Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Charcoal to Color

Two drawings that started as charcoal on newsprint. 









Two-Minute Drawings

The usual two-minute warmup drawings don't give me enough time to even come close to finishing a drawing. I usually just barely get a suggestion of the figure, without any shading. The other day, as I flipped through my newsprint pad to a clean sheet, I decided to add some shading, detail, and bolder lines to the warmup drawings from the previous week’s drawing session.




Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Juliet

A glooming peace this morning with it brings; 
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: 
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; 
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: 
For never was a tale of more woe 
than this of Juliet and her Romeo. 

Below, an homage to perhaps the most brilliant last lines of a play ever written. As you can see, my vision of the costuming probably wouldn’t have worked that well on the Elizabethan stage. However, I think the author would have surely and almost certainly, beyond a reasonable doubt, and almost without question, loved it.

Because she was amazing.

But that's just me.



Juliet
40 x30








Monday, February 18, 2013

Model with Pillows

I like the monotone look of charcoal drawings. Sometimes I add a sepia tone to the final print. Lately I’ve been experimenting with adding more color to drawings. The technique shown in the drawing below keeps the character of the original drawing and charcoal strokes.

Model with Pillows
28 x 36

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Color Chalks

Robin found a small case of unused color chalks in her art supply cabinet so I decided to experiment with them. I'd just bought a new newsprint pad so I thought this would be a good way to break it in. I scanned the chalk drawing, opened it in Photoshop, and applied several filters to duplicate layers, experimented with different blend modes and opacities for the various layers, then added an ancient parchment texture to the background.


Experimental chalk drawing print.
30 x 40


Detail, before adding lots of layers, filters, and stuff.


Detail close up of final image.





Saturday, February 16, 2013

CafePress Curtain

As mentioned in a previous post, I ordered a curtain from CafePress.com, printed with a drawing from the Tuesday night drawing group. When it arrived, it was the wrong size. It was supposed to be a chenile privacy curtain, but instead it was a smaller, polyester shower curtain. I emailed CafePress and they had the perfect response: Sorry, our fault, we'll ship the correct product to you, no need to return the shower curtain.

I was already a big fan of CafePress. Now I'm even more impressed.

You can't tell from the poor lighting, but the image quality is really good,
considering the image resolution is 72 pixels per inch.

Rosetta is more into red rubber balls than art, but I don't take it personally.
You can tell it's high-class art because it includes a Shakespeare quote from King Lear.



Ancient Processes

Ancient processes: Calligraphy (10th century manuscript), fertility, drawing, and Photoshop.


Ancient Processes
26 x 36

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Drawing From Memory

After posting some drawings from last Tuesday's drawing group (the February 13 post), I decided to redraw the model from memory, using a more stylized, less stressful drawing approach. With Photoshop I added a parchment texture (from an ancient manuscript in the British Library) and then added a few highlights.

Month Eight
Giclée print on watercolor paper
26 x 36


Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Baby and Puppy

One of our favorite models (8 months pregnant now) posed for our drawing group last night. We may get one more session with her in early March before her baby arrives.

We also had three drawing group newcomers join us for the first time, and we all got to meet the new Argos Gallery puppy (bottom of page).

Detail from a 45-minute pose.

Yep, she's definitely preggers.


Above and below: two-minute warmup poses. 



Beebee (not sure I'm spelling it right), the new Argos Gallery puppy, gets some attention.


Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Rose In Repose

Last night, as we were locking up the studio and turning out the lights, I asked Greta if I could grab a photo of her holding one of her drawings. 

I don't remember the pose shown here in Greta’s drawing. Maybe I blacked out during this pose. Or, more likely, maybe she’s creative and doesn't feel compelled to draw an exact copy of the pose. I'm jealous dammit. 

    
Greta with a drawing of Rose.



Rose in repose
28 x 36


A nice variety of poses makes the three-hour session go by fast.
For me, maybe not for the model.



Darn, I hate when the model collapses from exhaustion.




Monday, February 4, 2013

Jesus Glicée

Giclée print version of a sketch from last Tuesday night's Argos drawing group.


Jesus
Giclée print on watercolor paper
30 x 22

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Art Curtains

My own personal muse and sweetheart, Robin, is a doctoral candidate in Shakespeare Studies at Brunel University in London and leads several Shakespeare reading groups in Santa Fe. She writes, designs, and publishes the award-winning bi-monthly The Shakespeare Papers, 16-page booklets of intriguing tidbits about the Shakespearean plays and sonnets. One of her Shakespeare-related initiatives is an “I Read Shakespeare” campaign. She created the shower curtain shown below which includes the play The Comedy of Errors in its entirety. 



I Read Shakespeare Shower Curtain
62 x 86.


This gave Robin the idea that we could also use my drawings to create curtains to replace the ugly, noisy, folding wooden closet doors in the dressing area. The curtain art, shown below, should be here within about a week. Photos coming soon.


Art Curtain with King Lear quote
62 x 86


Art Curtain with Henry V quote
62 x 86






Me, Greta, and Jesus

Other than Jesus, the model, Greta and I were the only ones to make it to the Argos drawing group last Tuesday night. It was cold, icy, and slippery outside, so some of the regulars were probably reluctant to go out. Or maybe it was just too cold to want to stare at a naked person for three hours.

Brrrrrrrrr, now that I think about it.



Jesus: Conté crayon on colored paper.



A 10-minute pose. The timer always goes off just as I'm making progress.



Being aware that the timer sound (the iPhone marimba tone) is imminent 
makes me draw faster, and that can be a good thing. 



A 15-minute pose to wrap up the night.