Road to East Jamaica 1943

Milton Avery made this pencil sketch, Road to East Jamaica, on paper sometime in his lifetime. The artist has used a common material and process, pencil on paper, to record an evocative scene with quick lines. The support itself, the spiral-bound notebook paper, suggests that this was a study done en plein air, capturing a transient impression. Observe the artist's marks and the material qualities of the pencil. He creates darker areas by pressing down, and lighter areas by hatching with the side of the lead. Avery renders the scene with various textures, from the leaves on the trees to the surface of the large rock in the foreground. In so doing, he demonstrates his ability to convey a sense of place with an economy of means. A drawing like this would have been made quite quickly, yet it required skill in observation and hand-eye coordination. This work reminds us of the value of drawing as a fundamental practice for artists, a kind of visual thinking.