Paper and Threads

My classmates in Drawing I at FIT:  I finally finished my composite drawing from my Drawing class.  Each week, when I finished the assigned drawings, I would add 1-3 classmates to this page.  The drawings were done very quickly with 4B graphite and then photographed because of the paper size.

The Central Park Drawing and Art Meetup Group at a Portrait Party met at a rented studio here in Manhattan last weekend.  We had no rules, and some participants sat for portraits and alternated the person "in the chair," and others just sketched members as they were sketching.  We had approximately 45 minutes for each session, and then went out in the neighborhood for a final sketch.  I did these with my Sketch and Wash graphite pencils, but then decided not to add water. 

Meetup Portrait Party  First Session

 Meetup Portrait Party Second Session

My only goal when I do these composites is to not have everyone looking the same - meaning that I have observed and tried to individualize their features. 

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I am slowly completing Jeanne Oliver's Studying Under the Masters, Part 2.  In this online class, contemporary artists study under a Master by learning as much as possible about them, their work, and their lives.  They choose one artwork to copy and then try to incorporate some of the skills and techniques learned into one art work of their own.  Each apprentice shares all of their research on video and demonstrates, in detail, their painting process.  I took Part 1 (9 Master Artists) in the Winter of 2013. and already enrolled in the final Part 3 class which begins in May.  All of my paintings are done from oils done by the Master and converted by me to watercolor.  I have a blog category with my copy and original for each Master in Part 1 and Part 2.

http://www.paperandthreads.com/studying_under_the_masters/

British Artist Robin Fingher chose Australian Artist Brett Whitely as her Master and I chose one of his ink drawings to copy because we are just beginning to do ink drawings with ink washes in my FIT Drawing Class.  I used my new flexible nib by Brause and struggled with some beginner issues with blobs - one close to one eye!!

These are the Master Drawing on the left (called Vanessa) and my copy on the right.

For my original drawing, inspired by Whiteley, I chose to recreate one of my figure drawings from the Toulouse-Lautrec sessions at MoMA. 

It was great fun combining ink lines with ink washes (as opposed to cross-hatching) and I did two drawings using the same technique at my drawing class this week. 

This was a still life created by our professor with 3 mannequin arms, one foot.

And this was one I put together for the second half of our class.

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One Way Ticket, Jacob Lawrence's Migration series, opened at MoMA this weekend.  At age 23 he painted these 60 panels to tell the story of the migration of blacks from the rural south to the urban north between WWI and WWII.  He did extensive research at the Schomberg Center in Harlem and painted a series that tells an amazing story through paintings and captions.  MoMA owns 30 "even-numbered" panels and the Phillips Collection in DC owns 30 "odd-numbered" ones.  Periodically they reunite them and I first saw them many years ago in DC.  I wasn't drawing or painting at that time, and only now do I realize how masterful he was at composition. 

Lawrence painted in tempera, and after drawing all 60 panels, he painted one color across all 60, and then added the second color, etc. 

Here is a 2 minute video from BBC World News: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32141921 

The MoMA website has all 60 panels and a wonderful description of the exhibit.  

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1549#related_events 

I had trouble choosing just one panel to copy, but kept returning to panels with 3 images - and finally chose this one.

The exhibit also includes art, music, and photography from his contemporaries, including Marion Anderson's Lincoln Memorial performance.  I loved one of Dorothea Lange's photographs of an ex-slave and sketched her as well.

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It is semester break at the Sketchbook Skool and faculty from the first 3 semesters are posting weekly challenges on the Sketchbook Skool Blog http://sketchbookskool.com/blog/.  This week Brenda Swenson challenged students to do watercolor paintings on toned paper, using white gouache to add whites to the painting if needed.  I did two paintings and collaged them into my sketchbook to reduce the paper buckling for scanning.

A stylized bouquet of flowers on brown wrapping paper - watercolor and white gouache.

One of my elephant series drawings that I redrew on Bugra brown paper:

 Lots of students are waiting impatiently for Sketchbook Skool Semester 4 to begin - and the blog is providing some relief with interesting videos and these challenges.  Happy Holiday weekend to all!

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Our Drawing Classroom has many different props to be used for drawing exercises.  This past week someone asked for bones instead of flowers and plants.  I think it was our last week of using graphite and shading.  Our Professor put a rib cage and vertebra from a dismantled skeleton on a central table for all to draw and positioned an overhead light to create shadows.  From my position, the top of the rib cage was on the left, and the vertebra in the lumbar region were on the right.  But I wasn't looking directly at the rib cage from the side - thus the peculiar shape. 

I finished my drawing and asked him for another bone, and he gave me a pelvis to hold and draw.  Here are both of my drawings - photographed, not scanned because of paper size.

I still had time before our class ended to add two more classmates to my composite. 

After Spring Break we will start using pen and ink to draw.  This class is moving really slowly and I'd love to know what others have done in a 15 week college semester course. 

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