Isaac Gelb– Entertainment in Quarantine (Graphite on 18″x24″ drawing paper)
5 thoughts on “Isaac Gelb– Entertainment in Quarantine (Graphite on 18″x24″ drawing paper)”
This drawing is a snapshot of my quarantine, which relies on three major sources of entertainment– TV, Music, and fitness. The scene on my laptop is one of my favorite scenes in Scrubs, when Doctor Cox (right) realizes he is at his best friend’s funeral and not his son’s birthday party. It’s an interesting moment which is somewhat relevant today, as I’m sure many of us experience pretty heavy, sudden realizations of the time we’re in on a daily basis. My phone is playing the song I happened to be listening to at the time I took this photo (Parental Discretion Iz Advised by NWA). To the left of my computer and in front of my window are the only pieces of workout equipment I own, an ab wheel and a resistance band. I started this drawing with a schematic, then made a contour drawing, and then made the ambitious decision to try adding expressionist value. I think it ended with mixed results. Even though I made many mistakes in this drawing, I’m glad I pushed my own limits and made something personal to myself.
I think your drawing shows the casual and informal aspects of life at home. This is shown through your subject matter – computer, phone and workout equipment- but also through the way you decided to ultimately draw. I think you did a great job with the expressionist value – it keeps with the casual theme of the drawing but at the same time, every component is drawn intentionally and very realistically. That is definitely a hard combination to master, but your risk definitely paid off. If I could pick one thing to improve upon, I think that you could differentiate between the values in the foreground and background. You used a similar loose technique in both, but they both have the same value, so if you darkened the foreground, maybe it would give some differentiation. Great drawing though!
I agree with Anika- I really enjoy this drawing. It is unique in that you chose to zoom in on objects instead of a scene or a room. I love how you put thought into the exact scene of Scrubs on your computer and the song playing on your phone. The line weight and quality you played around with is really engaging and almost gives vintage vibes? My only suggestion is maybe to define the background a bit more or choose to focus only on the objects. It’s somewhat difficult to tell where the objects are in space- flat, tilted, etc. Other than that, this is a really fun drawing!
As Anibal and Olivia noted, this is a great drawing for many reasons. My favorite aspect of the drawing are the childlike nature of the scribbles in the lower right corner and echoed elsewhere. These scribbles are what I notice first when looking at the piece. As a result, first I associated it with something my younger brother would’ve drawn, but as my eyes move upward to the more realistic representation of the phone and laptop I recognize that the scribbles were intentional. The realistic contour drawing along with the somewhat realistic scribbly shading (on the phone screen) make this a paradoxical, interesting drawing. Furthermore, the presence of both the phone and laptop at the same time is relatable because it speaks to the overdose of media people (at least I) now have the time to consume from home. The scribbles remind me of the every rising chaos in the world as a whole as well as in people’s personal lives. Initially, I thought this was your drawing for next week because it speaks so well to our times!
My apologies for the slow turnaround on this comment. Getting this week’s assignment out eclipsed my time for comments–just catching up.
Anika, Olivia, and Aadhya have made good comments here, both pro and con. I agree with them about both, like commending your use of the scribble hatching but also questioning where we are in space. It seems clear we’re on a table top with a window behind it, of course, but everything is tipping and sliding toward the edge of the frame.
My biggest concern here is compositional. The eye wants to move left to right in the upper half of the design, but the vertical format makes it want to travel up and down as well, creating a conflict–especially since there’s nothing of interest in the lower third (arguably the lower half), My suggested cropping and composition is above, which also helps to hold the objects in space better.
It also pulls the viewer in more, instead of looking at the objects across that gulf.
Note that in this version, all of the objects are partially eclipsed by the border, lending them more equal weight. In yours, the phone gets center stage, begging the question of the relative importance of the 3 or 4 objects in view. The barbells are trying too hard to squeeze in and the laptop, which catches my eye the most because there are people on it, feels like it’s getting pushed off stage right.
My only other comment is that the scene feels too staged. It’s an paradox of most still lives that they need to be set up (unless they’re “found” and drawn as is) but the goal is to make them so they don’t look that way. Your arrangement seems too earnest to display the “evidence,” and it’s not altogether clear what these things have to do with one another (until we read your explanation, and drawings shouldn’t need an explanation.
When you mentioned in our Zoom conference that week that you’d been “living” inside of Scrubs, I was hoping your drawing would be either a full screen capture of the Scrubs episode (and I agree with the comment praising you for freezing on a specific scene), or possibly a glimpse of the laptop “framing” the view.
