Drawing Nude

VALENTINO F. ZUBIRI:Nude Drawings and Paintings

from 1995 to 1996

arts global impact

This book presents a comprehensive collection of Valentino Zubiri’s nudes done in 1995 and 1996. Artist’s crayons were used mostly on watercolor paper and some pastel paper. Some were painted using watercolor, pastel or oil.

Between 1996 and the date of this publication (January 2008), the artist did not draw any other nudes and continued to refuse to sell any of his works.

This is an Evaluation Copy in PDF format. Not for print or sale.


from 1995 to 1996


from 1995 to 1996

arts global impact

copyright © 2008 Valentino F. Zubiri All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Corporation, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author and the publisher except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. Published by Arts Global Impact, P.O.Box 11937, Chicago, IL 60611 www.valentinozubiri.comwww.artsglobalimpact.orgCover and Book Design by Valentino Zubiri Printed in the United States

NOTE: This is an evaluation copy of the book, allowed only to be shared on the internet in its complete, unadulterated edition without financial gain. You are allowed to share screen captures, with the purpose of promoting the download of the entire original book for personal viewing only. No one is allowed to make changes without official written permission. It is illegal to use the book and its images, in its entirety, or in groups or individually, for commercial purposes without the written permission of the publisher and the artist. The artist retains full copyright of the book and its contents and individual images for purposes that are commercial and otherwise.

This Internet Edition PDF File, including the images, has been set at 72 pixels per inch. Please refer to the websites above and at the last page of this copy for where the high-resolution printed edition of this book, both hardcover and paperback, can be purchased.

http://www.valentinozubiri.com

http://www.artsglobalimpact.org

To Mama & Papa

INTRODUCTION

These drawings did not just come instantly. Allow me to explain how my mind worked and how I perceived this collection. Let me walk you through my years of getting into figure drawing. Thanks for your time.

I first got into American comic books when I was a kid in the third grade, in the Philippines. My family was not rich, we were middle class by Filipino standards. I borrowed comic books from friends to read, and then bought only a few when I can. I started drawing comic book heroes, men and women, muscles and faces. I did my best to make my drawings “perfect”—which meant drawing exactly like the comic books I had. Sometimes, I lightly traced the illustration, using onion skin, being careful not to ruin any pages in my collection.

By the sixth grade, my collection had become a box full. It was like getting fat to the point where you could no longer cover it up. My dad eventually discovered my stash, and threatened to throw all my comic books out! He said something about his money having been wasted by me. I promised I would stop buying comic books, I lied. I continued to buy and read comic books.

He increased my brother’s and my allowance when we got to high school. My brother and I were the same grade level. I was able to buy more, but I discovered other hobbies, including arts and crafts, so I slowed down buying them anyway. Nevertheless, my collection continued to grow into an additional box.

Thanks to my interest in comic books, I began to draw figures.

By college, I got back to comic books, but I read fewer titles. I had gotten better drawing, but I was going to school for a bachelors degree in biology.

Around that time, my family got introduced to a speed reading seminar, so we all got into reading, but we read books. We read fast, and we read a lot. From speed reading came my early appreciation for publishing. A book is a book, a booklet is a booklet.

That was how I thought. In my mind, numerosity and quantity had weight.

As an adult, when I got to Chicago, I got more into art, not as a profession, but as a pursuit. Art for me was now more than a hobby, but less than a profession. I called it a pursuit.

Comic books were not exactly a thing of the past. I would buy, to read, no longer to collect. I was no longer compulsively buying and collecting comic books, but thanks to my speed reading skills, I got interested in science fiction—short stories and novels—my ”books” versus “booklets” perception of life.

This led me to regularly visit a nearby science fiction bookstore. Once again, I started to collect more than I bothered to read, but this time, I collected books. Because I was also into art, I also collected books on drawing and painting, and books about comic book and science fiction artists and art.

At this point, I began collecting “stuff.” Merchandise. I came to the phrase, “industry standard.” A book for example has to meet “industry standard” in order to get published and sell. A toy has to meet “industry standard” to end up on the shelves of stores. I concluded that I had to meet “industry standards” to end up in a gallery. I also thought I had to come up with “perfect” art to be appreciated.

The sci-fi bookstore had a huge corkboard. There, they announced upcoming books, by pinning slick, unfolded, unbound, printed book covers sent by publishers, on the corkboard. I discovered that publishers sent actual book covers to bookstores to announce their upcoming titles. It made sense, because the covers included the front which had the cover art, and the back, which had the teaser information of what the upcoming book was about.

Every month, as the new book covers got posted, the previous ones got taken down and placed in a “Free” box that anyone can rummage through. I started to collect the book covers because they had great, crisp art, and they were free for the taking! In time, I accumulated a huge box of book covers!

