Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Spring Studio Madness Day 2

Back for day 2. They were teaching Nicolaides in the morning so I experimented with scribble gestures.  Having done full figure all day yesterday, I started to focus in on the face and play with that.  Again, no poses longer than 20 mins for some reason.  Warmed up during the second session and felt the best I have in a while, managed to hang on for some of the last session in the day.  Did some of my best yet.  Also, some of my worst.












The worst!  What happened here!?
 And here!?
And here!?


 Early in the session exploration:



Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Spring Studio Madness Day 1

Took some time off before our annual Lake George vacation and made a pilgramage to Spring Studio in NYC.  Shamless plug for Spring Studio and Minerva:  For 25 years, she's been running this community of figurative artist.  They offer 3 sessions a day of live model drawing/painting.  Some times instructed if you'd like, some longe poses, some short gesture poses.  Even better is the community of friendly, kind and supportive artists you'll find there.  Minerva let me help paint the walls of the old location in return for some free drawing sessions when I was a poor post-grad.  They are now close to being priced out of NYC entirely.  Please visit their go-fundme page and help keep this place alive!  https://www.gofundme.com/minervasdrawingstudio

3-4 days of drawing, and drawing ALL day.  3 hour sessions, 3 times a day.  OOF.  Exhausting, but in a good way.  Made the most of it.  Had to catch a 7-730 train to get in by 9 am.  Got home around 10-11pm.

Below is day one.  No poses were longer than 2 mins, which was disappointing, but tried to make the most of it.  9x12 drawings on sketch, charcoal and toned paper with carb-othello, charcoal and nu-pastel.  Below that the quick studies.


























Saturday, May 20, 2017

Peaking in May?

Feel like we started to get a little traction this month.  Been doing longer poses for a few months now.  Sticking with materials, slowing down and trying to make sure there are no lazy lines.  Also TRYING to keep things composed on a page...

We had several sessions with some of the same models as before.  A few large 18x24 sanguine on toned grey paper.  Made the decision to try going smaller again with 9x12 carb-othello on white sketching paper.  Really love the tooth of this canson sketch, combined with the carb-othello.

ALSO, removed silly limitiations on myself to HAVE to finish it in the sitting.  Tried the approach of more direct drawing from the model, then a few days/weeks later, adjust the drawing as necessary to fill in any gaps.  Think thrice, measure twice, draw once.