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Carl Jackson's Blog
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Thursday, March 28, 2024
I am currently teaching drawing online through the App. SuperProf using the concepts found under the Page "Seeing and the Three Kinds of Memory". Anyone viewing this blog who is interested in expanding their drawing skills should checkout SuperProf.com.
Sunday, February 4, 2024
The Three
Kinds of Memory
1.
Memory knowledge of what things look
like. I refer to this type of memory as
a Mental construct.
2.
Technique. This is acquired knowledge and memorized
processes which enable the artist to enhance the believability and reality of a
drawn object or scene
Both
of these types of memories reside in the Left-brain memory storage bank.
3.
Muscle
memory. This is the kind of physical
memory you acquire by repeating a physical process over and over. Think doing a one and a half flip off the
high board, tying your shoe or simply dashing off your signature.
I have come to understand that most of the problems that
plague the artist trying to accurately represent objects or scenes arise in the
acquisition and refinement of Mental Constructs.
We all have stored visual memories of everything we
encounter. In the case of most people,
these visual memories are fairly undeveloped.
You can test this hypothesis by grabbing a pencil and drawing a tree. Deciduous (leafy) or Coniferous
(needles)? Or more specifically, Maple
or Willow, or Hemlock or Sequoia? You
see where this is going. For most of us,
for the most part, we only have rudimentary knowledge of tree shapes and
details. If, on the other hand we were a
botanist we probably would have gained enough stored knowledge (mental
constructs) to create more accurate drawings of specific trees.
Drawing things from memory is a test of the stored knowledge
you have of particular objects. If you
attempt to draw things you must try to reproduce those details and
characteristics that define the subject.
By doing this you are enhancing your stored knowledge (mental
construct) of the subject. Thus when
you try to reproduce the subject again your result will be better able to
achieve an accurate result.
Luxembourg art note 2023
As with most of my work this piece evolved over an extended
time and is an attempt to describe an ever more complex world that most of
humanity is not equipped to deal with. A
more recent graphite piece, included in this application has the title
"Smart But Not Smart Enough" which, I think, is central to my belief,
that we, as a species, though clever, and even capable in many ways, cannot
overcome our negative impulses. Greed,
self-interest, sociopathy, neurosis, demagoguery and aggressiveness when abetted
by an unfettered technology, in my opinion, far outweigh our better
impulses. The oft-repeated maxim about
old men decrying the excesses indiscretions and stupidity of the young no
longer applies. Evolution of technology
without concomitant maturation of our ability to control our negative impulses
is a disastrous stew. These are not new
ideas, but I do think the rise of fascism, enhanced by a "weaponized"
news media and web make the future increasingly uncertain.
I have mentioned sources and inspiration in describing
previous entries in this application. A
few I might mention are Bosch, Bruegel, Goya, and more recently Bacon, Beuys,
Graves, Bontecou; but many others.
Yeats' "The Second Coming" and Arnold's line "were
ignorant armies clash by night" resonate.