This triggered another wave of compulsive behavior. I started to collect non-sport trading cards by science fiction and

fantasy artists. These artists, through their years of illustrating or painting, had accumulated enough artwork to warrant having trading cards of their works. There are usually ninety trading cards to a set. This meant that the artists each had ninety (or more) acceptable art pieces that they had worked on through the years.

So, in my mind, I came to tell myself, as a joke, that my magic number would be ninety, rounded up to a hundred and first. Do anything a hundred times, like work in a factory, skinning and deboning chicken, for example, and by the hundred and first chicken, one would have become an expert.

In my case, I resolved to do a hundred drawings so that by the hundred and first, the drawing would have become perfect and acceptable.

From collecting and the numbers game, I realized I had to do art many times over to perfect my art, whatever it is.

Meanwhile, my compulsion to spend the money I earned from my office job around that time, also took me to art supply stores. There was an art supply store in downtown Chicago that was just a few blocks away from work. The store announced that they were closing and going out of business. Since I had been painting using watercolor, I walked in and bought watercolor blocks, which they had on sale.

The store kept their doors open for months, and I kept on buying the watercolor blocks they had on their supposed “store closing” sale. I thought I was just being tricked into continuously buying their merchandise, but I compulsively bought a lot of art supplies, especially the watercolor blocks.

I later started to attend figure drawing classes organized by different people I came to know. I started using ordinary paper, sometimes bond paper, sometimes drawing paper pads, but only for a short time.

Using ordinary paper was not right for me. I needed to “feel responsible” for my art, and I thought I would be able to do that using my more expensive paper, the pastel pads. Then it occurred to me to try to figure out how to use my most expensive paper, the watercolor blocks.

I also felt that I would just be wasting my time, my money contribution to pay for the models and the venue, and the nudity of the models and their time by just drawing on cheap paper. If I was to become serious about art, I needed to meet industry standards!

I don’t know what happened in my head, but I went from badly drawing figures to the style you now see in this book.

I started using pastel paper, but I was not happy with the feel of the paper and I thought it was thin and can accidentally get folds and creases. When I felt confident and happy with my drawing style, I immediately started using the watercolor blocks.

I also had in mind to paint over my drawings later on. I thought, in order to get inspired doing the next stage after drawing—painting—the initial drawing should be inspiring enough.

So, I discovered a step-by-step way to keep myself inspired. The type of paper inspired me to draw better. In order to paint better, I made sure that my drawing would inspire me to paint later, and paint better.

Comparing myself to my friends at the drawing sessions, I obviously quickly (but humbly) realized that I was better than most of them. They were mentally blocked; a lot of them could not draw at all. After three hours of a figure drawing session, some of them were happy to leave, sometimes, with scribbles on just one sheet of paper, or with rough sketches. They had three hours worth of “attempts.” I can’t just be leaving with attempts!

In time I collected a lot of drawings, which I stored in my portfolio. I kept my drawings, including the ones I didn’t like at all; including the ones which had a lot of mistakes. I had thought that I could easily erase and paint over the paper with the mistakes and ugly, imperfect drawings, so I kept the ones which I thought were worthless. Without fixing the drawing crayons on the watercolor paper, it was easy to wash off the pigments using water, and reuse the paper.

I discovered that I liked using watercolor paper for drawing because the surface was grainier or rougher than pastel or drawing paper. The surface helped to “pixelate” my drawing crayons. I did

not want to show smooth, continuous lines as much as I wanted to show coarse shadows and shadings.

It also turned out that watercolor paper was thicker, easier to preserve, and it avoided accidental, unintentional folds and creases.

During the figure drawing sessions, which usually lasted three hours, the group agreed to have the model pose for quick sketches, like sixty seconds, 10 times, for warming up, and then longer, like 5 minutes, a few times, then 15 minutes, and then a final thirty-minute pose.

I don’t want to say that I probably had the most talent in those sessions. The sessions were never in an art school. We were just neighbors and/or friends passing the time artistically. However, in my mind, I wanted to be serious and professional about my art. I used serious paper, and drew to get better, trying different styles. Time was money, and my materials were money. There were others in the group who spent their entire time attempting to draw the naked models’ faces! What the f--k?

I resolved earlier on that drawing faces during figure drawing sessions served to slow me down. The emphasis was on the torso. Same thing with the hands, I did not place a lot of emphasis on the hands and feet.

My challenge was foreshortening and shadows. Later on, it was the negative space as well. The paper was one flat surface. Skin was also a single. The challenge was, as I saw it, in foreshortening and shadowing to show the bumps, bulges, peaks and valleys of the human body.

Then came another challenge, or mind game. Because my friends drew slower than I did, and the poser posed longer than I cared to have, I became the one to move and change vantage points, drawing the same subject with the same frozen pose from different angles and distances. I also added variety by using different colors from my collection of drawing crayons. I used dark sepia, light sepia, olive gray, gray, and even pink.

