Infinite pandemic = Infinite drawing.

The drawing and the dry painting all worked together toward a cohesive aesthetic.

I went back into this one to see if I could expand the greyscale, and refine the light vs shadow. Below is the former “finished” work posted last week.

I like to do drawerings…

Charcoal drawing on 18 x 24. Trying something new; dry painting with value design. Lots of potential.

Last week I finished out my online advanced drawing course, and this week I began a new course on figure painting. The first half of the course focuses on design ideas particular to painting, as different from drawing. First up, vine charcoal for reducing the figure to a pattern of light and shadow, cast shadow vs core shadow, then pulling bounced light. A lot larger scale, a singular focus for a longer set, and lots of new learning curve to grapple with. Arty Fun!

From last week. Five minute poses three times.

Final week of anatomical drawing-focused gestures, extended multiple times.

Every Every Every Every Day…

My best day of single page combo gestures in the past month. After this I switched out to small toned paper for a few weeks.

Here’s a crop of the bigger image. Maybe it was just a great model that day…

Another close up- yes, I’m sticking with the great model theory.

Note to self: If a model is stepping on a knicknack, always put it in, or the foot looks floaty.

Lesson learned. Thanks Danger.

18 x 24 Scaling up is a challenge.

Atmospheric value.

Reflected light study, using kneaded eraser to blend and layer.

Trying out using core shadow of direct light combined with volumetric lighting of the mind’s eye: mixing them is a new idea.

Most of February my gesture sessions were toned paper with b&w or sepia & brown or all 4 as used here.

After this longer set I moved on to pen and ink, colored pencil, charcoal pencil, and graphite pencil.

Art (drawing) & Craft (weld).

All three aero-mods with reinforcing weld along the bend lines. The raised tabs (left & right top) are fortified with triangular wedges, and I extended the mid-plate with tabs (bottom of image) to grab the factory original holes on the bumper.

To bend the metal I cut a groove along the bend-line, then used boards and clamps to apply even force (so much force that I snapped off the edge of my workbench table top). Once bent these lines become brittle, and the vibration and wind-force could cause them to shear- the little bead welds rejoin both sides of the line without blowing out the thinner metal of the cut-line.

Burly male model. At L are 1 & 2 minute gestures in sienna, then run once more for brown, black, and white. 5 min at R.

10 min. x 2 The whole session seemed just on the verge of collapse, and I felt I barely made it out alive. The struggle is in not copying, but in responding to the form. This means seeing the architecture of the body within the multitudes of specific confusions, and modulating response of eye to hand with a subtle constant corrective. Sometimes this is a fun flow, and others it is a mental gymnastic that seems just behind physical coordination- while also being the inverse, a physical infirmity that lags just behind a vast intellectual problem.

Satdoodles.

Putting lots of gestures on one bigger page, as I have a few old mostly used up drawing pads around. I like seeing the sketches all in relationship with each other. The gestures are 5 x 1 minute, 5 x 2 minutes, and 2 x five minutes; and then I break from the reality of life-model drawing and run the set twice more, so 5x3min, 5x6min, 2x15min. I do the initial set in a light h (hard) led pencil, the second set is an hb pulling out form, and the last set in b(soft) looking for weighted line and values.

I did the two longer drawings from this set in pen and ink, not picutred (and one from the set below)

I do like working one image per page, as the smaller size is constraining.

Big swooping gesture is particular to bigger drawing.

When a bigger individual piece is working, I may give it another five minutes- as in this 20min session.

Sunday doodles.

A funny part of stopping when you stop, and not fiddling with it: the “sword wound” to his ribcage is a shadow from the original sienna sketch-up.

I removed R her arm as it hung straight down, blocked out her entire side, and deadened the composition. She moved just enough to catch the contour of her ribcage. 5 min

Here again her arm was blocking out the curve of the back and thrust of the ribs. 5 min.

30 min. Turned wooden with over-fidgeting after the session. My instructor note to myself: work on shape definitions internal to the figure via direct marking of contoured shadow as an essential expression of form.

