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.

Working Through the Memorial Day Weekend

My days have somewhat worked into a routine where I get up, drink coffee, start working on my National Board portfolio, exercise, nap, read, and so on.  I feel as if the days are slow and comfortable yet I fear they will pass by much too rapidly.  I am enjoying the moment.

This artwork a day is certainly representative of the fact that my mind is currently wrapped around portfolio 4 of the National Board entry.  It is titled "A Writing Framework", is 6" x 6", and made of acrylic paint, papers, and a button on watercolor paper.  Portfolio 4 is a documentation of accomplishments and contributions to student learning.  It is the only portfolio entry that I can really work on before school starts.  I am trying to build an outline to work from when I take the National Board workshop in early June.  I will post how that goes.
This entry is short.  I have more work to do plus I would like to paint or work on a drawing this afternoon.  I will see how that goes.

I did get a couple of quick artworks finished before the Memorial Day Weekend came to a close.  This one, "Forever", is my last 6" x6" artwork a day for the month of May.  I applied the base image using matte medium as a photo transfer, then added a thin blue ribbon to each side of the image.  I then strung black and blue seed beads along the woman's back.  To finish it off, I added the forever stamp, like a tattoo, on her butt.  The stamp is a little strong, but I liked the added a color and sense of humor the head of the statue of liberty added to the collage.

I also made a graduation collage for my niece Kimmy.  I started with a photograph of Kimmy when she was a little girl (eating eichuka).  To this I added memorabilia from the graduation event and a photograph of Kimmy that Mike took at the graduation ceremony.  The key was added to symbolize doors opening to her future.  The collage is 8" x 8" and I put it in a white frame for Kimmy.  It is titled "A Lot can Happen in 21 Years".

I did work on 3 unfinished oil paintings that I had brought home form school.  I should be able to finish each of them in the coming week.  I hope June is a productive month with relaxing and fun experiences.

It has been a long time!

My last post was almost 2 months ago.  Wow!  It's not like I haven't been making any art as I have been going to my Tuesday night life drawing sessions.  Honestly though, other than the life drawings and my small daily collages, I haven't been working on any thing spectacular.  I have been busy finishing up at school for the year and I have been taking a National Teacher Certification Pre-Candidacy course which has filled up my mind and my time.  I have a candidacy number and have applied for the scholarship money that would pay for the National Board certification process.  I am scheduled for a 4-day workshop in early June which focuses on what I need to do concerning the entire process.  Then, once school starts up again in August, I jump in and start working on my portfolios which will be due in March 2012.  I am both excited and anxious about the process so my blog will deal a lot with what is happening on that front.

 The first 4 examples are of my daily collages where I have been using images from magazines transferred to the paper with matte medium.  Can you tell that my new subscription to National Geographic has influenced my work?

These last 2 images come from my Tuesday night life drawing session.  I am very grateful to have found this group to draw with!

This post is short, but I am off to do some pre-candidacy work/thinking.

Welcoming Spring

I have been working in my studio on this 3-day weekend (Caesar Chavez Day), trying to finish up my drawings from last Tuesday night.  I have also made a few entries in my Figurative Sketch Book.  This is my introductory page for the month of April.  If I can remember, I thought I would draw a self-portrait at the start of each month.  Will my face start to look thinner as I loose my next 20 pounds?  I guess I will find out.  I also included a pressed flower that I had, though I can't remember where I picked this particular bloom.

This weekend, I still had one drawing to finish from the 22nd of March.  I reworked both the drawing and the background, completing the negative space in multiple layers of brown pastels until it was rich in appearance.  I had to readjust the proportions of her body just a bit, especially the left breast as it was up too high.  It wasn't until I was finished that I realized that her head was proportionately too small, hence the title, "Nude with Small Head".

Last Tuesday night I started 4 drawings.  Our model was Sita, an older woman, just slightly plump.  I hadn't drawn her before and really enjoyed her figure.  I began with this black, gray and white drawing on 18" x 24" white charcoal paper.  I had decided that I wanted the simplicity of the neutrals and didn't want to have to think about color choices in the beginning.  The one thing I managed to capture was the posture with head stuck out slightly to the side and to the front.  It looks a bit weird, but it shows the attitude of the pose.  I got Sita's figure in place and had just started the background during the 20 minute pose.  Once home, I didn't change the figure much, but I did layer in the black pastel, with workable fixative between the layers until it looked like a rich black velvet.  In fact, I titled this one "Black Velvet".

