Life Drawing Mornings

Life drawing twice a week is a great way to make sure I practice drawing. I love painting and can forget the fun of dry media. When I go to life drawing I use a variety of tools. I am posting a felt marker page with some gesture drawings. These are a minute long usually and the model takes positions that they could not hold longer. This model, Eric, is really athletic and can stand on his head or do other poses that can be very challenging. I am also practicing losing edges and outlines so you will see a few pastel drawings that don't always clarify the outline. Suggestions instead of telling is what I try to do on these. I use soft pastels, oil pastels and nu-pastels on these. The time for these poses vary from five minutes to twenty.

Plein Air Artist of the Month

The Arizona Plein Air Artists group that I belong to highlights one artist member a month on the website. I am it this month. You can check it out at http://arizonapleinairpainters.com. It's a bit ironic to be the member of the month of a group dedicated to painting outdoors when it has been a month of not going out. It has been a super hot summer (well I guess that is no surprise when you live in Phoenix) so paint outs would be more of a fight for survival than for artistic accomplishment. But just the other day I actually experienced what some might call a cool breeze. Yes it will cool off again! (we begin to doubt it ever will about this time of the year) In fact, my pals and I have already scheduled the first session back out at our favorite desert spot. 

The desert areas of Arizona go through a real rejuvenation when the nights begin to cool and the high temperatures dip below a hundred now and then. It means we survived the summer. Shoppers at the nurseries begin to anticipate the first batches of new plants arriving to plant. Those empty flower pots can once again be filled with color. Even more exciting for some is the color we can once again apply to canvas out in the sunshine.

Got a Little Crazy

I got a little crazy at life drawing today. One drawing is really pretty abstract...another just loose..another pretty real..one just a sketch. Had fun with all of them.

Painting Red Hair

Painting from the model yesterday ended up being about an hour and a half. I focused mostly on the face. This model has dyed her hair a bright light red that is a fun color. I only wish it had been down so I could have used more Cad Orange!

Two for One

My life drawing group has two models for the price of one every month or so. It is really fun, and tricky to get both models done well. It is really difficult if the pose is short.  Sometimes I end up focusing on just one of the two during the pose. Here is a fairly long pose where I get both models in the drawing to start and then go back for a second drawing of just part of the woman. That drawing was on a rough toothed paper so the pastel skips as I apply it. It forces you to suggest more than define too much.