High Noon

Here is my pastel of Michael as Gary Cooper in High Noon . the drawing is done on a rough hand-made paper as I felt it suited the subject.  I love doing figure drawing and I feel that drawing is really important. I usually do Life Drawing once a week and save some drawings, The warm-up one and two-minute poses are drawn on newsprint and I usually just put them in the recycling bin. Right now  I am drawing with a white pencil on black paper - just exploring the effects of the light making highlights on the figure. There are more pages in the black sketchbook than I originally thought so it is going to be awhile before I get back to colour. Maybe I'll work with water-soluble crayons then - or even watercolour for awhile. This pastel work is from a different day - usually every other week - when we have a "long pose" and I often  work in mixed media - in my case - pastel over acrylic and acrylic pastel gel which you can see in previous posts.

Pastel Life Drawing

This is from last Friday with our smaller group for "Long  Pose". It works out to around 2 hours drawing (or painting) time - allowing for breaks for the model and time to set up the pose and lighting. This piece is done with mostly soft pastels or grey pastel paper- no mixed media this time as we were in a smaller room and there wasn't comfortable space to get up, apply paint, pastel gel etc. We have a sturdy step stool now and with sufficient padding on it, it makes something a bit different for the model to perch on. So, we get away from the flatter "girl in chair" type pose. My position meant that I had a nice angular view - and a bit of challenging  foreshortening. "Foreshortening" just means perspective as applied to the human form. If we had  more storage space, we could have a chaise lounge or other things that would give an interesting set of options for poses - but we don't. The step-stool has the virtue of folding flat for storage. Some people call pastels "paintings"but I think of it as more of a completed drawing since there is paper left uncovered. Some fast painters can complete a painting in this time, but I don't paint that fast so I was happy to be using pastels for this .

Graphitint and Life Drawing

I am working a bit smaller and in neutrals for a bit in life drawing. I'm using Derwent's "Graphitints". These are graphite pencils so you draw - and erase- just like ordinary  graphite pencils.  The graphite is tinted somewhat so there is a subtle colour, Then, when a wetted paintbrush is applied, the colours become more intense and will wash out a bit to create shading in the drawing. This is not a very heavy paper so there is some warping of the paper- but the effect shows. This was just a ten-minute pose but I thought it turned out reasonably well. I'm enjoying having a go at smaller, more controlled drawings - at least for a bit. When this sketchbook gets filled, I may go for Inktense or water-soluble wax crayons for wilder colours and less control. I find it is good to change what I'm drawing with every so often. Of course, every other Friday, for Long Pose, I'm continuing with mixed media - for now, anyway. Next Wednesday night is a Long Pose and I will work in pastels on pastel paper. I can't seem to confine myself to just one medium!

Looking backwards-

Nearing the end of the year, it is interesting to look back on the year's programs and production. Plein air painting worked well with the weather cooperating on most days. Our "substitute" studio Tuesdays for the winter has seen other work completed and lots of useful comments shared. Every other Friday for a "long pose" has been a great supplement to Wednesday night regular Life Drawing. This pastel was done one Friday and I will have more to post as my photography is not up to date. I'm not sure if I will continue my "mixed media" approach for long pose as we may be in a smaller room for the next session. I've appreciated the greater space with out smaller group as I've needed table space for the painting, blow-drying and pastel ground application as well as the "donkey" to sit on while working with pastels. I may have to work with something that can be contained to a smaller space... but then that can be good too as it is challenging to work in different ways. The drawing above was done in three colours of Conte' on brown paper for a change of pace. I did quite a bit of painting in my home studio  this year- and not all of them are photographed either. I've also noted that quite a few need wiring as well - not my favourite job but the cats aren't volunteering to do it. I'm in the process of shifting my display around since I brought home the paintings from the View Gallery. Keeping a record by photographing paintings and mounting them in a display portfolio is another task that takes time. I don't record all the Life Drawings and they don't all get kept either, but I have been posting most of the Long Poses on my Pinterest folio - to give them a life beyond being piled up in a cupboard. We already have all the dates booked for Long Poses and the studio booked until we go outside in the good (we hope!) weather. It looks like 2017 will be a busy year.

