Paper and Threads

Central Park Sketching and Art Meetup Group:  We met yesterday at Stuyvesant Square for a Portrait Party.  Four of us sat together and simultaneously sketched each other. It was somewhat difficult to sketch a face when our subjects were also sketching - but it made for some good laughs. 

After the first hour, three more members joined us, increasing our number of subjects.  I used a plain 2B mechanical pencil and just added one portrait after another to a large sheet of watercolor paper.  In the end, I decided not to add paint....

My husband and I are watching "A Touch of Frost" - a British police procedural - and last week Netflix posted a May 28 end date.  I took a screen shot and sketched Jack Frost and his superior Norman Mullet to remember how much we enjoyed this sensitive,  curmudgeonly, unorthodox, brilliant detective.      

I periodically do a quick sketch of my 95 year old mother.  Most don't look like her, but the sketch ladies resemble each other.  This profile is a little better than my full face sketches.

I constantly practice drawing hands.   The Met had a wonderful exhibit by the 19th C sculptor Carpeaux and I loved seeing his practice drawings.  Here are 3 pages - one drawn from a Carpeaux sketchbook drawing, and the other two from magazine drawings. 

Posted by Shirley at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love drop-in figure drawing at the Society of Illustrators, but missed it for months because of a conflict with my FIT class on Dye Painting Silk.  Here are my drawings from last week - it was so good to be back, at least during my Spring Break from my class.  All of the drawings were done on 12 X 18" paper and photographed instead of scanned.

For anyone who might be interested in the importance of figure drawing for artists, I recommend the very readable book called The Undressed Art:  Why We Draw by Peter Steinhart.  I bought it in the Museum Shop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - and found it to be informative and a wonderful review of the topic. 

I recently enrolled for and watched a free Craftsy miniclass called Figure Drawing Atelier by Patricia Watwood and really enjoyed it.  

http://www.craftsy.com/class/figure-drawing-atelier/459?_ct=sbqii-sqjuweho-qbb&_ctp=459,1 

Two Minute Drawings #1

Two Minute Drawings #2: 

Five Minute Drawings: 

Ten Minute Drawings:

Twenty Minute Drawing:

Twenty Minute Drawing:

Posted by Shirley at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We spent last weekend celebrating the Bar Mitzvah of Daniel who is one of our closest friends' grandson.  We met his grandparents in 1969, even before Daniel's father Ben was born.  His birth may be one of the factors which made us more ready to start our own family.

I did these 2 portraits on blank 3 X 5" cards with a disposable mechanical pencil that was in my purse - while listening and watching the service.  They are now collaged on a page in my sketchbook to highlight the lovely event.

Posted by Shirley at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I haven't gone to a Figure Drawing Session since my FIT Course ended last semester.  The Holidays were busy and then I started my Silk Dye Painting Class on the night I always went to the Society of Illustrators.  So I was a little apprehensive about attending a new drop-in location on Friday afternoon, but my friend Judy paved the way. 

They have 3 models who rotate the different sets of poses.  The first model did 20 one-minute poses.  YIKES!  These have never been fun for me - and she struck such bizarre poses that in the middle I just drew her head.  If you look at the right of these heads you can see that she literally threw herself on the floor and lifted up onto her shoulders with her feet in the air!

I already sketched the 2nd model 3 previous times - two at the Society of Illustrators and once in my FIT class.  Familiarity, however doesn't necessarily make it easier. 

Here are 3 five minute poses of Blaine - and one 20 minute long pose.

The 3rd model did some of the longer poses.  Here are 2 ten minute poses - and then one of approximately 15 minutes at the end of the session.

All drawings were done with a Derwent Sketch and Wash pencil - so I could add water if I wanted to after the session.  There are on large paper and were photographed, not scanned.

Posted by Shirley at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just painted my "inspired by Francoise De Felice" painting.  For my composition I chose two of my figure drawings and transferred them to the Arches 10 X 14" 140 lb watercolor paper.

The first drawing was from a 20 minute pose of a pregnant model from 2010 at Figure Drawing at the Society of Illustrators in New York City.  I love this series of drawings and have even transferred some of them to Fabric. 

The second figure was from a 10 minute pose done in 2013 at the Battery Park Conservancy outdoor figure drawing session (the middle drawing).

 I transferred only the upper bodies of each figure.

Then I added a watercolor underpainting for much of the surface using Winsor-Newton watercolors. 

After the first layer dried, I painted very loosely mixing  alizarin crimson, French ultramarine blue, Winsor blue, Payne's gray, Van Dyke Brown, Yellow Ochre Pale, Quinacridone Gold, and Titanium White Gouache.

Here is my finished painting - which I probably will still work on a little because I am still not happy with the skin tones.   But it is time to move on to our week with apprentice Stephanie Lee and Master Artist Edward Hopper.

Posted by Shirley at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)