The conte / color drawings are done on an easel out in the sunroom looking at my laptop, and the pencil drawings are done in the basement cast to the TV- I draw them on a little clipboard held on my lap which means lots of looking down and up with my whole noggin vs looking in one field with eye movement only. Artists use easels for exactly this reason; zillions of quick side eye movements that instantly transfer to hand vs cumbersome head movement with up/down eye movement causing reorientation with every move. Flow gets stuttered and drawings lose vitality. I’ll have to crowd the basement den with my old drafting table, in from the too-cold studio.

Went to the art store…

Afternoon doodles with Glen Vilppu’s draw-along-with-Glen; draw from the same pose and he discusses what he is seeing/doing- which helps me drop out information and focus on the core forms.

I stopped by the great little neighborhood art store this morning and picked up some toned butcher paper, conte pencils in sepia, brown, black, and white; two filbert style long bristle brushes (I’ve been using some ancient nubby cheapo’s from Michaels); canvas “paper” for more Zorn Palette studies; and Naples yellow light oil paint to add a bit more complexity. I tried out some conte pencil on the toned paper for an afternoon set.

5-minute gesture from my apres-Java early morning wake-up set.

Marking the Days with markings.

2 hour Zorn Palette, expanded with blue and deep crimson.

I set up an artin’ station out in the sunroom, and have been trying out some of the 2-D sections from the online art school New Master’s Academy (I’ve been through most of their 3-D already). I’ve been working from the painting section with Joseph Todorovitch using the “Zorn Pallette”, which is limited to Black, White, Yellow Ochre, and Cadmium Red; this pushes color mixing while also simplifying for tonal cohesion. There is an instructor view of his painting, his palette, and the model (pretty small view)- but it is a great way to teach by example.

Working portraits got me to draw from life again; this is a nice medical-grade skull I picked up years ago.

Friday mornings are live-model draw-alongs with the elderly Glenn Vilppu- a great classical figure instructor. A life-model is in a studio at the college HQ, and he draws in his home studio on his computer with a view of his screen while dialoguing his process as he draws. I have him on my tablet, and the live model on the computer. A great way to amp up the drawing process.

Another two hour painting with the Zorn Palette.

There are timed life-drawing sessions as well, that I can cast to the big TV. Like any good life drawing session: many 1-minute gestures, then a slew of 2-minute gestures, a few 5-minute poses, 10-minute poses, and maybe a half-hour pose. This was a 10 minute.

Five minute.

I found a decent portrait in Wired magazine, and Zorn-painted on my own.

More skull doodles. E and I watched Ink Masters on Netflix, as it has a focus on creativity adjacent to fine arts. Lots of terrible skull tattoos out there, but some great ones as well. Watching ham-fisted permanent work being done on live human “canvasses” is a fun motivator.

Studio Support

I had an idea yesterday for an improvement to my sculpture stand tool box.

After standing around fitting and fidgeting in the pipe section, I arrived at this, then came home and drilled a hole through the middle.

It rests on a washer from the specialty bin of the hardware section, so it spins easily. The wheels on the stand are an upgrade from years ago, but still feel new enough to mention.

I cut an mdf circle to fit the middle, still short enough to fit under the big washer (with another specialty washer on top for less friction) that rests on the stand’s steel sleeve-pole; this way the weight of the sculpture won’t rest on the tool caddy.

The sculpture stand spins independently of the tool caddy, a big improvement from the tired old wood box I threw together in grad school on a Sunday afternoon running the wood shop.

Tools will now caddy out of the way, and come easily to hand.

All the tools for modeling in clay.

Xeriscape sculpture garden sprouts ancient MFA figure.

I sez to her, I sez, “What are yuh, 18 years old now? Time to get out from under my roof!”

I had some extra steel in the shop from building out the Rocket Mass Heater and decided to put it toward art’n. Yesterday I welded this cantilever base, bolted her back leg through the metal tube and welded a strap across the bronze between her feet to make sure she stayed put, then set her in the yard with a concrete footing.

She feels like she has always been here.

The aluminum figures around the ponds aren’t sure what to make of a bronze figure.