Lately I've posted some watercolor and charcoal gesture paintings and drawings.
Thank you all for some very complimentary comments. One of the comments was from fellow hometown artist Terry Miura. He's a very talented artist from whom I always appreciate a good word (check out his blog link-you won't be sorry). In his latest comment and after having seen my gesture art, he invited me to one of his open life drawing sessions to strut my stuff. I've always intended to partake in theses sessions (he has three a week) as he has very professional models, a spacious studio, lots of easels and drawing mules, and talented artists in attendance. But you know how it can go...other daily activities always precluded me from going. But indeed, a good ego stroking can often overcome such obstacles. Yes, last Saturday, there I was, Johnny on the spot and ready to rock the house with my charcoal gesture drawings. The male model disrobed for a few 5 minute poses. Five minutes? Ha!! I can knock off gestures in one minute. Five per pose! And so with my newsprint pad on easel, soft black compressed charcoal in hand, and both feet spread in the drawing stance, I was ready baby!
Question...how much experience, outside of drawing my fully clothed students in my drawing classes, do I have drawing butt naked models? Answer...practically ZILCH, NADA, and DIDLY SQUAT. I attempted about four gestures that were absolute crap. Terry couldn't make this session thank god, but one of my ex-drawing students was there as well as a fellow City College art professor. I was finding out that drawing a real live nude gesturally was going to be a lot harder. Not only that, but how could I not try to meet the challenge of capturing the contours and mass of the model. Bye, bye gesture drawing!
So I did not rock the house. I present exhibits A @ B. Not stella drawings, but hey, remember?... almost zilch life drawing experience. Now I gotta attend more sessions and get better. Then and only then can I try to knock off those one minute gestures, By the way, an ancient Chinese proverb says "The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step".
12 comments:
These look great, relax. I don't know how long they were but they are lovely figure pieces and you also found time to integrate them into the background. Look forward to more.
That was some highly amusing reading. So, since your sketches were so bad, I'm assuming you posted someone else's. Who ever drew these did a beautiful job!
Clive: Thank god for negative space. It really can help flesh out (pardon the pun) the form of the body.
Silvina: Now that's a clever left handed compliment! Hey- check out Bill Sharp's blog. He's been to the hospital with his wife and has done numerous fine looking sketches.
I think look pretty darn awsome!!!
the lights & darks are great.
Thanks Amy. I recently puchased two art books via Amazon. One is Painting From Life by Doug Lew, a wonderful watercolor artist in the Chicago area. The other book is Henry Yan's Figure Drawing, a teacher at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco. I'll try and absorb some of their advice, and then back to Terry Miura's studio for more life drawing challenges!
Very nice drawings !Look Forward for new ones, nices "whites and blacks", the chinese proverb' is to be reminded !!
kickass drawings boss!
sorry i missed you at the studio. next time~ if you're not too busy teaching classes, come tuesday or thursday night sometime. a different dynamic, and we always pop open a bottle of wine afterwards.
I don't know about "kick ass drawings", Terry, but I do know that, thanks to one of the young artists that was there that day, I was turned onto a book by Henry Yan (teaches at Academy of Art University, San Francisco). You probably know of him. Now there is a kick ass figure drawing artist!!!!
Bonjour Helene in Cocos Islands! Thank you for stopping by. Yes, blacks @ whites (valus, tones) are VERY important...love the drama you can create.
Those are very nice drawings with great use of negative space, David. Your post resonated with me. The figure is the way we solve the problems in so many other paintings.
I'll check out the funny folks. I always enjoy a good laugh.
Not bad....not bad. Ahhh...life drawing. I miss it.
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