Sitting girl with hat c. 1905 - 1910

Fritz von Uhde made this drawing of a girl with pencil. It’s all about the lines, and the making of them. You can see him thinking as he goes along. Check out the way he’s worked the surface, layering lines to create darker tones and shadows. It's like he's building up the form bit by bit, letting the pencil marks accumulate and define the space. Look at her legs, how he has scribbled to create darkness where there is shadow and left areas as a single line where the light catches. You can almost feel the softness of the material through this rendering. It reminds me a little of Degas and his pastels, the way he used mark-making to capture fleeting moments and gestures. Art is always like that, a conversation with the past and a stepping stone to the future. It's not about having all the answers, but about embracing the questions.