Paper and Threads

During February and March I spend Wednesday afternoon at Figure Drawing in Battery Park City, with multiple 2, 5, 10, and 20 minute poses.  These are two of my drawings of Marilyn from yesterday.  They were drawn with a General Sketch and Wash pencil of soluble graphite, and then "painted" with clear water.  I was thrilled that I had two great hands to sketch, and I'm trying so hard to improve these skills.

XXX 

After supper at Hudson Eats in Brookfield Center, I move uptown to FIT for my Watercolor Comps Class.  Last week we used a full palette, and tried to use pale and intense colors for a vase of sunflowers- reviewing  how to control pigment and water.   This week, our challenge was to significantly increase the amount of water we used, still controlling it, while painting a copy of a commercial perfume bottle photo.  We talk lots about illustrations and commissions during the evening and I love the studio time.  Photo left, my painting on the right.

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The first 4 classes of my Watercolor Comps Illustration class at FIT were designed to teach, or review, painting with watercolors.  We had two classes with nude models, and several exercises using very limited palettes.  The first model was painted with only French Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna, and the second model was painted, in two poses, with Alizarin Crimson and Viridian Green.  The other exercises, in the first 3 weeks, also used limited palettes and photo illustrations to copy.  This week we had a demo using liquid Frisket and then were each given a color copy of a painting by Eli Rosenthal to try to reproduce.   We expanded to a full palette of our choice in an effort to maximize the lightest lights and darkest darks - beginning with an underpainting in some areas - and using varying amounts of water to soften edges.

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On Wednesdays I have Figure Drawing at Battery Park City in the afternoon and a Watercolor Comps Illustration class at FIT in the evening.  I really enjoy both of these classes, and look forward to dinner at Brookfield Place between the events.  Here are two figure drawings from last week - each were 20 minute poses.  I used a soluble graphite pencil for both but only had time to add water with a waterbrush to the first one.  I spent way too much time trying to draw his feet in the second pose.

Our Illustration Instructor gave us two photos to work with as he makes sure that the entire class gets some instruction with watercolors.  On the left is Sargent's preliminary watercolor painting of Madame X that we had to draw as homework and paint in class.  On the right are fruits to be painted in class after Madame X.

We had to paint Madame X with only Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine Blue with a little Viridian Green for the couch.

And were expected to paint the fruit with combinations of colors, including the complementary colors for shading and shadows.  

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 I am going to a Wednesday afternoon figure drawing session on Wednesday afternoons during February and March.  I haven't done any figure drawing since October and sketched John on drawing paper (not watercolor paper) with a soluble graphite pencil and water.  The shadows are due to scanning the slightly buckled paper.

I then went directly to my evening Illustration Class at FIT (Watercolor Comps and Illustrations) and was delighted to learn that we had a model to start our series of classes.  Our Professor demonstrated his method of watercolor painting and mixing colors on the paper. 

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I use "deliberate practice" to learn how to draw hands.  This is a slow process, I even drew all of the photo images from an American Sign Language website several years ago.  Now I keep a pile of photos cut from advertisements in glossy magazines, and try to draw a few each month.  The three drawings below were drawn with a Caran d'Ache Mahogany Watercolor pencil, without adding water.  It most closely resembles the Master Drawings that I see in exhibits and museums, but is a pencil which can be sharpened for smaller sketchbook drawing. 

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