October Pumpkin 2010 in June 2011

I bought a huge pumpkin for Halloween last year (post here). I couldn't stand the idea of putting it out to freeze and then rot in the winter, so I just moved it into the garage (a two man job) and got to happily thump and talk to it all winter, as I was coming and going from the house. In April I finally put it outside, after the last chance of freeze or frost. This is how it looks in mid June, sitting at the edge of the wooded strip behind our house, and where I can see it many times per day as I go up and down our stairs. The watering can beside it is for scale - it's a full size outdoor watering can. I love the idea that last year's pumpkin (which is something like a huge mute pet to me) is still whole and well in the following summer. I know this is odd, but I'm very fond of huge pumpkins...

Life Drawing June 16th

Today's model was a long, lean, older male with nice muscles and even nicer bones. The poses did little for me, though, until we got the first long one (25 minutes) and I requested a pose from the back. I had realized that he never turned his back to us - and (as I explained to him) I find the back difficult and would love a chance to try drawing his. He said he didn't care for his back, and that was why he didn't usually use it in poses.

Au contraire, I think he has a long, elegant back, and his muscles and bones were even better there than in frontal views. I did the best drawing of my evening. Fascinating vertebrae and hip shadows. Click on the image for a much larger view.

The other two drawings here were 10 minute poses. All drawings were done with pencil in large sketch and drawing pads. I sat down for the first time ever during life drawing. I think I will go back to standing next week.

On our recent beach trip we went to the Fort Fisher Aquarium, and then took the ferry to Southport on our way home. Few of the creatures are still for even a moment - fish often swim continuously - so this spiny lobster was my best subject. I only had a few minutes, though, before the rest of the family would be ready to leave for the ferry and lunch, so this was done in less than 15 minutes. Black Micron pen in large moleskine.

Then I had a similar short span to sketch the top of the ferry. So this was done furiously fast, in a stiff breeze, in a crowd of people and cars. The black guard rails became the focal point, for me, defining the shape of the upper decks.

A Face from the Crowd

I have a collection of black and white street photos, with people caught at random in the images, so I can sketch even in my hotel room on trips. I haven't done one in a while - and I was never happy enough with the previous results to want to show them to anyone. But the quantity of sketching I've been doing lately, and the life drawing, seem to have moved me to a different place, and I can capture more of my impressions. I can get out of the way and let my hand do this...

So this is one face from a crowd, zoomed in. I was fascinated with the shape of his eyes and brows, the way the reflection on the glasses interferes with full connection, and the mouth and chin. There are so many interesting forms and lines in older faces.

Pencil sketch, 8.5 x 10 inches. Click the image for a larger view. This took about 45 minutes and I enjoyed every one of them.

Sketching with Mom

I went sketching with Mom recently - the first time she's tried drawing from life in several years, I think. It was fun. We went to Pittsboro, near where she lives, and drew the co-op market. The periodic cicadas were making their weird alien sound in the wooded areas around us, rising and falling in volume. And a mockingbird sang with all his might in a tree beside us as we sketched, changing his tune to so many different things that sometimes we both burst out laughing at the contrasts.

Then we had about 20 minutes left for one more short sketch, so we went to a graveyard in Pittsboro's center, where flags were already installed for Memorial Day, and we spotted a stone angel on a tombstone. We sketched the angel (the sun was getting quite hot by the time I finished - the view I wanted did not allow a seat in the shade). The little girl remembered on the stone below this little sculpture did not reach her ninth birthday. The little angel is heart wrenching. Pencil in my large moleskine.

I would like to do this again with Mom soon.

Triceratops - GSO Museum Trip

I took the day off today, and we're celebrating my birthday. It's in December, but I decreed several years ago that I would celebrate it in April or May from now on. So today, while our two oldest went to work (summer jobs) Dearest, Youngest, and I went to the Natural Science Center in Greensboro, NC. For my long-ish sketch I was having a hard time choosing between a rhino skull and a hippo skull until I remembered that I could draw the Triceratops skeleton. No contest. What fascinating shapes, and great opportunites for playing with light and dark, positive and negative. Pencil and Pilot pen, 8.5 x 10 inches.

I got out my strange little folding chair (mine is purple), the frame of which snaps itself into shape with a delightful series of clicks, and plunked myself down right in the middle of the museum floor and spent a dreamy 45 minutes or so capturing these shapes and masses. The VERY annoying video playing in the same gallery, providing info about the dinosaurs, repeated about five times while I was there. I was not sorry to leave it behind, but I did enjoy (all five times) the paleontological opinion that Triceratops could reach speeds up to thirty miles per hour. That would have been grand to see (passing me by, of course, not giving chase).

We got lunch at the Snackbar deli on South Elm (decorated entirely in black, white, gray, and red - except the bathrooms which are over the top blue for the guys and pink for the girls) - great food. Then we picked up goodies at a bakery in Mebane on the way back (T. DiStefano's). Then home for some painting and drawing and this blog post. Next we go out for birthday pizza, and then end back home to eat the desserts and open presents. There are still hours of today left, and I'm enjoying my birthday and the company.

Figure Drawing May 19, 2011

We had a lovely model this evening, with beautiful shoulders. I've drawn her before, over a year ago. She is in her sixties, I would guess. These sketches are the 5 minute sketches (all on one page) and then two 10 minute sketches, and then the two twenty minute sketches we did last. As usual, I felt like I had finally gotten in a groove just as we finished. And also, the 10 minute poses are often my favorites - they don't last long enough. That's mostly due to the model choosing something a little more challenging (balance or twisting, etc.) for a shorter pose. The longer poses require something they can hold, so they are often more ordinary sitting postures. Some models recline for the longer poses, which I enjoy, particularly since I usually end up with a drastic foreshortening pose at least once during the evening.

I tend to leave the hands, face, and feet only suggested (if that) because I am concentrating on what I can't draw at other times - the nude torso, in particular. But I also think the suggested hands, in particular, work in these drawings, and I think it best to keep the sketches more anonymous. I'm particularly pleased with these two ten minute poses - the one on the right captured the lovely way she was holding her shoulders and hands, though it makes her look younger than it should.

These are all pencil on 18 x 24 inch Strathmore medium drawing paper. I have used up the pad, so I need to pick up another before my next session. And our usual lead artist, who runs the timer, will be in Paris for a month, drawing for several hours a day in some of the oldest open figure drawing studios in the world (one is where Ingres drew regularly) - so I need to get a battery for my timer.