Some drawings from a long time ago ...

As I've been rummaging through my files getting other things in order, I found works I created over ten years ago. Vessels were an important subject for me at that time, and envelopes were one image I used. cwtmp8vark

I enjoyed vigorous drawing and was very liberal with my application of charcoal and pastel. Rubbing, smearing, erasing, and reapplying the charcoal and pastel was fun and allowed me to keep the work looking fresh.

Even with acrylic paint, rubbing, scraping, and using my fingers were important for keeping the surface fresh and exciting.

These are two works that I wish I still had. I gifted the red envelope drawing to the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts at the end of my residency with them. I remember it being carefully tucked away into their collection unit, and the gallery director saying I'd receive a letter of acceptance within a week, but ... I found out two weeks later that the gallery director and her husband had been caught for fraud. The gallery director disappeared from the school, and so did my drawing.

The acrylic painting was taken off the stretcher bars and mailed to a collector for a minimal sum of money.

A Blast from the Past

Here's a drawing I created over ten years ago. Exploring the foreground/background shift of black on white and making a fun drawing with a nod to Jim Dine's tool drawings from the 1970s. This is one where I stopped before the image became too muddled; ie. the floating, non-descript space is suggestive, not completely illustrative, the unfinished quality in the flashlight is quite powerful, and that light is what makes the drawing (the pictorial space) come alive. 

It's also a sign of a younger me and is not a resolution I'd work towards today. Particularly, the black marks along side the rectangles are not what I would do now. They do not describe any form, but rather are a floating cloud of black ... they resemble ink stains ... and become a distraction because we look at them expecting a positive form. Those marks are confusing and distract people from 'getting' the image right away. 

Anyway, the drawing is fun and has much of my youthful charm in it. As usual, hindsight is always better.

Loving What One Does

Last night, I shook hands with Iain McCaig. Yeah, I know ... what a moment. He's a genuinely great guy, and he carried that through his presentation of his latest book "Shadowline" at the Academy of Art. WOW! It's a magical book; not only for the wonderful illustrations included, but because McCaig has revealed his honest, personal self through the fictional story he's woven onto the pages. 

He met the audience as his equals as he began speaking about a sharpie that he recently fished out of the toilet. (It would be the same sharpie to sign books after the presentation.) He talked openly about his career as a children's book illustrator, his preproduction work in the movie industry, his latest writing adventure and his most recent adventure at Pixar working on the concept design for John Carter from Mars. 

I walked out of there far less star struck than I was before meeting him. (That's a good thing.) His ease, humor and genuine goodness were refreshing. What I found most compelling though, was his intensity of love and passion for getting the most out of an image to tell his story. That's the real gem. 

His website is coming soon!

For future reference:

iainmccaig.com

 

Inspiration from a great artist

Drawings by Barbara Bradley

I just wanted to share this with you as I've mentioned this in previous posts about figure drawing. Here are a few drawings by Barbara Bradley that were posted in Bradley Hall at the Academy of Art. Seeing her original drawings, in person was both enlightening and humbling. She created them  with such deftness of touch, vigor, and understanding and it is inspiring. 

Oh Lonesome One

This one was created for a client as a gift for her daughter. This pose is a combination of a few poses and facial expressions by the puppy after she unsuccessfully attempted to untether herself to explore my studio.

Looking Closely

Here's another drawing from a recent Clothed Figure Drawing class. This one took about 20 minutes. Over the past fifteen weeks, my seeing and interpretation skills have grown tremendously. I'm pleased with many of the drawings I've made from life models, but I'm also aware of how much further I want to go. Just a few weeks ago, I saw many sketches by the late Barbara Bradley who was a master at interpreting from life, and I'm just crawling compared to the running she was doing.

Recent Five Minute Drawing

I created this drawing in a Clothed Figure class at the Academy of Art in San Francisco (Spring 2008). The instructor for this class is Mr. Chuck Pyle, and judging from the difference between life drawings I made just a year ago, my observation skills and understanding of line efficiency is more clear. Life drawing continues to be an everlasting pursuit.  Under Mr. Pyles tutelage, I'm discovering a vein of artists that I've shunned because of my fascination with contemporary art, and I'm incredibly pleased to find them now. These are artists such as Dean Cornwell, Andrew Loomis, Robert Fawcett, and Lyendecker.