches for the old master paintings- just studies. I think now anything goes. Right. I have to remember that bit of advice. It doesn’t matter!
June 24, 2012 at 10:59 am |
In my art work it is all drawings, whether with paint or whatever. Drawing is immediate, lively, full of energy and improvisation. Why would I ever do ‘a painting’?
June 24, 2012 at 6:10 pm |
Actually, I think there is drawing in all my paintings. I think drawing is the bare bones of a painting even if the painting is totally abstract you are still drawing in your head. Yes, I think of drawing that way, too.
June 24, 2012 at 7:41 pm |
I enjoy both!
June 25, 2012 at 5:54 pm |
me too And then there is photography!
June 25, 2012 at 8:41 am |
Carla, I enjoy following your blog. I consider drawing a more direct expression of the artist. Line carries a simple liveliness. A sketch helps to construct the composition of the painting, but once color is added, the conversation changes and it is about color relationships and form. Drawing within a painting combines the two.
June 25, 2012 at 5:57 pm |
I like the way you put that. very nice, yes. Hi Poppy!
Thanks for looking. I’m just putting things out there – see where it all goes. Carla
June 26, 2012 at 7:29 am |
certainly we can draw with color and paint with line, so where exactly are we drawing the line?
July 5, 2012 at 4:46 am |
I guess it is up o the artist to decide whether it is a drawing or a painting.I wonder if the difference is a painting has color.
July 10, 2012 at 5:23 pm |
[...] Do You consider a painting more important than a drawing? Why? (carlasaunders.com) [...]
July 12, 2012 at 8:07 am |
Your post is fascinating. I shall wait for the next one. Thank you for including me in this discussion.