Charcoal & Chalk

When a local artist needed a special pose for one of her art projects she made arrangements with Argos Gallery to schedule a model and host a drawing session. There was room for several other artists to take advantage of the 3-hour pose, so I signed up for the extra session.

After a couple of drawings of charcoal on newsprint as usual, I switched to charcoal and chalk on gray Canson paper.

Charcoal Joey

Charcoal on newsprint.
I usually cleanup the newsprint texture. This time I enhanced it.

Experimenting with a colorized version.

Big Joey

A big portrait of Joey, the live model from last Tuesday night’s drawing session. Not a great portrait, but good enough for a police sketch. No offense intended Joey.

Male Models

When drawing a female model I tend to stress over my drawings not doing her justice. With male models it’s easier (for me) to just draw and not stress about the results.

Basketball Sketch

It’s NBA Playoff season, which means there’s some pretty cool poses on the sports page that make great reference for a quick charcoal sketch.

Later I’ll experiment with transforming this sketch into a color version.

Detail

Lely’s Venus

During a recent London visit, I sketched a marble statue of Venus in the British Museum called Lely’s Venus. Lely was an artist and collector during the reign of King Charles I; the sculptor is unknown.

My goal was to combine the traditional character of the original sketch with a contemporary style, abstract coloring contrasted with muted and subtle colors, and graphic boldness. 

I didn't actually know that was my goal at the time, but I’ve decided it was since it pretty much turned out that way. 

Lely’s Venus
28" x 40"

Lely’s Venus detail.

Color Studies

After spending the past two weeks sketching with a felt tip pen, painting with color seems more like a treat than usual. Here are a couple of digital paintings based on photos I took while in London.

Every morning we went to Le Pain Quotidien for coffee. I grabbed a photo of three women sitting next to the window. This is a detail of the image that I’m working on.  

Two Women from Kew.

On the train back to central London, after a day-trip to Kew Gardens, the different ages, fashion styles, and demeanors of two women across the isle caught my attention. 

London Sketchbook

We just returned from a 12-day trip to London, and while there wasn’t a lot of time for drawing,  I did manage to average a drawing per day. 

The Black Friar pub, built in 1905, is an art nouveau masterpiece.

Jimmy’s reaction to taking our food order.

A large 1500s marble sculpture in the British Museum. Lely, an artist and collector, acquired the statue from the King Charles estate when Charles was executed and the Commonwealth put in place.

Sketching in the park. Grovesnor Square is surrounded by embassies, including the US Embassy.

The Thames River and Millennium Bridge, from the 6th floor coffee shop of the Tate Modern.

A sketch inspired by a visit to the Lichtenstein Retrospective exhibit at the Tate Modern.

Robin reading on the flight home.

A colossal bronze statue in the St. Pancras international train station.

St. Paul’s Cathedral, from the Tate Modern coffee shop.

Another sketch in the park.

The cellar bar in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, near Fleet Street. Rebuilt in 1667.

Curtains in our hotel room, The Academy.

Self portrait. 

Freddie Sketch

This blog focuses on drawing and art, but I also occasionally post articles to jtChatter.blogspot.com, 

especially when traveling, such as the trip to London that happens in about a week.

Freddie Mercury, late/great lead singer of Queen
Pencil on watercolor paper
Shading added in Photoshop

Life Drawing of Jesus

That’s the Santa Fe model, Jesus, not the Jesus whose father created the universe and has a really big church in Rome. Although, now that I think about it, this guy could be Hollywood casting for the part. Might have to lose the pierced-ear look though.

Drawing Loma

Tuesday night model in a variety of poses and styles.

Digital Oil

Experimenting with a charcoal drawing. Digital oil painting is starting to freak me out.

New Hairdo

I feel like a slob when the model goes to the trouble to have her hair done and wears a nice necklace. I mean, when a nude model is better dressed than you are, you're hopeless. Or an artist. Maybe both.

New Hairdo

Once Again

Once again, my warmup drawings at the start of the drawing session are better than the longer poses over the next several hours. That tells me something, but what?

Wispy Hair

A quasi-portrait of last Tuesday’s model.

Wispy Hair
Giclée print on canvas
40 x 40 inches

Classical Mode

The image in the previous post used one part of this drawing. When a drawing is too large to put in the scanner, I usually photograph it. However, that usually includes exposure and focus problems. So now I scan the drawing in 4 to 6 sections, then use Photoshop to merge the scans into one image.

Classical Mode

Model with hair down. 

In a Shakespearean play, if a woman's hair is down 

it pretty much means the woman has gone crazy. 

Not really the case in life drawing.

Hannah's Knee

After scanning one of last Tuesday night's drawings in several pieces, I liked the unusual cropping and decided to experiment with the partial image.  

Hannah's Knee
Stretched Canvas
20 x 28

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.

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