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

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

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.

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.

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

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.  

Nude in Progress

Detail of a nude that will be part of a series of prints based on drawings done at the weekly life drawing sessions at Argos Gallery.

Deidre, detail.

One Night at the Tate

While visiting London a couple of years ago, Robin signed me up for an after-hours life drawing group at the Tate Modern. The event, organized by London Drawing, provided the models and the drawing materials. At first I was kind of freaked out by the slightly crappy selection of banged-up construction papers, half-dried out felt tip pens, and broken chalks. But now I’m pretty happy with the character that the not-top-of-the-line materials added to the drawings. 

At the end of the evening we taped our best drawings to the wall. I cropped one of my drawings by ripping it from its sheet of brown paper, then taped it to another drawing using the crappy remnants of masking tape I’d grabbed from the art supplies table earlier that evening. 

Later, as I contemplated how to refine some of the drawings, I realized that the memorable Tate drawing experience was best captured by ripped paper, masking tape, and dried-up marker scrawling.

One Night at the Tate
Giclée print on watercolor paper
32 x 40

Draped Cloth

Our models don't use props very often, other than a chair or stool, but props can add interest to a drawing. It definitely needs to be something easy to draw. I think a book would work. Even a cardboard box. An iPhone? A bouquet of flowers? 

Aha, got it! A wine bottle or wine glass would be very cool.  

Model with draped cloth prop.

Is it just me or does this drawing desperately need a wine glass?

Art Exhibit

Last night the New Mexico Museum of Art held an opening for Art on the Edge, its biennial juried exhibition featuring 8 artists from New Mexico and the surrounding states. One of the 8 chosen artists for the exhibit was Greta Young, a regular in our Tuesday evening Argos Gallery drawing group.

Love Greta's work. Even if it does freak me out.

Greta with an admirer and two of her paintings. 

A chance rendezvous with Lori (musician, music therapist, dancer, singer) and Tony (artist, designer, illustrator) escalated into an aprés-exhibit chat & drink session at the nearby Milagro Ore House.  

Freaking Out

Our drawing group's model last night was Scott. It's interesting to see the various different styles of drawing that each artist in the group creates.

For example, compare my drawing of Scott with Greta's drawing of the same model. Usually, to avoid being intrusive, I don't photograph other people’s drawings in the drawing session. But when Greta accidentally spilled red wine on her drawing, I used it as an excuse to grab a shot.  

She's freaking me out. 

I mean that in a good way.

Scott, drawn by me.

Scott (with red wine), drawn by Greta.

Month 7

Our fav preggers model (actually, our only preggers model... that we know of) is now in her seventh month. 

The studio chairs are really inadequate and uncomfortable for even ordinary models,
not to mention one who's seven months pregnant.    

Pondering motherhood, no doubt.

Just two more months . . .

Hamlet Undecided

Hamlet: madness, overwhelming sorrow, seething rage, treachery, revenge, incest, moral corruption, cold-blooded murder, thwarted desire.

During the painting of this portrait I was able to relate to all of these... except definitely not incest and murder... and sorta cross off moral corruption too... maybe not madness either... treachery, not so much... okay, perhaps just a little desire, but not really thwarted.   

Hamlet Undecided
Giclée
32 x 40

Purple and Safffron

Print variations derived from a charcoal sketch of an Argos drawing group model.
Version 3, Amber Above Her, is the version I’ve chosen to output as a Giclée print.

Version 1
Purple and Saffron
44 x 24

Version 2
Purple, Saffron, and Turquoise
44 x 24

Version 3
Hanna with Amber
Giclée
44 x 24

The Necklace

Being able to accessorize effectively is very important, especially in professional modeling. The necklace adds the perfect touch for the overall look here, I think. 

The Necklace

The Necklace, giclee

Ergo...

The drawing group warmup poses are officially two-minutes, but by the time I flip the page of the newsprint pad and decide which charcoal stick or pencil to use, I'm usually down to one and a half minutes or less. Ergo, a lack of detail in the drawings. Ergo, more interesting drawings, usually. 

Another Tim

An ink wash portrait study of Tim at Dunkin’ Donuts (previous post). It's a better likeness than the sketch in the previous post, but that's not necessarily saying a whole lot.  

Ink wash

Photoshop filter effect

The Tim Different

Santa Fe is known as the City Different, partly because of people like Tim. 

For his 54th birthday celebration, Tim, an avid reader and brilliant writer (and friend), sat in Dunkin’ Donuts from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. yesterday, reading books. Anyone was welcome to stop by with a book of their own and spend up to 15 minutes reading a favorite passage to him.

You'll have to agree that you can't pass up a Santa Fe event like that, so I drove in a snow storm to Dunkin’ Donuts with a children's book of poems by Dave Crawley named Reading, Rhyming, and ’Rithmetic. I chose the poem One Hundred Words to read to him. Tim's used to some really weighty reading, writing, and stuff, so I figured a children's poem would be memorable and that he would appreciate the brilliance of Dave Crawley. And I was right. He enjoyed it, we chuckled all the way through it, and he made a note of the author and book title.

Since the poem is just 12 lines long, I used the other 14 minutes chatting and taking a photo so I could go back do a quick birthday ink wash sketch.

Happy 54th Tim.