SOLD...good-bye beautiful!

Said a heart-felt good-bye to a lovely drawing. This charcoal portrait of Katherine posing nude with a drapery sold a couple weeks ago. I'm so glad she has found a new home, but I will truly miss this piece.

Figure Drawings...Catching Up

I have been neglecting my updates from my figure drawing classes!

The top drawing is Tina from two Thursdays ago here in Woodstock...there's something about Tina's creamy skin that shows so much variety of the light - I tend to grab lots of fuscias, pinks and blues when I draw her...the range of warm to cool light shows up so well on her skintone.

The next two were drawn at Shane's studio last Wednesday night. This model was new to me...I think her name was Maureen (don't hold me to that!) but she was a lovely model, and I'm so glad I had time to draw the pose from two different vantage points.

The light background was done first - broadly laying in areas of color and then defining those areas with charcoal line.

The second drawing was a bit more dramatic - I was standing in a darker corner of the room, behind the light source that was shining on the model, so I could really play up the light and shadow accross her form.

I've decided most of my work looks vbest from about 10 feet back...every time I backed up to look at my drawing I liked it better than up close!

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Painting Update...off with her head?

Ok so now I am at the point in this painting where I have to pace myself...don't over-do-it. Don't lose the quality of the line that you like. Don't muddy it up. Edit.

My biggest decision is whether or not to cut off the top row (it is on watercolor paper mounted to foam core, so it would be easy to cut on my mat cutter)

I think it works better as a square format. The top row is too disconnected, and I also think the figure facing the viewer changes the feel of the piece - the views from behind seem to be working better.

Anyway, I think it's inevitable...off with her head!

And this may be why I'm focusing on orange and blue lately - look at the beautiful leaves against the clear blue sky!

I did this forest painting a few years back that was also inspired by this time of year - very similar pallette.

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Scorpio Celebration!

OK...I'm a Scorpio...my birthday is on the 21st (and so is the hubby...he's on the 9th!). And to put some "good scorpio karma" out into the universe...

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The Pumpkin Carving Lesson...less is more

Ah...the pumpkin carving. The buying of the perfect pumpkin.

The anticipation of creating a masterpiece of this odd orange vegetable.

The loss of confidence as you start to carve, realizing you have neither the time, patience, or desire to cut out 72 little tiny pumpkin sections from a 3 inch thick rind to create the ultimate spider web image, complete with an eight legged spider.

The joy at watching your three year old draw one eye, nose and mouth on his pumpkin.

The realization that three holes are easier than 72.

The elation at being able to use a real kitchen knife instead of those little miniature hack-saws that come with the pumpkin carving kit.

The best pumpkins I have ever seen.

Painting Update

OK - worked without Jack in my way! Thanks David for taking Jack away for a little while...

I'm mellowing out a few of the squares - layering some more neutral browns or changing some of the more intense blues to more greyish blues. I think it's looking much better!

I'm posting a big influence on this piece - a painting by Kim Frohsin (http://www.kimfrohsin.com/) that I tore out of a magazine a couple years ago (I think!!!) It's been hanging in my studio forever. I love her use of color, line, paint quality, the variety she achieves in her piece while still maintaining unity among the squares.

This is a corner of my studio - covered by naked ladies - but

showing a drawing from way back in 2003 - the purple and black of drawing of a torso - where I also did a first layer of squares before drawing on top. I'm glad I had that drawing on the wall, too...I like the variety of drawing techniques I used. I need to keep that in mind! There's a different feel to a painting from a live model - an energy an immediacy - you can't always achieve when working in the studio from memory.

Click on any picture to see detail.

Painting Update...mine and Jack's

Well I finally got to work for a short while today - and I use that term loosely because I had a three year old monkey boy climbing on top of me, asking for paint, wanting to peel dry paint off my old pallette (OK who doesn't love to do that?) and dropping my favorite blue Nupastel on the floor and breaking it into a zillion pieces.

Urgh.

O well...I did get some things accomplished, and I like some of the small sections individually, now I need to make the whole thing work together.

It wasn't a total loss in the studio today...at least Jack made a good painting!