I like working with the soft pastels when the poses are just 20 minutes in length because I feel like I can get a lot of information down on the paper in a short time.  I was trying to work more abstractly with this drawing, similar to the way I worked the week before.  This was a more difficult pose for me and I am not sure if the proportions of her head are accurate.  The backwards tilt of her head was a challenge!  I chose to work in warm colors, mainly orange and yellow, because it was different than I had the week before.  I titled the drawing "Sunshine".  It is 22" x 26" soft pastel on pastel paper.  The colors are very intense and 70's feeling to me.  Definitely not my favorite color scheme, though I used it twice during the evening simply because I didn't want to clean up from the pastel dust to switch to a different color.  Call it laziness.

This drawing, "Sunset", was also completed in a warm color scheme. I prefer this drawing to the one above mostly because I liked the pose, the roundness of her bottom.  Again, I treated it in more of an abstract style as I completed the background.  The halo of darkness around the figure creates a striking contrast that is appealing.
The fourth drawing of the night was done in natural skin tones, but I am not sure if I like it well enough to come in and finish it.  This is a dilemma for me.  Are my drawings worth keeping?  I have a closet full of completed drawings that no one sees.  What do I do with a drawing that is not finished?  What is wrong with the drawing?  The dimensions/proportions are off a bit, but that hasn't stopped me before.  Am I just tired of working in soft pastels?  That might be the answer.  I think I will sleep on it.

It's Been a While

Wow!  I can't believe that a month has gone by since my last post.  I was trying to add to my blogs on the weekends, but I just kind of forgot.  In the past month I have gone to a few life drawing sessions, on Tuesdays, plus a Thursday and a Sunday thrown in there.  I spent spring break in Olympia with Rainy.  I made an artist submission to the Herberger Theater Gallery, but I won't hear anything until the end of April.  Two days ago Mike and I celebrated our fifth anniversary.  I guess that a lot has happened in the past 30 days.

I won't try to post all of my March artwork, but will pick and choose what I think is worth showing.  This oil pastel painting is titled "35 Weeks".  It was done in 4, 20 minute drawing sessions on a Thursday night at Stu's studio.  I was working on a piece of all media board that I had previously collaged with torn magazine pieces.  I used copal medium to blend the oil pastels.  This is probably my favorite artwork from this month.  I enjoyed creating it.

This next piece is titled "Black & White".  It is charcoal on charcoal paper and is 18" x 24".  I drew this image on the 1st of March.  The face is probably the weakest part of the drawing...I really do struggle with profiles.  I should practice drawing profiles until I am more comfortable with them.  I do like the extreme contrast, with a portion of the paper in black and the opposing side in white.

This drawing is titled "Colors From Behind".  It is oil pastel on watercolor paper and is 18" x 24".  I painted this one on a Sunday morning, another long pose session at Clarke's studio in Tempe.  Again, I used copal medium for blending the oil pastels. I enjoyed the subtle texture of the watercolor paper and decided that I prefer working on it than on smooth paper when using the copal medium and the oil pastels.  The colors are very vibrant, which makes the painting more exciting than some of my other pieces.

The next two drawings were made this past Tuesday night.  The first one is titled "Different Point of View", the other one is "Figure in Blue".  These were both made during 20 minute poses, I just had to add a few finishing touches on them when I got home.  I did the blue one first, another person at the studio commented that it looked very Georgia O'Keeffe-like.  I didn't see it until I stepped back away from the drawing and then I thought that he was right.  For both of these drawings, I just wanted to crop in on the figure and I wanted to work with non-skin tones.  I was relatively happy with the way they both turned out.

I did not keep up with a collage a day, it was rather hit and miss.  I am presenting a few of them here.
I will try to blog once a week!  See you then

Happy 80th Birthday to My Dad

Today is my dad's 80th birthday!  We celebrated with a big family dinner last night at Donovan's Steak and Chop House.  It was great fun though the wine bottles may have flowed a little bit too freely.  I think that dad liked the collage that I made for him, it is shown and described in my previous post.  Rainy had flown in for the celebration on Friday night and left today around 1pm.  I miss her already, but I will get to see her in 2 weeks as I am going to Olympia for my spring break.

