© Gainor E. Roberts 2014 All the works of art shown in the website are protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and may only be used by permission of the artist.
THE ARTWORK OF GAINOR E. ROBERTS
Drawing was never my strong feature as an artist. It was always the place where I had to struggle, and it didn't come easy to me. It was a means to an end in painting, and as a painter I could "get by" most of the time with my limited drawing skills. But after awhile "getting by" wasn't enough and so I began to focus attention on honing my drawing skills. Drawing has taught me how to see. I didn't like drawing much because it was harder than painting, and I had to really work at it.
After I had some training with some very fine teachers like James Childs, Dean Keller and Frederick Franck, I began to love to draw for the sake of it, and now I teach it myself. I like to work in Silverpoint* as well as most of the common drawing media like pencil and charcoal. I seldom work in pen and ink.
One big regret I have is that I am not a “sketcher”. I enjoy blogs and websites of several people I follow who do “sketch” drawings, who achieve very sophisticated drawings on location, in the rain, snow, and blazing sun. Perhaps, because drawing did not come easily I turned to the camera to record everything I see instead.
I think that because of my struggles with drawing I am especially tuned to my student’s difficulties with learning this skill, which is, after all, so closely allied with handwriting that in my opinion if we could learn to write we also can learn to draw. How well, depends on how often you do it!
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*SIVERPOINT
Before 1564, when a graphite deposit was discovered in Cambria, England, artists used metal, silver, gold, bronze, lead, etc., inserted into some kind of holder to make their drawings. Silverpoint continued to be used by artists after this deposit of graphite gave the world the pencil as we know it today. The idea that there was lead inside that dark stuff that is actually graphite and clay, came from artists who used lead instead of silver or gold to make their drawings. Our pencils never contained lead! Silverpoint is worked on paper or boards that traditionally are coated with a substance that captures microns of silver and the deposited metal causes the drawing to shine, and eventually to tarnish, just like your grandmother’s silver tea set. There is currently a revival of Silverpoint Drawing and there is a Metalpoint group in Face Book and many websites by artists who make incredible drawings with this medium, and others where the metal points and holders may be purchased. It certainly isn’t for everyone, as it is one of those meditative layering mediums that many people don’t have the time to do, but if you are so inclined it can be cheap to get materials and wonderful to create drawings that shine with silver!