Egon Schiele – attempt at the style of …
I am signing in to the St. Ives School of Painting for their very enjoyable virtual life drawing sessions on Saturday Mornings. Each week we are looking at the style of a particular painter. This week it’s Egon Schiele.
Egon Schiele, Austrian painter, early Twentieth Century and protege and friend of Gustav Klimt. His very free and explicit art work brought him into conflict with the authorities for ‘distributing obscene images’. He even served a short term in prison. He was labelled as one of the ‘degenerate’ artists proscribed in Nazi Germany in the nineteen thirties. Fascinating as his work is it is certainly not very comfortable to look at; disturbing even.
Apparently his clearly outlined figures were obtained by drawing with a wax crayon, and then adding watercolour. Because the wax repelled the water based paint the clear outlines remained. I think you would have to be very confident of your drawing skills to do that, as a wax outline once put down won’t go away. (Also I didn’t possess any wax crayons) So I followed our tutor’s suggestion, used charcoal, sprayed it, and then added the colour. and touched up the charcoal lines afterwards. For colour I used pastel pencil as I wasn’t sure about using watercolour on top of charcoal, Could be messy! I was quite pleased with the result from a twenty minute pose, though I have got the position of the right leg wrong. (In that position it cannot be bearing the model’s weight), and the charcoal lines are a bit too thick and definite.
For the second pose I decided that if felt tip pens had been around in Schiele’s day he would definitely have used them. So, I used waterproof black felt tip and then added watercolour. I liked the result and it is a lovely pose, though the black lines are very sharp and definite. It is said the Schiele kept his eyes on the model and drew without looking at his work. If you have ever tried this you will know that while it may be a good exercise for training the eye the results rarely bear much resemblance to the subject. At least that’s the result when I do it.
Luckily St. Ives send out a recording of the session which can be used for up to two weeks, so now that I have purchased a wax crayon I am going to use it to try Schiele’s method. Wax crayon, watercolour and trying to keep my eye on the model rather than the drawing as much as I am able.. Disaster will no doubt follow!
I was right, I don’t know what kind of wax crayons Schiele used, but mine did not give any of the clear blackness of his drawings. I didn’t get as far as putting on colour, as the black lines were not atall effective.
I will use the technique of felt tip and watercolour again. This could be developed very effectively I think.
Next week Toulouse Lautrec!
I thoroughly recommend these sessions. In pre-lockdown days I have been to several three day courses there. The teaching has been excellent and the facilities really good, not to mention the stunning view of the great beach from the studio window.
Here is the link to St. Ives School of Painting. https://www.schoolofpainting.co.uk/