Last pose

Figure drawing last night was some of the best fun you can have with a pencil--yet very tiring too. (This was the final pose, so difficult, but still the best of my efforts--20 minutes, pencil on Ingres.) Lots of new people, very focused and serious but apparently all enjoying themselves as well. The model was lovely, and though the room was crowded it seemed to work pretty well for everyone. A buncha one-minute poses, some 10-minute, a couple of 20-minute. I'd probably prefer longer poses once I felt I was up to speed, but they're harder on the model and need to be more well-thought--if you've got a bad start, or a bad spot in a crowded room, you can't just hope for better in a few minutes. I look forward to the next session.

Like taking vitamins and exercising, drawing is a habit I should develop. Pencil--line--has become foreign; I kept wishing for a brush. I could barely consider composition, line weight and fluidity in the rush to get the figure down and fairly correct (the far leg above is obviously--now--too long). Practice will help. Being in a group puts me on my toes, but I also become a little conservative, not wanting to fail in public.

Nap II WIP

This is a second--and larger--version of the earlier Nap, about 24" x 28", oil on linen. Working on chroma, value, texture. I've a long way to go, but I hope that at least the photographs will soon be better. Here's the rough beginning of this this painting, burnt sienna and ultramarine blue.

And this evening will be my first time with a new figure drawing group. I'm eager to meet some new artists and hope to get something useful from the drawing, though after dinner has never been particularly creative--or even active--for me. It should be fun.

Martha and Sarah WIP

This is from an old photo (I guess that's obvious, eh). In this and the other current WIP (to come) I'm trying to work a controlled low-chroma palette with fairly compressed values. This one started with a burnt umber wipeout, still visible in places, and continued with a monochrome underpainting to establish the drawing and composition. For the underpainting I laid out a string of raw umber and white, values 5 through 8, to keep the painting fairly high-key, though I later added some darker (v. 4) accents. It's 16" x 18" oil on linen.