When Woods Were Really Wood

"The Match" is available as a limited edition print at sasgolf.com

"The Match" is available as a limited edition print at sasgolf.com

Recently I was using a chunky oil crayon doodling on some discarded printing paper, and quickly drew a golfer with a straw hat swinging a club, poised at his finish. Just a simple line drawing -a glorified doodle really, culled from my memory of golf swings and combined with my ability to draw the human figure without needing a model or a photo or even a preliminary sketch. It had the retro look of a player from the 1940's (using a persimmon wood, of course!) I really liked the rough line quality of the thick crayon because it disallowed me from fussing with any detail, which forces the essential gesture to describe the form. 

So, then I did another quick crayon drawing of a caddie, complete with knickers and holding a canvas golf bag, followed by another player (leaning on his club and puffing on a cigarette), and second young caddie. These drawings were done on separate scraps of paper, so I scanned them all into Photoshop and arranged them all together into a scene such that it looked like one player and the two caddies were watching the other player play his shot. Then I took a previous rectangular color field I had painted on paper with green gouache, executed with rough, loose, brushstrokes and scanned that into Photoshop, too. I placed the green color field painting behind the layer with the line drawings of the players and caddies, then further modified it by bringing in additional shapes I created to make the bunkers and the smaller pine trees in the distance, including the flagstick. Using a digital "fuzzy" paintbrush tool, I painted the skin tone and clothing color of the characters on another Photoshop layer between the existing layers. Of course, there is a lot of subtle adjustments of the colors, and even alterations of the drawings, too. 

I did a test print of the image on watercolor paper and felt it was very nice, but too barren feeling. It needed more context. Next, I went back to the chunky oil crayon and drew two big, simple, pines trees, effectively to frame the characters. The story I was telling myself at that point was that these two players were vying for the 1948 club championship, in the final match. At that point I knew I had to add in some interested club members following the action! I scanned the drawings of the two big pine trees as well as my additional drawings of spectator characters and brought them into the final scene. Wanting to keep the image as simple as possible, I colored the big trees and the spectators all the same color blue, as if in a cool blue shadow, thus allowing the brighter players dressed in white to visually dominate the scene.

Posted here is the full view of the final image... and a detail of one of the players so you can see the rough line quality of the oil crayon which was used to create the figures. Some images/paintings I create take weeks to finalize... in this case, because it was based on using quick "sketches" as the final imagery, and the fact that I fabricated the image in an impromptu manner on the fly, making it up as I went along, it took very little time at all. It is fun to create this kind of "spontaneous" image on the heels of having spent tons of time on a more elaborate, formal images. It helps to regain some balance.

This print is available in a limited edition in the "match play" gallery on sasgolf.com