Today's Life Drawing

Patricia ~ 30 minute pose with Flair pen and Doc Martin Hydrus watercolors

Am pushing through my feeling of awkwardness with the Doc Martin Hydrus watercolors, but still don't feel I have accomplished what I have been hoping for.  I want to be looser, yet, have an economy of strokes and clear and confident applications of color ... not necessarily the "right" colors, but colors that "work."  The pose was Patricia's best of the day.  She is the same model as the one in the cowboy hat in a recent post.  I have to say, she is still not my favorite, and the drawings I have done, are not my favorites either.  I could say it doesn't matter, it does, but there's always next week, and lots of room for improvement.

Spring is on the way ... I PROMISE!

I like this bird better, but went too far with the background

I got a little heavy-handed with the spray bottle

We painted robins on Saturday, while it was pouring with rain, and the wind was gusting to 40-50 knots.  It was kind of fun to immerse ourselves in painting robins, harbingers of spring.  I am still playing with my Doc Martin Hydrus watercolors, so I tried  to make mine have a little character by "sketching" the birds with the Doc Martin droppers.  Then I drag the color with a wet brush, then spray with water. I really enjoy doing that, and then waiting for the results, often not what I expect.  Even so, the robins are arrivng, yet the snow geese and the swans are still here.  The fields are morphing from winter drab to yellow and green with daffodils, so the tulips can't be far behind.

For that, I have to start assembling work for the Tulip Festival and our Art Bash Show.  Painting is more fun than matting and framing!

Good Model Today

Ten minute pose charcoal



Ten minute pose on Tyvek with Dr Martins Hydrus Watercolors ~ A little heavy-handed on the sap green to offset the indian red that also got heavy-handed!



Twenty minute pose on 140# Arches with Dr Martins Hydrus Watercolors ~ More ultramarine on this one.  It works better, I think



Twenty minute pose on Arches 140#
Dr Martins Hydrus Watercolors

Twenty minute pose on Arches 140# with Dr Martins Hydrus Watercolors ~ That's his thumb hanging down!

Jahman is a wonderful model, and has a gorgeous body.  He holds poses, and knows how to best show himself to the group.  Now, with such a terrific model, I have no excuses.  Even so, I was not "on" myself today. 

I am trying to see which combination of paint and surface will work the best for me, using the Tyvek, the Doc Martins, and Arches.  I am still using too much pigment when I "draw" with the Doc Martins droppers.  I am intending to "punch through" pretty soon, and break the code!  I love using Doc Martins, but need to figure out what's going to work best.  Stay tuned.

Have you tried it?



Have you been to the Virtual Paintout blog [Virtual Paintout] yet? I am hooked on the concept, but haven't submitted anything so far.   Blogger Bill Guffey hosts the site and challenges artists to use the Street View of Google Maps to locate a "site" and do a virtual plein aire image of what the artists find in the designated city of the month.

The current city is Cape Town South Africa, and Bill has a Google map on his site on which to clack and get the Street View.  I toyed with the function for a while, and found lots of suburban streets, some highways, etc, and one or two terrific views of the ocean.  What I really wanted to find was people, and indeed I did.  Remarkable.  I "went" to the City Center, and and found some shopping streets, and just roamed the streets to find some local color.  I did find some wonderful images, and THOUGHT I lifted them correctly, downloaded them into Photoshop to tweak and rotate, retaining the street info, etc., and thought about how I might paint them.  Then, I went back to the Virtual Paintout to review the protocols.   I found out that I didn't identify the images correctly, so I can't use the ones I lifted to submit.  I now know what to do to use an image for the paintout, but can't find the original images again!  Oh well, I WILL do it correctly soon, and I still may paint the ones I found.

Even though I may missed painting something for the blog, I had a lovely virtual visit to Cape Town, and can't wait for what's next!  So far, there are some marvelous paintings done by artists who have figured it all out.  Wouldn't it be fun to join them?   

Tuesday's Life Drawing

Ten minute pose is tight.  The model was tight, and I was tight

Awkward ten minute pose and a play with Tyvek and Doc Martins

Of the bunch, this was my favorite, but can you see how tight she is?  That doesn't excuse MY tightness but it added to the challenge



Another twenty minute pose and still tight.  Not my favorite model



This one is from last week's session.  Better sketch, looser model, which, I believe helped ME be looser.  Done with a Flair felt tip pen and brushed with water.  This model is a dancer and currently going to circus school.  Grace and poise made it a better day.



The tulips are coming, the tulips are coming!

The snow is almost gone, and Skagit Valley will soon be ablaze with color.  Acres and acres of tulips bracketed by the foothills of the Cascades and Puget Sound.  The month-long Annual Tulip Festival starts April 1st, and so will an abundance of art shows presented by the various art groups in the Valley.  So many artists paint tulips, of course, because that's what visitors buy when they are here.  I enjoy the tulips, but, frankly, I am "over" most tulip field watercolor paintings that I have DONE, and that I see each year.  

So, in a drop-in watercolor class, the group was doing tulips, and I chose not to do what they were doing but to "play" with my Dr Ph Martins Hydrus Watercolors.  Because I am still "feeling them out," and experimenting with them,  I tend to get heavy-handed and overdo.  And, I am still experimenting with Tyvek, never sure what the medium will do on that, so I like, but don't LOVE, the tulips above. To camouflage the amateur work, I spattered the painting with metallic acrylic ink, again, just playing. I am "getting there," and will still keep on trying, but this is an effort that may end up in the pile ... my gallery in the closet.  

To absolve myself in the group of pretty traditional tulip painters, I did a quick more traditional tulip painting, again with the Dr Ph Martin Hydrus Watercolors, that might redeem myself in the wonderful world of tulip art this spring.

We'll see ...  Maybe I should try some daffodils.  I need some remedial flower painting classes!

   

Sketching at Gere-a-Deli's

Some of my students just started a sketch group recently, and I was able to join them on Monday because I didni't have to teach.  It was great fun and, now that I have been snowed in for a couple of days, I appreciate the opportunity even more.  We met at a local luncheon place, and because it was President's Day, there was more activy than usual, and lots of subjects to sketch.  We had to work quickly, which in its way was good skill building, but the results were varied.  In any case, fun was had by all.  A few sketches below ...

Composite of three folks at separate tables

Family of seven ~ Mom, dad, five kids and a sixth on the way

Love the beret.  This guy was fun to sketch.  As I was finishing up, I noticed his anarack was not the same as it had been, and I saw it move in a funny way.  All of a sudden, a little dog's head popped out of his chest to finish reading the newspaper.  The beret and the pup got up to leave before I could "catch" him.  Amazing!  You never know what will be next when you sketch in public places!