Aside from all this, another “game” I had was avoiding the convergence of four or more lines to a single point. I felt that a stable meeting point of lines should only consist of three lines. If I

wanted the eye of the viewer to move to an emphasized area, then I would use a point of four or more lines.

As you look at my work, notice that meeting points of lines result only from the meeting of three lines. I forget the correct art term to use, but I call them my “Y’s” and “T’s.”

I had also thought about coloring my drawings using watercolor. I experimented with colors and I also used oil paint, on watercolor paper and pastel paper. I also tried pastel pigments on pastel paper after the initial use of drawing crayon.

Here’s a challenge that never was a challenge. My challenge was to avoid being pornographic. That was never a challenge. My challenge was to produce so people, myself included, would find the art in my works. People would look at my works time and time again, not at the naked person who was in front of me for a brief moment.

My conscious challenge was to portray non-erotic naked figures. It was not that I missed being erotic in the process. I simply did not want to be erotic at all. My goal was to take the erotic element, and possible pornography, out, while it was even only in my mind, even before I started to place any pigment on the paper.

I have drawn what regular people might consider attractive, and I have also drawn not-so-attractive, men and women. Here is what could have been a challenge initially that never was.

I came to appreciate the variety of body types in our figure drawing sessions. I came to appreciate the spontaneity of the subjects. In a short time period, all of them became beautiful, in my eyes, as naked art subjects. My art became the balance of what I saw, and what I was able to put on paper.

I don’t blame people who have asked me about any sort of awkwardness, erotic tension in the sessions and religious conflicts, but it is usually asked by those who are not in the art field at all, or those whose religious beliefs have hindered their appreciation of art. The latter should be reminded that even Rome and the Vatican has naked art.

I got invited to a few group shows, and I colored some of

my drawings for those shows. Once in a while people who came to my place got a chance to view my works. I opened my portfolio and showed them what I had kept in my portfolio, which had started to bulge.

I appreciated my work; I thought others did as well. Some began to talk behind my back, and slowly, discouragements reached me. Someone said I had quantity, but I did not have substance and that I did not have my heart in my work.

I want to say I laughed it off. I did, but it still affected me. Let me tell you two more words from my vocabulary. “Dishearten” and “discourage.” Dishearten attacks the heart, and discourage attacks the mind. I was disheartened, but not necessarily discouraged. I got a little lazy, but I knew I had to find a way to bounce back.

This was when massage came to my mind. I became a masseur to discover the substance that my enemies claimed I lacked. I told everyone I was now a masseur to get back at my detractors. I said it was to be my yin and yang. With figure drawing, I drew the body from a distance. With massage, I would touch the body, without drawing, but eventually hope to get better at drawing.

My address changed—I moved, because massage afforded me to move downtown, near the hotels, where most of my clients required me to be. I placed all my drawings in my portfolio and forgot about them for a while, which stretched to more than a decade.

It was not like lost touch of my artistic abilities. I continued other forms of art. I painted some portraits. I continued to design posters for a theater group where I volunteered. I think my portraits had acceptable hands, and the faces looked realistic and were just like the subjects. They smiled perfectly; they did not smirk.

Thanks to massage, I met people. Some were artists, some were involved in the sale of art, some were authors, actors, singers, interior designers, fashion people and other types of creative people. They made me continue to pursue and dream. I kept my fire going. I was able to write a first full-length book, Memoirs of an Artist as a Masseur, the first draft of which was finished in 2006.

After feeling that I had finished writing a book, I went through a period of undiagnosed depression. I felt like I had given birth to a giant baby.

I had had experience, years ago, editing and laying out a monthly Filipino magazine in Chicago. From the theater group, I had experience going through the process of designing and printing posters and souvenir programs. What I had felt, was the same feeling, as expected, but a full-length book about myself was so much more personal.

I felt that my mission of being a masseur was over. The book was done. I felt I had to move on, so I stopped being a masseur and became something else. I’ll let you know when you get older. Back to the idea of my nudes in this book.

In 2006, I made a conscious decision to visit the Chicago galleries on a regular basis, especially the higher end ones in the River North area.

There was, and continues to be, a gallery walk in Chicago that happened every Saturday. It is called Starbucks Saturdays, because the visitors met at the nearby Starbucks, where at 11 a.m., a gallery representative would meet them to take them to four galleries. Each gallery would give a short talk of what they were currently showing. Because there were more than thirty galleries involved, by the time the walk comes back to the same gallery, the show would have usually changed.

Time came when the gallerists began to recognize my face and I made friends with a lot of them. I also started to visit other artists in Chicago. You can go to my websites or to the end of this book (this internet edition) for links to my gallery friends. One of these days, I will write about my adventure with them as well.

