Met work

I have been visiting the Met for the past few years spending the day drawing items from their collection. I choose odd figurines that are as far from the anatomy I am familiar with, by doing so I am forced to focus on the object as I see it not as I know it.

The next two conform to the above and are from a recent trip to the Met.

I Must admit I sought out a seat for the last drawing of the day abandoning the object specific rendering and the 1-2 hours standing. Rodin's The Burghers of Calais has given me trouble in the past when I have tried to draw from it. I think it is because Rodin was less concerned with anatomical accuracy preferring a more impressionistic approach by manipulating the form to achieve his message. With this attempt I tried drawing shapes created by the play of light and shadow, I'm guessing that a similar method was employed by Rodin himself as he worked the clay. The result is a more solid rendition of the bronze.

The following drawings were from previous visits.

Figure Drawing book

Been working on either the same ol-happy-to-be-busy stuff or projects that cannot be posted due to client requests.

The pages below are from a personal project. I have been planning to self publish a compilation of my figure work for some time. The original plan was to pick a bunch of images and call it Volume One but once I started working the layout and selecting drawings I kept seeing opportunities to point out methods I use to create the work. I am not certain just how involved I'll go with the methods of drawing the figure, I hope to strike a nice balance between pages of drawings and some how-to when appropriate. Thought I'd post here and share the process a bit. Note: not all the copy matches up just yet.... work in progress.

Figuring 8-6-09

Three long poses. I wanted to work larger that usual so I was more intent on full arm sweeps verses palm on paper, noodleing a pencil with my fingertips so I grabbed any marking devise or color handy. It was fun to work the surface, restarting the same image a few times then digging in.

Figure-ing 7-24-09

The long and short (poses) of it,

Thursday night figure session at RKP Press.

Painting Dust Off

Ok so these paintings have been lurking in the back of the basement (painting studio) long enough. The plan is to get back at them.... this is the first step. The next few... stay tuned.

This one is a bit further along with color blocked in.

The rest are the initial tone over a graphite drawing stage.

The last one is a color study done outdoors

Figure-ing 7-9-09

Long pose on (top), maybe three 20 min sessions. Shorter one (below) one 20 min session. (click on image for better detail)

Old dog new tricks

I have been learning to use SketchUp mainly because I have clients that think it is really cool. Well it is really cool and fun to use when it doesn't drive you mad. I use several programs and sometimes find myself staring at icons in a tool bar for several seconds as if waiting for a bus to the other side of my brain. This is a work in progress for Green Builder.

Another new client

I was lucky to get a call from and agency in Ohio to do a two page product enhancement piece to be used by a lumber company for placement in Lowes. This is the B side.

New client '09

Part of a one page flyer. New client got from Craigslist. Was a welcome project last winter. Used SketchUp as a starting point then worked it on tracing paper, scanned then painter and photoshop.

Memory taken further

This is from a series of memory sketches I turned into cartoons with captions. This was before I called them memory sketches, I think. I'll dig up the others someday and post.

Memory

This is what I call a memory sketch. I'll encounter a person along the way, maybe for just an instant as they go about their business. I can't say just why but I cannot stop thinking about the image, the moment, until I sketch it the hell out of my head.