I did managed to make a number of collages this week.  This one is titled "Deep in the Woods", it is 6" x 6", and is acrylic paint, paper, ink and ribbon on board.  I started with roughly coating the board with acrylic paint, when it was dry, I stamped a pattern on with white ink.  Once that was dry, I glued the various papers in place.  I find this one somewhat mysterious,  I like that about it.

"Wait for Me" has papers, buttons, stamps, and ink on board.  The 3 gold frames were cut from old playing cards, I am glad I found them in my stash and thought to use them in this manner.

"Calvert" has papers on board.  This collage was made strictly from magazine images.

I would like to find the time to work on a painting or two, but that won't happen this weekend as Sunday is rapidly fading away and I feel as if I need a nap.  Maybe this week....

Ending the Three Day Weekend

How I love having just one extra day added to my weekend.  This was a day for me to many things, some of which were outside of my studio.  I spent the morning make a cheesecake and mixed berry sauce for Mike's birthday which is tomorrow.  We were initially going to celebrate it today but decided to wait until tomorrow and have steaks and salad, plus cheesecake of course.

Yesterday I did put the finishing touches on another one of the drawings from Thursday night's life drawing session.  It is titled "Sara in Pink" and is 14" x 22".  I used soft pastels on charcoal paper.  The drawing was originally 22" x 25" with more negative space on the right side of the figure.  I had decided to collage some papers in this space and started with a thinner paper that was pink.  I was using matte medium as my glue, which made the paper start to wrinkle, so I pulled it off before it was dry.  Then I decided that I was going to let it dry, then iron it in place.  When I did this, the light weight paper turned orange!  Yuck.  By now it was permanently attached, the only solution was to cut it off, which is what I did.  Now my artwork is not a standard size, but having the figure just slightly off center certainly makes for a pleasing composition.

Most of the afternoon today I worked on a small, 8" x 8" collage for my dad for his 80th birthday; the celebration is next weekend.  I used old photographs, papers, stamps, an old key, and a plastic golf ball marker.  I am pleased with the finished results.  I also enjoyed going through the suitcase of old photos again.  There is a photo of the twins as babies.  I have two photos of dad with a bicycle, the larger one was taken in 1945.  Then there is the cut out of dad when he was in his 20's (I am guessing).  The picture at the bottom is another one of dad as a young man, I am not sure when it was taken.  The black and white photo in the upper left corner was taken from some pictures of a girl scout outing, I think it was in the early 1970's.  The picture of mom and dad was one I took this past Christmas of 2010.  In the background are papers from Creighton Elementary School, North High School, and the University of Arizona.  I am trying to decide if the white paper in the center is too bright....I might come in over the surface with a stamped image to lessen the brightness of the white.
I have a busy week ahead, so I am not sure what will happen to my mini collage a day project.  Wait and see I suppose.

President's Day Weekend

It has been an interesting week.  Again, I wasn't too successful with my artwork a day idea, as I only completed 2 mini collages.  This one is titled "Come With Me" and was made on 2-19-11.  It is 6" x6" and consists of papers, photos, ink, and a plastic golf ball marker on board.  I was being somewhat playful with the entire image.  Do you recognize Mike driving the bug and Rainy in the back seat?

This collage I made on 2-18-11 and it is titled "Speak to Me".  I am not so thrilled with it as the words make everything to obvious.  I used papers and ink on board.  Like all of my mini collages, it is 6" x 6".  I found the face in one of my "W" magazines, a favorite place for female images.  Perhaps it is time for me to return to my collages that have lots of different stuff all over them.