The Artist's Brain

      I just read an interesting article on the artist's brain. Rebecca Chamberlain, KU Leuven, Belgium was reporting on a study to see if artists brains are structurally different.  Using a scanning method- vaxel-based morphometry, it was found that there was more grey matter in the region of the brain used in visual imagery. It was also found that hose better at drawing had more grey and white matter in the cerebellum and in the related supplementary motor area involved in fine muscle control. Studies also showed that more work at drawing resulted in better work - so there is certainly something to the "10,000 hours" idea. However, the "right brain,left brain" idea didn't seem to hold true as improvement showed on both sides of the brain.
     I still think, however, that there is value to be had in going through the exercises in "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" - maybe especially if a person has been away from it for awhile and needs to power-up the creative workings. Most artists feel that Life Drawing is like playing scales - it keeps the skills up even if a lot of what is produced ends up in the recycling bin.... well, we don't want to be buried in overwhelming piles of paper! For our Long Poses every other Friday, I have been taking a mixed-media approach - drawing first in charcoal on watercolour paper, giving that a wash of acrylic,  drying that, and then applying acrylic medium for pastels (to give the paper "tooth"), drying it again and then completing the work in pastel. It is an interesting approach and I'm still exploring the possibilities.
    I'm  interested in light effects and I hope to do more city night scenes . "Five-fifteen". above. is the first one- based on a black and white newspaper photo - but I now have more references and will get at this idea after Christmas. I'm certainly well-past my 10,000 hours but there is always something new to try, some different ideas and approaches to play with, and some skills to keep up. There is lots to keep an artist's brain busy.

Water-soluble wax crayons

This was done recently at Life Drawing - just concentrating more on James' face and arm and just using one colour of crayon. Well, I've finished that sketchbook now - and posted a few on Pinterest. Now I am drawing just in pen and ink for the next few sessions. I find it a challenge to switch into drawing with different mediums- a way to shake it up and bring some variety. But even without changing, Life Drawing is always an interesting challenge. With the water-soluble Caran d'Ache crayons,  I usually just do the drawing "dry" and then wash it with water later on. It is an interesting mix of the linear with the coloured wash. After this  new series in ink - which includes doing some small ones on cream coloured paper- I may try some quick water-colour wash "drawings". I'm posting the small ones onto a cupboard door in my studio - just for a different display.

Latest Life Drawing

This was done in about two hours last night at Life Drawing

The pastel paper is a sort of smokey mauve colour - I think it is called "Twilight" or something like that. I drew lightly with a white Conte' crayon to work out proportions. This is actually the second drawing as the other - on the other side, I didn't like the results. Then I couldn't locate an eraser so  I just turned it over. Shortly after, I found *four* erasers - they had become so grubby from the pastels that they weren't recognizable. So now I have cleaned them up a bit - threw one out - and have them in their own little plastic "snack pack" to keep them cleaner. Of course, kneaded erases don't last forever anyway. Then I worked mostly with soft pastels - a little pan pastel in the lower left- and pastel pencils in a linear way- especially on the face. We do a "long pose" every two months and they are  mostly draped figures. Nice to have a longer time to get into it - and to work in colour.

Caran d'Ache

     Here are a few recent life drawings- this first is two five-minute poses from our rotation pose, the next two are 20-minute poses and the last is 35 minutes. All are drawn with Caran d'Ache watersoluble wax crayons. The last book I filled at Life Drawing was black and white on grey paper so I figured it was time for a switch into colour. Draw dry, take a brush to wet the drawing and it all blends in but can still retain a bit of the linear look of drawing.
     As you know from previous blogs,  I've been looking into the history of pencils and drawing materials so I researched the Caran d'Ache line. This line has over 100 years of history as  the factory was set up in Geneva in 1915 using graphite found in the Swiss mountains. Around the same time, there was an illustrator in Paris who became very famous. He took the pen name (or should we say "pencil name"?) of Caran d'Ache from the Russian word for pencil. And, just to make this even more of an international mix-up, the Russia word comes from a Turkish root "kanco tash" which refers to black stone. Nine years after starting, the Swiss company took the name of the illustrator and used a stylized version of his signature as their logo. I'm assuming the illustrator was paid for this.
     Caran d'Ache makes a full line of pencils, pens and drawing materials. Their pens are renowned for  being especially beautiful. For the 100year anniversary, Caran d'Ache created a clever design of a ballpoint pen that looks like a pencil. Unfortunately, I don't have one but I do enjoy the Caran d'Ache
materials that I do have.

