Sketches from the notebook

I still believe in learning how to draw….although there are art schools nowadays that don't teach it.  

Everybody who wants to understand how to give volume to an image, or depict the human body in two or three dimensions ( you can use clay) should try "life class"as a brain exercise. 

  Some days you come away satisfied with your output and sometimes you don't .  It is the same as any other discipline, really.  The important thing is that one keeps at it.  

Well, I should take my own advice and get back to "life class".  These are drawings from my "stash". 

The Two Girlfriends: Tamara de Lempicka

This is a copy that I did while living in Italy.  It was a small painting by Tamara Lempicka.  The original painting is 20x30 cm but I copied it to measure 60x115 cm.  I felt it could really use the size and I can't imagine enjoying it as much in the small proportions. 


 I found an image of the original painting on the blog:  Conchiglia di venere http://conchigliadivenere.wordpress.com/category/lempicka-tamara-de/

Oil on Canvas, 20x30, Tamara de Lempika

There is something really clever about this painting.  Notice the knee and the foot position on the nude facing us.  It is an optical illusion that the hip would be this high. Try to bend your foot like that foot depicted. It is foreshortened and at an odd angle.    Certainly Lempicka, a master ( mistress?) of composition,  did this to give drama to the painting.  

   I lightened up the painting and changed the hues slightly.   I hope Lempika would have approved my messing with her ingenuity. 

Pastels

I have never been a big fan of using dry pastels by themselves as I have never known how to keep the resulting work from fading,   or smearing ; or even how to safely frame a pastel after it is fixed.

  Commercial fixatives dull the colors of a pastel and the Dega method of water spray has never worked for me either.  

 One does notice that the best pastels by the masters are always kept in a darkened room when being exposed in a museum, so another worry for the artist is will the piece fade if you sell it?

I have a big set of colors in dry pastels (pastels secs) and use them mostly only in mixed media pieces. They are also a way of coloring a lino print after it is printed. 

 Here is perhaps the only trio of pieces in my archive that I have done in pastels only.   I still "kinda" like these.   And now I think, "so what" if they fade.  We are all fading one way or another.  That is the way of things.  Non?

28x45 cm.  Pastel on paper

"Footfall" photos

Continuing on from my last post I thought I would contemplate some more of my "footfall"  photo series  with another print in mind.  Most of these were taken last October when I visited South Carolina. 

Seattle curb side

Charleston, S.C.

Charleston, S.C.

Magnolia Gardens, S.C.

Fort Fremont, S.C.

Hunting Island, S.C.

Magnolia Gardens, S.C.

Mount Pleasant: Charleston, S.C.

Mount Pleasant: Charleston,  S. C.

Old pavement made of ballast stones, Savannah, Georgia

Wadmalaw Island, S.C.

Footfall : linocut

Ok, so I have been slacking off on my blog lately but that doesn't mean that I haven't been in my studio.  It just means that the process of art got more interesting than the reporting of it. 

 And besides the studio was getting out of hand and I had to do a big clean-out. 

But I have a new series to show you.  I call this one "footfall".   It just means that I took a look at where my"foot fell" and realized how interesting the different elements were there and of course, like any illustrator I added and subtracted as I drew.    I have a whole series of footfall photos now. 

 Here is the original photo that was a shot taken in Sweden years ago. I really can't remember if it is my photo or Aksel's.  Aksel and Hanne were the Danish couple I was privileged to live with during my " junior year abroad" program at university. 

 And here is the reverse drawing that I did of the images so that when it was used as a print it would be printed in the sense of  the top photo.


And here is the carved "lino plaque" after many prints have been pulled. 

detail of lino block

And below is the result having rolled it out with black ink on BFK Rives paper. 

Now starts the fun part:  I conceived this print to be hand painted with water colors. 

  Here is what I came up with.  At the last minute I decided that I like the print as a vertical too so I signed some of them like that.