Harriet Fell's Drawing with Chuck Holtzman Winter 2022

Drawing with Chuck Holtzman Winter 2022

These are some of my (Harriet Fell) drawings from an online class with Chuck Holtzman to stay sane during Winter 2022 which still feels like 2020.
Click on small images to see larger versions.


Coat a sheet of paper with a rich and saturated layer of charcoal. Then using an eraser against the edge of a ruler, selectively remove (carve) material (charcoal) to develop three objects, observed or from your imagination or a mixture of both. The three objects should overlap to the extent that an unlikely spatial effect emerges. Added two done in photoshop.


First choose three objects. Then, any very dark medium draw each one of the objects in silhouette, uniformly dark and partially overlapping one another. The overlapping configuration should create a cluster that sort of hides the identity of each object while in combination reveals an unidentifiable entity. The objects here are coyote skulls, grasshopperes, and crown-of-thorns plants


Create an arrangement of multiple non-representational events, things or activities on a single page which appear as if they are seen from the backside. Sort of passed on the "non-representational" part.

TWO LAYERS Part1. Begin by developing a mark roughly the size of a thimble and place it in a spot on a sheet of paper that seems awkward. Then make another mark, different in character and a bit larger than the first. Continue this process, increasing the size character and nature of the mark, until you have occupied half the total surface area of the paper. Part 2. Adopting a very different drawing style; this portion of the drawing should look and feel - at least to you, as if it had been drawn by another person. It should sit on top of the first phase, spread out over the page and together both parts should have a sense of discord, a collision, a struggle or other feelings that suggest the two phases(events) don’t belong together but maybe they do.

Layer 1: India ink on vellum	Layer 2: Sharpies on top of layer 1

TWO LAYERS
Part1. Begin by developing a mark roughly the size of a thimble and place it in a spot on a sheet of paper that seems awkward. Then make another mark, different in character and a bit larger than the first. Continue this process, increasing the size character and nature of the mark, until you have occupied half the total surface area of the paper.
Part 2. Adopting a very different drawing style; this portion of the drawing should look and feel - at least to you, as if it had been drawn by another person. It should sit on top of the first phase, spread out over the page and together both parts should have a sense of discord, a collision, a struggle or other feelings that suggest the two phases(events) don’t belong together but maybe they do.

Layer 1: India ink on vellum

Layer 2: Sharpies on top of layer 1


Find a material you have never used as a substrate to draw on. Then, after selecting a drawing tool, also one you've never used in the past to make marks, go about developing a non-drawing and/or ugly drawing. This may be a stretch or even impossible, but what may happen during the process could expose interesting and formally unknown aspects of what drawing may offer. These are drawn on toilet paper, paper towel, and a tissue. The drawing tool was a dried up rose.


Visual sound These were supposed to be in charcoal plus another color but I ended up doing them in Photoshop Elements. The top two were inspired by my son's trombone playing and the four below by the contant drilling up of my street.


Develop a symmetrical arrangement on paper. Then, disrupt the established order leaving no traces of symmetry. Started with an ink drawing I didn't have time to finish by hand so I scanned it and worked on the computer.


Arrange three things, moments and or events etc. on a single sheet of paper that are in deep conflict with one another. My three things are in conflict only by being in 3 different media: charcoal, india ink, watercolor pencils. They are trying to get along.


Cover 1/2 the surface of a sheet with a generous layer of charcoal. Devise a method to selectively move charcoal from the original layer to the blank unused half of the sheet.

black on white	gray on white	white on black
Three tones three different investigations: one white, one black and one grey. Begin with an idea, then break it down and extract just a portion of it for a closer look. Using a single tone, one for each of three sheets/investigations.


50 lines pulled, 100 lines pushed: Each of the 150 lines can be of any length, character etc.

Two prompts this week: Develop a drawing within a drawing while silently counting to yourself. Begin at 1 and continue counting and drawing simultaneously nonstop until you reach 300. Then, insert another drawing into the two that already exist, this time starting at 1 and when you reach 300 you will have completed a drawing within a drawing within a drawing. Develop an accumulation of material(s) on paper that echoes the idea of using drawing only as a means of asking questions and without seeking answers. In a sense you‘re creating a forest of questions with a unique ecosystem, an approach that forces the level of being attentive while resisting familiar patterns.

Two prompts this week:
Develop a drawing within a drawing while silently counting to yourself. Begin at 1 and continue counting and drawing simultaneously nonstop until you reach 300. Then, insert another drawing into the two that already exist, this time starting at 1 and when you reach 300 you will have completed a drawing within a drawing within a drawing.
Develop an accumulation of material(s) on paper that echoes the idea of using drawing only as a means of asking questions and without seeking answers. In a sense you‘re creating a forest of questions with a unique ecosystem, an approach that forces the level of being attentive while resisting familiar patterns.