Back to Life Drawing

I'm looking forward to Life Drawing tonight - after not having any regular sessions over Christmas. This one was a long pose (last year!)  with Yui -in pastel -on - as is obvious here- mauve coloured Mi-Tientes paper. I thought it might be interesting to work on a cool  toned paper.  Yui is quite lovely with a long neck, long torso and an interesting flair with the clothes she wears. Every model has their own "presence" as well as appearance. There is also an interesting range of body language- some are strong and athletic, others very feminine in their movements. Then we have the male models with their variety too. When we are doing the short, warm-up drawings - one and two minutes- I often think that what I have drawn is not much. Then when I am sorting out papers - some just for recycling- I am sometimes surprised to see how much was captured in the quick gesture drawing. I also see a lot of good work around the room too.  Well, back at it tonight!

Report from the marathon

This past weekend, I did a drawing marathon and here is one of the results. The first day was 30-minute poses ( really 25 minutes with breaks for the model) and I worked in black and white on grey paper. The next day was hour poses (50 minutes) and I worked with coloured pastel on smaller paper.  This is one of the poses. The last day was 3-hour poses - about 2 and a 1/2 hours with model breaks and I worked on larger sheets with more pastels.  I thought this pose was quite lovely with the dark hair of the model spread out on the pouf. It was an intense and a bit tiring weekend - but the intensity helps make it worthwhile and I got in some good drawing. I've only just photographed them but I will post more on the blog later and also put them in my Pinterest album on Life Drawing

The grey sketchbook

I just finished the last page in a grey sketchbook that I was using for regular sessions at Life Drawing. This is Mark, looking suspended as the stool doesn't show up. I was drawing with black and white Prismacolor pencils. Good practice for studying light and shadow - but a controlled medium. Next book will be working in colour with a "looser" medium for a change. Good to switch things around every now and then.

Life Drawing

We were drawing yesterday at Adrienne's with Bob for a model. I felt he had an interesting character face so I concentrated on mostly the head for the long pose. Again, I am using "wilder" colour - and really enjoying it. Actually the pastels work together nicely and the colours are quite effective. I'm beginning to think I prefer the darker papers to work on-- I think this colour is called "tobacco" so I will have to pick up more of this shade. It is easier to get the edges to stand out when there is a contrast with the background. First, I work on the drawing- placement, proportions and so on. Then I like to block in some lights- figuring out what is the lightest light- and then the shadow areas- and keep on working from there. This is a two-hour pose and I think the timing was right. That is, I had enough time to get as much done as I wanted. The background is just paper colour as there was enough contrast. This was all done in hard pastels with just a bit of pan pastels at the beginning to block in lights and darks. I didn't use pastel pencils at all as I was working large enough that I didn't need them for fine lines. And, I forgot the few soft pastels that I have- so they didn't get used on this one. It was a good drawing session- with the usual variety of styles and media by the different artists - all good, all different!

Life Drawing today-

This is what I did at our Life Drawing session today. Then I made two decisions. One was to  sign and date my drawings that I'm currently keeping. The other decision was to make a new category for my Pinterest and have it just all drawings from Life Drawing - and just my own work on that one. Some of my cat paintings are on my "Cats" category but there are other cats too. I used a fairly dark brown pastel paper for this one and also used some soft pastels as well as my harder ones - and some of the powder ones that come in dishes too. This was about 2 and a half hours of work- maybe a little less- hard to figure out how long the breaks were. Upper left corner was a shadow on the paper when it was photographed. I felt it worked fairly well- lots of colours, lots of layering, I was almost going to do a drawing that was more profile and had rim lighting- but then I thought she had an interesting face so I wanted a better view of her face. I also liked the hand placement. I chose to cut off the lower body because I thought it made a better composition with the hands leading your eye back up the face and around again. Including the feet would have meant the head would be much smaller - and, it was the face that I found especially appealing so I didn't want it to be miniscule. I draw smaller, usually, on Wednesday nights so I needed to work larger again. I'll have to try to photograph my black and white pencil (on gray paper) drawings that I have been doing. Of course, they aren't as finished pieces since they are mostly only about 20-minute poses.

