A friend

A sketch for a painting.

Vancouver BC with Beth

A glorious visit to Vancouver BC with Beth, my oldest friend. We drew near the waterfront on a glorious afternoon in the clear, warm light: Burrard Inlet, ships, cranes, boxcars, and the sail-like structures of the convention center. We began our visit with Dutch paintings and drawings at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Beth used colored pencils on drawings she had made two weeks earlier; I visited and discovered. Here is my drawing of Rembrandt's loving painting of his son Titus, age 19, dressed as a monk.

Titus was the only one of Rembrandt's children to survive infancy. I see so, so much tenderness in Rembrandt's strokes of paint.

I copied a lovely 1653 drawing of girl by Leendert van den Cooghen. Never heard of him. The small drawing in black and red chalk, brush and black ink was so beautiful.

The first day, my sketches were not very satisfying, but after I drew in the museum, my sight got clearer.

Later we enjoyed some wine and more drawing, followed by a leisurely dinner, at sidewalk tables. Beth drew me, I drew the Gastown Steam Clock, which tooted the quarter-hour for us as the beautiful afternoon turned to dusk.

Aphrodite Gets Around

Watching a documentary in which Rosamund Bernier talks about "The Matisse I Knew" and then "The Matisse Nobody Knew" I caught a glimpse of a 1919 Matisse painting that includes a familiar torso!


In hunting it down on-line last night, I found that the Matisse painting lives in Sao Paulo now. I also found this Chirico, called "The Uncertainty of the Poet" (Tate, London).

According to the Tate website: "The identity of the classical sculpture depicted in 'The Uncertainty of the Poet' has not been firmly established. It appears to be an Aphrodite-type cast which had its origins in the practices of nineteenth century academic art rather than in any Greek or Roman prototype.... Roland Penrose (1900-84), an English artist and critic who lived in France in the late 1920s and early 1930s ... purchased a similar plaster cast in 1935. He brought it home to England and used it in his construction 'The Last Voyage of Captain Cook', 1938.... In conversation with Richard Francis of the Tate Gallery in 1984 Penrose said of this cast, 'it was well known in Paris. It was on sale in lots of shops round Montparnasse. Always that size'. Freely available in Paris, this cast featured in works by other artists. It appears in a painting by Henri Matisse, 'Plaster Torso and Bouquet', 1919 (Museu de Arte de São Paulo). Max Ernst [also] transformed the front and back views of the cast."

The Tate also has Penrose's sculpture, "The Last Voyage of Captain Cook."

Incomplete Venus

Week 4 of my cast drawing class: I continued the block-in but after a while I couldn't resist beginning to indicate the shadow lines. Fascinating to follow with great attention and understand how minute changes suggest the rounded form.

I was looking forward to completing the drawing a week later but instead we practiced shading on a sphere. The one on the left was done with soft charcoal; I have a hard time having a light enough touch! The one on the right was done next, with harder charcoal, and it was easier to make many light marks, letting layers accrete with more subtle transitions. Three hours to draw these! Brain cells busily reforming....

Weekend drawing class

Three days of drawing with Danny Adams; I always learn a lot. Probably bite off more than I can chew. Drew the model's head on Day 2 after bashing around a bit with too-soft charcoal, wish I'd settled on medium to start with.

Same model on Day 3, tried out Trois Crayons, pastels in white, black, and sanguine on a very dark paper. Again with the bashing around; I was just starting to get the coloring figured out when we ran out of time.

Fast draw

On day 1 of a 3-day drawing class, Danny Adams' son obligingly gave us 3 twenty-minute sessions in the same pose (more or less). Fun to draw.

Head: cast setup for sight-size drawing

Head: cast setup for sight-size drawing, originally uploaded by Skeinfest.

Here's what I managed in about 2 and a half hours during drawing class. Many brain cells were rearranged in the process and new neuronal pathways formed. At least that's the plan.

SketchCrawl 23 Seattle (zoo)

SketchCrawl 23 Seattle (zoo), originally uploaded by Skeinfest.

A great day at the zoo with Beth and other SketchCrawlers. More to come when the paint dries....

Cast drawing class

Last Monday I began a class at Gage Academy to work on cast drawing. This method relies on starting the drawing with a pains-taking block-in of dots and lines, with repeated measurements and comparisons, always looking from the same position.

Although on Day 1 my results were feeble, I felt that something good could come of this. Evidence: the almost audible shrieking sounds as the two halves of my brain duelled for control.

"The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance."

My hope is that the harder it is, the more useful the hand-eye training. We'll see! Four more Monday afternoons to go.

(Quotation is from this book review.)

Life Drawing

I've been reading Jack Flam's book about Matisse and Picasso , which is full of little grayscale thumbnails of many works where they played off of one another (or fought off one another, more like). Looking at those, rubbing and erasing charcoal ...

Life Drawing 5/27/09

A sassy long-legged long-armed dancer/gardener for a model!

Return to Life (Drawing)

Deborah was a beautiful model at Quimper Arts Life Drawing Session tonight. Drawn with "LithoCoal" which handles like charcoal then heat-sets (and although we know from Ray Bradbury that Fahrenheit 451 is where paper burns, it is still possible to scorch the drawing paper in a 250 oven if you put it too close to the element. Luckily the last drawings of the night came out fine.)

Where the dancers came from

Quimper Arts life drawing session in February 2009 (Dava).

Pitcher, watercolor

Pitcher, watercolor, originally uploaded by Skeinfest.

Drawing daily if I can, and painting a bit too. I had the watercolors set up on the kitchen counter, but then I found the little blue footprints.... Mac thinks natural-bristle brushes are HIS. He steals.

Here is the original ink drawing; I made it earlier this week, holding the pitcher in my left hand as I drew. I think this was my grandmother's; I am fond of it.

Drawing ahead

Life drawing class with Danny Adams, mid-July, 2008.