American Artist Magazine Article
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DISCUSSION -- Based on quotes from Linda Price
Indicating the shoulder of the girl on the left in The Simons Children,

Alzofon used an outline with an inward notch to pop the arm out from the chair

and give it volume. 'I don't hide the fact that this is a line,' she says, noting that she
learned this technique from looking at paintings by Rubens.


 


I think contemporary representational painters don't make enough use of line. Line can very effectively summarize visual ideas. Line is a significant element of art, and it is completely acceptable to integrate it with fields of color in the painting process. If you would like to see one of my note pages about Rubens' line -- not to mention color, visit this museum note (the arrows point to lines in the painting). This is just a sketch, but for me, jotting down notes like this reinforces the live experience of viewing good painting, and deepens my memory of important findings.

The "inward notches" are the tips of line that you see traveling briefly into the interior of the arm/armpit. Each inward deviation you see, no matter how small, represents a wrap around a sub-form seen at the boundary of the arm's edge. Careful attention to every and all of these sub-forms contributes to the believability of form representation.






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Rebecca Alzofon can be e-mailed at rebecca@art.net
This page created: November 16, 2001
2001 by Rebecca Alzofon. All rights reserved