Back to pastels

This is from two weeks ago at Adrienne's with Shelley modelling. We have another session scheduled for tomorrow. I have a few pan pastels now. They are super-soft and applied with sponges. Make-up sponges work just fine. I find them very useful for a type of "underpainting". They fill the paper a bit and then other pastels can be worked over them - such as bringing in colour in the shadows. At Wednesday night Life Drawing, I was working in a new grey-toned sketchbook for the longer poses and drawing with black and white pencil crayons. I've also worked on a couple of acrylic paintings so I'm all over the board with various media- but that is part of the fun.

I think I'm getting the hang of Pinterest  - and just posted a new board with cat paintings and photos. However, I need to keep the art tools in action and not spend too much time at the keyboard.

What I did last night

Last night, some of us were drawing or painting in the lobby of the Art Centre-to show the kind of thing that we do in our Life Drawing sessions.  For this public event, however, we did have a draped model...which is something we actually do sometimes in our regular Life Drawing sessions. We arranged a better lighted spot for the model, but our lighting was terrible. I thought I was using black for the dress strap - but, look- it is purple!  Also, not sure about the skin as it ended up more yellow, when I could actually see the colours I'd been using. I may go over it again to "de-yellow" it.   I was using conte' crayon on an orange paper.  This was done in around 2 and a half hours, minus breaks for the model. This event was for Cultural Days which runs all weekend across Canada. The Art Centre was really hopping and we had some people come specifically to join us to do their own drawing- which was really nice!

More Marathoning-

There was another Marathon weekend at Phoenix Art Workshop this past weekend. This time, there were three sessions. One evening one was 30-minute costumed poses and the other two were 5-hour sustained poses. The first long pose went well but the next day the model woke up ill so the planned set-up (alas! no Medusa!) did not happen. However, Lawrence saved the day by coming in to pose and some very nice work resulted. I haven't photographed anything yet so this is Wanda from a previous Marathon. Coloured conte' on pastel paper.
It is always interesting to paint with other artists and see all the different interpretations.

Art in public

Last night we did our Life Drawing with a draped model at the Art Centre- down in the foyer. This was for Cultural Days. We attracted a fair crowd of watchers and a couple who tried their hands at drawing with us. We had the light on the model but the lighting for we artists was not so good- so it was a bit of "drawing in the dark" - but an improvement over "painting in the rain" which was how we started out at the Grand Prix. Since then, I've noodled a bit on the plein air painting - changed the colour of the sky and added crows- just to have a bit of fun with it---- and because I felt the foreground needed something. So here is the result.

Cultural Days

How did we get near the end of September so soon? Some of it whirled by in preparation for the Grand Prix of Art Steveston, where we started out painting in the rain this year. Now we are up to Cultural Days and Richmond Artists Guild is doing a Life Drawing demonstration in the foyer of Richmond Art Centre this Friday evening. We will have a clothed model in one pose and the general public will be invited to watch or try drawing. I plan on worked in coloured pastels (conte' crayon) so I may produce something like this one. This was Helene in a hat with a veil. We have a different model on Friday night so I may very well post the results.

The importance of drawing-

Robert Genn's latest newsletter talks about drawing and its importance to artists. I totally agree. Life Drawing, especially, really helps keep up a person's skills in observation as well as in drawing. Lately, I have been drawing in three colours- in conte' or in charcoal pencils - black, white and sienna- to work on capturing tone values. I do them on a medium tint paper. This is a fairly "classical" way of drawing and I'm looking at realism, not so much interpretation. I'm just about finished the current pad of paper and I think I'll go to something more freewheeling for a while... more colour, playing more with variety in line, etc. Just a change to shake things up but the same actual *drawing* challenge is there- capturing a pose, the foreshortening of a limb, the way light falls on the body... The illustration here is one in coloured conte' of a 30-minute pose in the last Drawing Marathon.

Into April...

I've just done my April Newsletter and realizing that, yes, it is a month until DoorsOpen and there will be quite a bit of organizing to do- setting up displays, doing a re-hanging in the main display area, baking a few cookies so I'll have refreshments and figuring out which painting will be the "free draw". Not to mention actually taking advertising brochures around to as many places as possible. In the meantime, regular activities continue (and we are not mentioning the Spring garden clean-up) -such as Life Drawing and a new session starting for Sculpture. I'm working in water-soluble graphite for Life Drawing- in one of my periodic switches of mediums. The combination of the pencil and wash makes an interesting change....until the next switch. This is one of Lawrence done a couple of weeks ago.