The highlight of my week was another life drawing session.  I went with Joan and Laura on Thursday night to Stu's studio again.  On Thursday nights, the idea is to work back to back poses so that you have 40 minutes on a drawing instead of the usual 20.  Sara was the model, I had drawn her once before.  I decided to work with soft pastels.  Interestingly, people have been commenting that I am a pastelists, but I am not.  I bought pastel papers at Arizona Art Supply earlier in the week and the clerk made that assumption.  Thursday night, Eric made the same statement.  I guess that I like to work with soft pastels when drawing figures, especially during short sessions because you can put the color and the image down rather quickly.  The truth is that I don't really know what I am doing when it comes to working in soft pastels.  Like most media, I am self taught and I haven't taken the time to read up on how a person should work with pastels.  Maybe this is something that I should do!  Anyways, this drawing is titled "Black Pillow with Flowers". It is soft pastel on pastel paper (Duh) and is 20" x 25".  I completed most of the drawing at the session.  This afternoon,  I reworked the background just a little bit but mostly I finished up the 2 pillows that Sara is laying on.  I am very pleased with the way this drawing turned out.  I enjoy focusing in on a part of the figure rather than portraying the entire body.  The detail of the pillows contrasts successfully with the softness of the female form.

Weekend Progress

This morning I went with my friends Joan and Laura to a life drawing session at Clarke Reidy's Studio.  It was a long pose session where we worked from the same pose all morning.  I was able to complete this oil pastel painting.  I wasn't positioned in a good place to step back and view my artwork from a distance or I might have realized where the proportions were off.  I think his hip juts out a bit too far plus his leg from the knee down should have been longer.  In spite of the problems, I had a fun morning working on art.

I also managed to finish this oil pastel painting of mom in my book.  I struggle with it.  I got her nose just right, but that was about it.  Painting older people is difficult for me.  I couldn't get the lips or the skin around them to look the way I thought it should.  The eyes are close, but not perfect. I did collage on tissue paper with strings of gold in it for mom's over shirt. It turned out perfect!  I also used metallic gold oil pastels for her necklace.  It added a nice touch.  I will do a page of dad next and am hoping that it doesn't prove as difficult.

For the rest of the afternoon, I will catch up on little things that I have to do in my studio, including my artwork/collage for the day.  Until next weekend, take care.

Mid-February

Wow!  It is hard for me to believe how quickly this month is flying by!  This past week was a busy one and I found very little time to work on my artwork a day collages.  I started off on Monday with "Thinking About It".  I copied an old photograph of my grandmother to incorporate in this one along with stamps and torn envelopes.  They were placed on a black board on which I had stamped designs.  It's not one of my favorites, but I guess that's par for the course.

On Tuesday night I went with my friend, Joan, and her friend, Laura to a life drawing session at Stu's studio.  It was at 35th Avenue and Clarendon, the drawing session was from 6:30 to 9:30 pm.  Kind of a late night for me, but I really did enjoy myself.  There were about 10 artists working.  The music being played was pretty good, so I didn't even have to pull out my i-pod and headphones.  The model was Craig; I had drawn him previously when I was taking a night class at Paradise Valley Community College.  We started with some quick gesture poses and then did a series of different 20 minute poses.  This example is a charcoal drawing on blue charcoal paper.

He did one pose in which he sat on a bicycle.  It was a very intimidating pose because of the complexity of the bicycle.  In spite of that, I felt as if I managed to capture both Craig and the bicycle fairly decently.  This one was also charcoal on blue charcoal paper.  There was another drawing I did, it was graphite pencil on Bristol board.  I didn't get it finished.  I actually plan to come back in and shatter the image into geometric shapes and the finish it with hatching and crosshatching.  It will take me a while to finish.

I did manage to complete a second 6" x 6" artwork a day collage.  For this one, I started with strips of a centennial newspaper I got from Aunt Dolores.  I then glued in a vase from an old Shell gasoline add that I got from one of my old magazines.  I added an assortment of round objects and stamped a few round circles to balance out the image.  This one, titled "Centennial", turned out quite well.

This morning, I spent about 20 minutes on another artwork a day; this one a self-portrait.  I had previously painted a 6" x 6" board with an orangish color of acrylic paint. This morning I worked with watercolor crayon to paint my self-portrait.  Stu was using this technique at the life drawing session, and I was wanting to try it out.  It was a bit more difficult to manipulate the watercolor than I thought it would be.  I enjoyed the process none the less.
Today in my studio I have prepped a couple of surfaces with collaged torn magazine pieces.  I think I am ready now to work on the page in my book featuring Mom and/or Dad.  Guess I will get to it now.