In short, I think you tried to include too much. Like poems, songs, movies, and plays, having one “thesis” is more than enough, and turning a computer screen into a drawing would be delightful and highly original.
This drawing is a snapshot of my quarantine, which relies on three major sources of entertainment– TV, Music, and fitness. The scene on my laptop is one of my favorite scenes in Scrubs, when Doctor Cox (right) realizes he is at his best friend’s funeral and not his son’s birthday party. It’s an interesting moment which is somewhat relevant today, as I’m sure many of us experience pretty heavy, sudden realizations of the time we’re in on a daily basis. My phone is playing the song I happened to be listening to at the time I took this photo (Parental Discretion Iz Advised by NWA). To the left of my computer and in front of my window are the only pieces of workout equipment I own, an ab wheel and a resistance band. I started this drawing with a schematic, then made a contour drawing, and then made the ambitious decision to try adding expressionist value. I think it ended with mixed results. Even though I made many mistakes in this drawing, I’m glad I pushed my own limits and made something personal to myself.
I think your drawing shows the casual and informal aspects of life at home. This is shown through your subject matter – computer, phone and workout equipment- but also through the way you decided to ultimately draw. I think you did a great job with the expressionist value – it keeps with the casual theme of the drawing but at the same time, every component is drawn intentionally and very realistically. That is definitely a hard combination to master, but your risk definitely paid off. If I could pick one thing to improve upon, I think that you could differentiate between the values in the foreground and background. You used a similar loose technique in both, but they both have the same value, so if you darkened the foreground, maybe it would give some differentiation. Great drawing though!
I agree with Anika- I really enjoy this drawing. It is unique in that you chose to zoom in on objects instead of a scene or a room. I love how you put thought into the exact scene of Scrubs on your computer and the song playing on your phone. The line weight and quality you played around with is really engaging and almost gives vintage vibes? My only suggestion is maybe to define the background a bit more or choose to focus only on the objects. It’s somewhat difficult to tell where the objects are in space- flat, tilted, etc. Other than that, this is a really fun drawing!
As Anibal and Olivia noted, this is a great drawing for many reasons. My favorite aspect of the drawing are the childlike nature of the scribbles in the lower right corner and echoed elsewhere. These scribbles are what I notice first when looking at the piece. As a result, first I associated it with something my younger brother would’ve drawn, but as my eyes move upward to the more realistic representation of the phone and laptop I recognize that the scribbles were intentional. The realistic contour drawing along with the somewhat realistic scribbly shading (on the phone screen) make this a paradoxical, interesting drawing. Furthermore, the presence of both the phone and laptop at the same time is relatable because it speaks to the overdose of media people (at least I) now have the time to consume from home. The scribbles remind me of the every rising chaos in the world as a whole as well as in people’s personal lives. Initially, I thought this was your drawing for next week because it speaks so well to our times!
Hi Isaac,
My apologies for the slow turnaround on this comment. Getting this week’s assignment out eclipsed my time for comments–just catching up.
Anika, Olivia, and Aadhya have made good comments here, both pro and con. I agree with them about both, like commending your use of the scribble hatching but also questioning where we are in space. It seems clear we’re on a table top with a window behind it, of course, but everything is tipping and sliding toward the edge of the frame.
My biggest concern here is compositional. The eye wants to move left to right in the upper half of the design, but the vertical format makes it want to travel up and down as well, creating a conflict–especially since there’s nothing of interest in the lower third (arguably the lower half), My suggested cropping and composition is above, which also helps to hold the objects in space better.
It also pulls the viewer in more, instead of looking at the objects across that gulf.
Note that in this version, all of the objects are partially eclipsed by the border, lending them more equal weight. In yours, the phone gets center stage, begging the question of the relative importance of the 3 or 4 objects in view. The barbells are trying too hard to squeeze in and the laptop, which catches my eye the most because there are people on it, feels like it’s getting pushed off stage right.
My only other comment is that the scene feels too staged. It’s an paradox of most still lives that they need to be set up (unless they’re “found” and drawn as is) but the goal is to make them so they don’t look that way. Your arrangement seems too earnest to display the “evidence,” and it’s not altogether clear what these things have to do with one another (until we read your explanation, and drawings shouldn’t need an explanation.
When you mentioned in our Zoom conference that week that you’d been “living” inside of Scrubs, I was hoping your drawing would be either a full screen capture of the Scrubs episode (and I agree with the comment praising you for freezing on a specific scene), or possibly a glimpse of the laptop “framing” the view.
In short, I think you tried to include too much. Like poems, songs, movies, and plays, having one “thesis” is more than enough, and turning a computer screen into a drawing would be delightful and highly original.