Life Drawings from the Month of June

I have been attending the Tuesday night life drawing sessions at Stu's as well as an occasional Sunday morning at Clarke's studio.  Some times I like the work I produce, other times I feel as if my work is just mediocre.  I am doing well if I can get one good drawing out of Tuesday night's 20 minutes poses.  Clark's are one extended pose, so it is good or it is not so good, never in between

This is one of my favorite paintings, as I like the rougher strokes of color.  This month I have been working in oil pastel on Bristol board.  I have been using Copal as my blending medium.  For the 20 minute poses, I have started working on smaller pieces of Bristol board, this one is 11" x 14"

I don't usually try to show the entire figure, rather I tend to focus on the core, the midsection.  This one is different from my norm.  Again, with the oil pastels I am focusing on more natural skin tones and am applying white, or another very neutral color to the negative space.

Another example of a painting that was made on same night as the above painting.  I was having a good night interpreting Lisa's figure.

 This past Tuesday our model was Jesse.  His skin was very bronze, he was tall, and beautifully shaped.  He looked very statuesque!  It made drawing him a real pleasure.  To show his bronzer skin, I turned to more of an orange palette than I had been using for the skin tones.  It seemed appropriate.  I also went out of my comfort zone and focused one of my paintings on his profile and upper body.  Amazing, but it actually looks like him, I guess I surprised myself as that usually doesn't happen for me.

I will be taking a life drawing class next week at the Art Educator's Summer Workshop and am hoping for some tips or instruction that will help me do a better job drawing figures as well as teaching my students how to draw people (clothed).

Now June is Almost Over

Wow!  Where has the time gone?  My intention was to post every weekend this summer, but now I realize that I missed the past 2 weekends.  There is really no excuse.  I am keeping myself busy, but I am not that busy!  I won't post all of the artwork that I have managed to produce as it would be overwhelming.  I will say that I have managed to complete an artwork a day during the month of June.

These small, 6" x 6" collages are easy to do, albeit the beading is a little time consuming, but they are enjoyable.  This first one is titled "Ruby Red Lips".  I have kept with the theme of woman this month.  All of the images use a magazine transfer, have a stamp, and include beads sewn on with thread.  Some of them have acrylic paint in the background, like this one.  Occasionally I use ink and stamp a pattern over the acrylic paint.  Sometimes I use plain paper, but most of this month's collages are on watercolor paper.

This 6" x 6" collage, "Two by Four", uses an image from my most recent National Geographic magazine.  It also shows that I moved away from outlining the female figure with beads, and in this case, used the beads to create a grid.

This collage was completed in response to our extremely hot days and is titled "110 Degrees".  Like the previous collage, it uses ink stamped over the acrylic paint and the beading follows the contours of the stamping.

"Sunday Sunshine" is another indication of the hot summer days that I am currently experiencing.  The stamp on this collage is one from Pakistan.  I have a collection of old stamps that my mother gave me and for the first time they are really coming in handy!

"Head for the Shore"  uses an old 1960's Shell Oil advertisement.  I am fascinated by the way the oil company associated themselves with art.

This is the final one that I will post.  It is titled "Sitting Around".  This image also came form an older magazine, just take a closer look at the hairdo!

I will create a second post to highlight the life drawing that I have been doing this month.  For this coming week, I won't be creating a 6" x 6" collage each day as I will be attending an Art Teachers Summer Institute at the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester.  I will do my best to post next weekend with photos from my trip.  If I am near a computer, I might even be able to post on this blog while I am there.

June Begins

My days are flying by and I can't keep track of what day of the week it is.  That will come to halt this next week as I have a 4-day Summer Institute to attend for National Board Certification.  I am looking forward to it except that it takes place at the Radisson Resort at Fort McDowell; this means it is a 45-60 minute drive.  That is the bummer about it.

I have been creating an artwork a day, all based on a single theme.  I cut up unfinished acrylic paintings my students had abandoned into 6" squares to work with for the base of the collage.  Next step is to add a magazine transfer that features a women, usually in a somewhat stretched out or other interesting pose.   Then I stitch on beads, following an interesting curve.  Finally, I add an old stamp.  This first one is titled "Post H".  I like the vertical aspect of this particular collage.

This one is actually a magazine image of Stevie Nicks taken from my More magazine.  I titled it "Black & Gold".  I followed the curve of her hair with the gold beads, which created more curves than were readily noticeable.

This is probably my least favorite of my current collages due to the fact that the figure stands out abruptly against the white background.  One of the things I am noticing with the transfers is how much they are influenced by the background color.  The black beads add to the boldness of this particular collage.  The white buttons sewn with black thread are a nice accent for the center of the flowers.

This artwork, titled "Halo", uses a collage of torn magazine pieces for the background rather than acrylic paint.  Once again, the image of the woman is very subtle and the beads follow the basic curve of the figure and then loop around her head creating the sense of a halo.  The stamp that I added was from France.

This is Today's artwork, titled "Hanging On".  I didn't use an acrylic painted paper, rather I just used some white paper with subtle flecks of color in it.  Using white paper allows for the image to show up quite clearly.  I used larger beads than I had previously to make more substantial ropes.


I have more squares with acrylic paint to use as well as some more images that are cut out and just waiting to be used, so I imagine the theme will continue for a while.  I wonder if I can make it last for the whole month of June.  That will be a challenge for me.  This coming week, it will be harder to find the time to make my collages, perhaps I should get a head start on them today.  Just a thought.