Here’s a thought that struck me, thanks to my constant visits to these people and their galleries and studios. If you go to a museum, you will see a single work by an artist. If you go to a gallery, you will see a series of works by a single artist, made within a certain span of time. If you go to an artist’s studio, you will see all of the artist’s works through a longer span of time, maybe through his or her entire life.

I also came to realize that the works displayed by museums and galleries do not necessarily have to be perfect, or the best representation of an artist’s work.

After all these years, and the later “realizations” and lessons I had gotten from galleries, other artists, and other people in the art field, I came back to look at my drawings and paintings from a decade ago.

I don’t want to sound narcissistic, because I know my flaws. I still know the nude drawings that I didn’t like around the time I produced them—the ones which I thought had mistakes and were imperfect. I also have works which I thought were perfect, which I myself could not believe were done by me—my “perfect, industry standard” works.

By 2007, I realized that even the works which I had haphazardly done also tell a story of the moment I did them. This later time of reviewing my past works, I appreciated them just as well. A drawing with “x” marks or smudges or a deliberate line that indicated that I saw the mistake that needed to be corrected, or a bad drawing of hands and feet, seemed to even be more memorable than the better ones.

It was a great experience to perceive my own works twice, from two different points in time, earlier, when I felt proud of my good works and when I wanted to trash the bad ones, and now, more than a decade later, when all of them have become more valuable and told stories of a time in my life that had long passed.

I did my best not to throw away my mistakes because of my compulsion to keep and collect. I had the assumption that, like the dedication of other artists who made at least ninety works, whose trading cards I collected, that if I made a hundred works, my hundred and first would be perfect.

The gallerists have taught me to look for stories in the pictures, that even the smudges which were accidental are important. Look at the grain of my drawings produced by the random coarseness of my materials, and consider them like fingerprints. They cannot be faked, duplicated nor repeated. They are individuals.

Other artists who had shown their works to me in their studios also taught me that I will not always come up with a perfect image, but it’s all a matter of perception.

You will notice that a good number of the painted ones had been dated 1995. I painted some to show in 1995. I signed the rest 1996 when I decided not to paint on any drawings anymore.

There’s one last thing, a confession, that I have to make. It’s 2008. In my upcoming book, Memoirs of an Artist as a Masseur, I became a masseur in my hopes of becoming better with figures. However, I also said in the book that I tended to procrastinate “creatively,” pursuing other creative endeavors to postpone drawing and painting. The last serious nude I remember drawing was in 1996. Maybe this year, 2008, I will begin to draw nudes again. Wish me luck.

So consider this book, not as a collection of perfectly drawn nudes, but as a collection of works from a portfolio. From a slice in time. As you look at the images, please remember the elements and stories from this introduction. Finally, to those who tried to detract me, I do have substance, even right from the start.

Thanks for your time! Valentino F. ZubiriJanuary 2008


from 1995 to 1996

Nude Drawings and Paintings from 1995 to 1996 19

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Valentino F. Zubiri:20

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132 Valentino F. Zubiri:


133Nude Drawings and Paintings from 1995 to 1996











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Books by Valentino F. Zubiri:

Memoirs of an Artist as a Masseur - Spring 2008

Lessons from a Psychic Surgeon, The Seven Incredible Healing Chapters from the Book, Memoirs of an Artist as a Masseur - Spring 2008

Valentino F. Zubiri: Nude Drawings and Paintings from 1995 to 1996 - Spring 2008

Coming Soon by Valentino F. Zubiri:

Memoirs of an Artist as a Lab Rat, The Second Book from the Memoirs of an Artist Series

More Works by Valentino F. Zubiri

Chicago Galleries and their Artists

Chicago Artists Who Dared

Websites:

www.ValentinoZubiri.com

www.ArtsGlobalImpact.org

www.ChicagoArtMovement.com - a site with videos of art talks from some Chicago Galleries, which I took from my digital camera.

www.CafePress.com/BananaQ You can buy stuff here, including “$2.4M” (The Goal) t-shirts and wall clocks

www.MassagePeople.com

www.a0d0.com and other cellphone/ numeric keypad websites

If You are Looking to Collect Art fromChicago Galleries and Artists:

Please go to www.ValentinoZubiri.com, www.ArtsGlobalImpact.org and www.ChicagoArtMovement.com for a list of Chicago-based galleries and artists which I endorse and plan to write about soon. You must be aware that the art bubble, if there is one, has not reached Chicago in a big way. A lot of works are affordable and definitely collectible. None of them rep-resent me, but my joke is that I hope to be the first one represented by all. ;-)



http://www.chicagoartmovement.com



http://www.cafepress.com/bananaq




http://www.massagepeople.com

http://www.a0d0.com

http://www.a0d0.com




Documents

Drawing Nude