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Thank You!

10/19/2018

A special thank you to everyone who came out to see Will in Arlington this past weekend.

As many of you know, Will is a meticulous craftsman, and he has recently become interested in frame construction for his pieces. His preference is for a very slender frame to set off his work. After Arlington Studio Day he (and I) worked to make the final adjustments to his frames--and to take some decent archive photos--before sending them off.

Friday was a very nice work day, getting this task done.

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Upcoming: Arlington Open Studios

9/7/2018

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signing in the draft horse & the model

Arlington Council Chamber

taking a few postcards home

Will is participating in the Arlington Open Studios Arts & Artisan Festival

Opening Reception and Kick-off:
Friday, September 28, 6 - 8 pm,
Arlington Town Hall, 2nd floor
730 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA

This will be a two hour preview with two pieces each from participating artists.

Open House:
Saturday, October 13, 11 am - 6 pm,
Arlington Town Hall, 1st floor
730 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA

Will presents a collection of ~12 drawings in the East Corridor.

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Elephants, Franklin Park Zoo, 1992

5/1/2018

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Happy May Day! It feels like vandalism to post Will's drawings with the glare of reflective glass ghosting over the image.... But this one recently went out to a private collection and this is the best image we have of it.

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A Question for Will: Do you have a favorite pencil that you use?

5/1/2018

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Nope, I love working with many, used in turn, when I go to my figure sessions [twice weekly to ‘keep my chops’ tuned], so I get to love each in turn, so long as I can keep it sharp [by going to the next of the same hardness/softness], and most of all when my muse decides it’s going to do me an acceptable drawing.

WR

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A Question for Will: How do I cross hatch in drawing?

4/20/2018

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First, I’d have you back up to think about why you want to use this technique. I’d start by defining it more broadly as ‘hatching’, meaning: an organized grouping of [usually, but not always], parallel lines that can ‘read’ as a tonal area.

That way you can think about how you want the lines you lay down to support what you’re drawing. There are many ways they can work: they can speak to the play of light on solids [shade and shadow], describe the topography of a surface, or serve as overlapping ‘curtains’, allowing some parts to appear as being ahead or behind others, and so on. Those are three very different attitudes of application, and there are many more.

WR

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A Question for Will: What are some tips for drawing anatomy for beginners?

4/20/2018

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Try recognizing that ‘anatomy’ includes a lot, muscles among many other types of tissue, like fascia, tendons, the skin, hair patterns, veins, when prominent. There’s also adipose fat, which, in some figures, can obscure any definition of individual muscles nearly completely. It’s certainly worth careful study to enable recognition of muscles ‘individually’ [an example commonly understood is the biceps of the upper arm].

It’s also the case that in a ‘live’ figure, either human, other animal, or fish, muscles always work in groups. People and animals come lean, moderately or grossly fat, or very skinny with not enough to eat. For me it was slowly coming to understand the bones [anybody’s] are profoundly three-dimensional in nature, and evolved on staggeringly complex geometry, all their own, while remaining stable no matter what happens, excluding disasters likes fractures or arthritis, so if the places they show become integrated into your thinking [when working from the model], whether ‘revealed’ as knobs, or dimples, in an obese individual, they’ll ‘tell’ you a lot. Elbows, wrists and fingers all are bearers of these characteristics, as are knees and backbones. I hope that’s helpful, for a start.

WR

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A Question for Will: Why is it Important to Position the Pencil Correctly?

4/20/2018

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I wondered who figured out YOUR ‘correct position’. There are quite a number of ways one can hold a pencil, with some ‘correct’ for certain ‘jobs’, while inefficient for others. My suggestion is, in the first place, that you not get habituated to ‘one size fits all’.

As example; when I need to use a very light touch, I back my hand [way] up, close to the unsharpened end, using a fairly new [full-length] pencil. Sometimes; particularly while standing to draw from the figure the rhinoceros, at the zoo, I anchor the butt end of the pencil centered in my palm, and grasp with thumb, index, middle finger, and sometimes the third, or ring finger. I can think of six other grips; all useful, all related to what I see happening on the page, or when I’m lettering, from darkest darks,etc., to fast sketch work, or slow and deliberated. Each works well for some things, not well on the others.

WR

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A Question for Will: What is Art & Its Functions?

4/20/2018

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Well, I hope to answer as honestly as best I can without being a smart-pants. The first thing asked is: what are the functions of a beating heart, an active brain, an appetite, digestion, or breathing? They all share, critically, in keeping one alive.

Of course, like ‘art’, they aren’t the only functions that allow one to live; especially if you have, and value to have, a wife, kids, and grandkids, and your house, your animals. They keep you alive, too, even if every once in a while you may also think about strangling them. Same’s true for friends, colleagues, team-mates, even enemies. Art feeds one emotionally, contemplatively, intellectually, physically. It offers frustration, stimulation, and challenge, as well as sometimes giving one fits. Fundamentally, it is the drive to follow one’s curiosity, and make things as well as one can. That’s been sustained since paleolithic times, even as we’re now confronting the first generation that’s had to ask why.

WR

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Drawing Class

4/19/2018

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Will taught design and drawing at Harvard University from 1964-2002. An ongoing project is the organization of his course material, recently, as he's been thinking over these matters, he has made some commentary at the Quora website.

With Will's permission, I am gathering his commentary here in his blog--not least so these writings are easily accessible as work on the drawing course materials progresses.

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When the model doesn't come...

4/18/2018

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Wait, watch, & draw what's in front of you.

WPR sketch, 2018

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Author

Will is a sculptor and draftsman, living and working in Cambridge, MA.

This site is maintained by his daughter, Katya

If you have any interest in owning an artwork by Will, feel welcome to put in a preliminary query to Katya.

Artwork depicted on this site that is not given a citation may be available, though the primary purpose of this site is not as a sales center. Many singular items are in the family or private collections and NFS.

Will continues to accept commissions, as time permits.

Favorite Sites

Family:

Katya Reimann
Kristen Beaumont Reimann

Students:
(an incomplete list by reverse order of entry date by Katya - who stopped writing "polymath" at the end of each description, because it described pretty much every one of these individuals)

Dan Wilson - Musician, Songwriter, Artist.

Sandro Carella - Artist, Instructor, Musician.

George Wilson - Master Luthier - the first link is to the first of a series of videos on harpsichords George built for Colonial Williamsburg, this second is his bibliographical interview).

Julie Zickefoose - Naturalist, Author, Musician.

Martha Beck - Life Coach, Author.

Louis Bryden - Artist.

Timothy M. Sweeney, MD - Emergency Physician, Medical Illustrator.

Will is participating in the Arlington Open Studios Arts & Artisan Festival

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