905.

A charcoal illustration using the seed word 'squares':

"Meanwhile, Elsewhere in Squareville", Charcoal on Paper, 16" x 20"

This was a fun little piece to do, drawing miniature copies of well-known paintings with all the faces turned into squares and having a square-headed girl looking at them. The paintings are: Whistler's Mother (Whistler), The Scream (Munch), Tahitian Women on the Beach (Gauguin), American Gothic (Wood), Self-Portrait (Van Gogh), Mona Lisa (Da Vinci), The Persistence of Memory (Dali), Girl with the Pearl Earring (Vermeer).

The hardest part about this piece was to figure out the proportions of all these paintings relative to each other. The above drawing is to scale in that, were you to place all these famous paintings on the same wall, this is how they would appear next to each other. The big surprise for me was how small Dali's Persistence of Memory painting is, and how large Whistler's mother is...

906.

A still life in black and white charcoal:

Another view of my studio space:

907.

Two still life drawings in charcoal:

908.

More light and shadow studies of slightly not-so-simple shapes using charcoal and paper:

909.

Another visualization for the word 'Map'. This is a pen-and-ink drawing in the style of ancient maps.

I was studying human surface anatomy (as part of figure drawing) and the word map made me think of 'a map of surface anatomy' which is what this drawing is labeled as (in latin).

The shape of the actual figure itself is a little homage to George Bridgman, whose books on figure drawing are classics and studied by art students everywhere.

Framed Drawing

910.

Illustrating the word 'map', starting with a quick digital sketch then translated into acrylic paints:

Digital Sketch using Sketchbook Pro

Lost, Acrylic on Canvas, 18" x 24"

911.

A more complex object, studying light and shadow:

Black and White Charcoal on Toned Paper

912.

Figure drawing studies (following the work of George Bridgman) as well as more figure-drawing from life:

 

 

 

 

913.

This was an Atelier exercise to do a piece of art for the word 'Vessel'.

Vessel, Charcoal on Toned Paper, 18 x 24"

For those familiar with russian folk-lore, yes, this is an image of Baba Yaga. The word vessel has multiple meanings, including something that flies and something that travels over water.  Baba Yaga flies in a  mortar & pestle and lives in a hut that walks on chicken legs - which ties in nicely to the word vessel. This was my first attempt at illustrating something using charcoal pencils on toned paper.

914.

Atelier: Moving up from simple round globes to more complex shapes, still focusing on light and shadow...

Charcoal on toned paper

Charcoal on toned paper

915.

Beginning life drawing:

1-minute poses

5-minute poses

20-minute poses

916.

Whew. It's been a while since I posted.... art school is keeping me phenomenally busy. I joined the Aterlier Program at Gage Academy of Art - which is a full-time all-intensive studio-practice and learning program divided between observational studies, life room drawing, concept illustrations, and personal projects.

Observational studies means looking at things and trying to draw them accurately, starting with simple shapes. The simplest of all shapes is, of course a sphere. Here's a bunch of studies of light falling on spheres using a variety of drawing materials. Eventually, the same principles of light and shadow apply to all curved objects.

Basic Setup

Here's what my studio space looked like after the first week or so: