Blog Feature!

I am always so flattered when someone likes my work, and incredibly honored when another talented artist features my work on their blog! Jennifer Cameron of Glass Addictions has a Friday Feature that takes you on a tour of an artist's workspcae. What a great way to get to know a little bit more about the process behind the work! Thanks for sharing my workspace, Jenny! I hope you all check out her links below

Bead Shop: http://www.glassaddictions.etsy.com/
Jewelry Shop: http://www.glassaddictions.1000markets.com/
Blog: http://www.glassaddictions.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.glassaddictions.com/

The link to my interview on her blog

http://glassaddictions.blogspot.com/2009/04/open-studio-friday_09.html

Two Drawing Styles, One Beautiful Model - A Traditional Charcoal Drawing and Colorful, Modern Pastel Drawing

Great open drawing session last night at Shane's Studio (those are his amazing paintings behind the model.) Addie took a very sexy lounging pose, with her arm over her head...not an easy pose! But gorgeous. This is my drawing after 20 minutes. I tried to keep it light and establish the whole figure (head to torso...although the legs were lovely, I thought the face and hands were so pretty and focused my attention on that portion)In the next 20 minutes I added more dimension and value, defining the gesture of the hand and the features of the face. I was also trying to keep the focus on the face, so many parts were intentionally left "sketchy", like the elbow coming forward and the exposed breast. I could still add a few more highlights with a lighter pastel, but i think this is ok as is.

And I really wanted to have a little fun with color last night so I moved to the other side of the room and did a small, quick abstract of her profile and hands. I love the top 2-3rds...maybe I'll crop it when framing!

A Tip for Creating Better Portraits...buy Yourself a Skull

If you glance thru almost any book that teaches portrait or figure drawing, you will find a section on anatomy. Knowing the skeleton, and the major groups of muscles, and how they behave under our skin is of vital importance in making successful figurative or portrait art. (Even if you deem yourself a "cartoonist" or "abstract artist" - that genre still needs an understanding of the human form. But we can debate that later)

My drawing above is copied from "Drawing from Life" by Brown and McLean. And while I learned a lot of technical info by copying from the book, a lot of the problems are already figured out for you if you are copying a 2D source to a 2D drawing. To really challenge yourself and to fully understand the shapes of the skull, I recommend you

buy a plastic skull. (This is not only a great investment in your artistic endeavors. It's awesome to put in the window for Halloween!)

Set up a simple still-life of the plastic skull and draw it from many vantage points. Get to know the landmarks of the zygomatic arch, the orbital bone, and the mandible. See how angles change and intersect. Study the size and shape of the whole skull.

When you go back to drawing a figure from life (as in my sketch of a live male model above) you will be more in tune with what is happening beneath the surface of the skin. You will be more sensitive to the subtle shifts of light and shadow as the skin stretches over the form of the skull.

A conversation with Jack

Jack "Mommy can I have some milk?"

Me "I'm sorry honey, the milk is expired."

Jack "Does we have any milk without spiders?"

Paul Ruiz...Amazing Portrait Artist

We had another fabulous Critique Night with our drawing group last night (I'll post pictures later). I wanted to quickly post a link to an AMAZING book by an incredible artist that our host, Bruce, shared with us. This book by Paul Ruiz is a cover to cover delight of figurative drawing and painting. You will be floored by his use of texture, different weights of paint, colors that go into the space yet others that rest on top of the surface, his incredible drawing language, and his ability to transport you to another dimension with very little detail.

Another delightful bonus. Mr. Ruiz has a fantastic Art Blog that offers timely and useful advice to all artists. I find this incredibly generous. I really admire artists who want ALL artists to achieve their full potential, and are willing to give great advice to help us all get to the level we desire. I highly encourage every artist to check out his entry on Artists in Uncertain Times.

Paul Ruiz ia an artist who is not only relevant to the art world because of his incisive and original portraiture, but because he speaks to the current situation of artists in our world.

An excerpt from an interview wth Paul Ruiz

BS: So what are the specific social implications of your art? Is there a specific message that you strive to convey to viewers?

PR: Before dedicating myself to full time practice, I spent nearly ten years working in a highly regulated, technology driven environment. I could not help but be affected by the growing extent to which our human relations and interactions are being mediated by technology. For me, being involved in the ritual and process of painting itself is a way of resisting this tendency of contemporary experience, of provoking a shift in the opposite direction - a shift from the generic, ephemeral and virtual nature of technology and media-saturated experience, to the specific, hand-crafted and material one of making and engaging in art.I aim for my work to provoke reflection on the importance of this in our lives, to affirm that art making is not merely self-indulgence. I believe it is fundamentally linked to our capacity and need for a broader aesthetic, social and cultural awareness - I believe this to be quite an instinctive human aspiration.

(This is Kristina) I love that quote!!!!

Two Drawings of Male Nude - Inspired by the Figure Drawings of Cadmus

Two drawings from last night's figure drawing session! We asked our model to re-create the two poses I talked about yesterday, inspired by Paul Cadmus' work. He did an amazing job, and they were great poses. I did not draw them from the same vantage point as Cadmus, but I like them anyway. However...I will keep these poses in mind because they really were amazing from the other side of the room!

In the top drawing I spent alot of time on the supports/environment - the lighting was wonderful, and by adding in the supports I could double-check my relationships of arm to arm, elbow to knee, etc.

The second drawing is in graphite, which I haven't done in YEARS because I adore charcoal so much. I started with a 3H, then used an HB, then finished with a 6B to push the shadows a little further. It was hard to not BLEND which I always do with charcoal - it was more controlled and purposeful in my drawing. Overall a great night of drawing!

Figure Drawing - Male Nude Model, a Charcoal Drawing on Grey Board

We had one of our best models last night at Shane's studio. Mike does amazing gesture work, and also has a very strong "stage presence" which helps us create powerful drawings. He puts a lot of thought into his poses and takes great (physical!) pain to hold poses for a long time.

This is about an hour and a half drawing, done with charcoal pencils in grey, black, and white on grey mat board.


Mike is also posing for our drawing group this evening, and I'm inspired by the work of Paul Cadmus - Mike reminds me of his models - so I think we will do some poses inspired by Cadmus' amazing figure work.