Paper and Threads

 We took our 6 year old grandson Henry to the 3rd Young People's Concert in this year's series at the New York Philharmonic and a fabulous Spanish guitarist was the soloist with the orchestra.  We were sitting too far away for me to see his hands, so I sketched him from one of his website photos for my daily sketch.  His hands really were in that position, but it reminded me that I need lots more practice drawing hands.  I am slowly drawing each letter from photos on an American Sign Language website and I decided that it was time for J and K.  Pablo Saenz Villegas was drawn with my water-soluble Pilot Varsity pen and then brushed with water.

American Sign Language letters - drawn with a watercolor pencil from photos on a website.

Posted by Shirley at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I love watching the Winter Olympics and spent large blocks of time glued to the coverage.  Probably because of my lifelong interest in dance, and specifically ballet, figure skating is one of my very favorite events.  As I was getting ready to watch the Women's Short Program, I was surfing the NBC Olympic website and found this photo of Mirai Nagasu.  I fell in love with this perky, skilled, 16 year old while watching her skate at Nationals several weeks before.  Although she was being considered the US hope for the future, she appeared to be in a group with other world class skaters already.  I loved the entire coverage of the Women's event and have never been so impressed as I was with Kim Yu-Na's free skate on Thursday evening.  But I was even more thrilled that Mirai finished in 4th place!!   

Posted by Shirley at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

 I thoroughly enjoy my monthly figure drawing sessions - and last evening one of the two models was the lovely pregnant woman from my last session.  The fast, i.e. 2 minute and 5 minute sketches are the most fun for me, probably because I get bored during the 20 minute poses when I think I should add faces and hands.  Feet are rarely an option because I can't see them from where I sit.

2 minute Pose

2 Minute Pose Left and 5 Minute Pose Right

5 Minute Pose

5 Minute Pose Left and 10 Minute Pose Right

I realized that I chose to upload only the drawings that I did of the pregnant model. (there are always 19 total)  She is just glowing - with a beautiful calm face and lovely smile.

Posted by Shirley at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Last night, The Society of Illustrators had two lovely models, one of whom was 6 months pregnant.  It was a joy to sketch them - trying to capture their lovely poses and bodies. 

 A Five Minute Sketch in Graphite

Two twenty minute poses - with watercolor pencil in a new Daler Rowney sketchbook.  I'm not sure yet how much I like it.... 

20 minute

Posted by Shirley at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

As I started 2010, I finally overcame my block in the chapter 2 exercises in the Bert Dodson book Keys to Drawing, and now I'm working on Chapter 3.  This is a great set of exercises re: measurement since I often have trouble fitting figures onto the page. 

Here are two figures drawn by marking the top, the bottom, and then the midpoint.  Then a quick drawing was done and the actual midpoint measured by sighting before working further on the drawing.  This is very different than my usual technique of starting with the head and then hoping that the feet fit on the page!

Posted by Shirley at 6:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)