Study for "The Odyssey" 1963

This is Howard Warshaw’s Study for "The Odyssey", made with ink on paper. I love how immediate this drawing feels! The quickly laid lines create an impression of a figure in motion, an arm raised heavenward and head tilted back. It's amazing how much information he conveys with such simple marks. You can almost feel the energy of the gesture. The ink is opaque and the marks have real presence, like the build-up of hatches across the torso, or the bold lines describing the planes of the face, giving depth and volume to the figure. The way Warshaw builds up his lines reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly's drawings, where the accumulation of marks becomes almost sculptural. Both artists show us that drawing isn't just about representation, it’s about the physical act of mark-making and the energy that gets captured in the process. Ultimately, the meaning is there to be found in the doing.