Color Pencil over Gesture. It was a contemplative day in the art classroom. Students were drawing self portraits and I had time to join them. Our discussion was on 'Reflection'. The image we see of ourselves in the mirror is not what people see when they look at us. They see the reverse. The mole on my cheek is on the other side of my face, if you were to look at me in person. This leads to discussions of perception and reality. It can be fun and humbling. We cannot live only by sight. We must have a faith of some sort. This reminds me of the Michael Feldman Public Radio Program called: "Whad'Ya Know?" It opens with the audience shouting: "Whad'd Ya Know?" and Michael replying: "Not Much! You?". We do not know much, I think, as much as we like to pretend that we think we do.
Kierkegaard said we undersand life by looking back, but we must live life forward. On a trip to the Chicago Art Institute with a group of students, I penned the students behind me and then I penned the rapidly moving images I saw through the front window of the bus . I still do not understand life except that perhaps it is full of energy and art and love.
I've been playing with gesture drawing of humans and animals. Here are some quick pencil sketches of horses in motiion. 2B and 6B pencils on Canson sketch pad paper.
Patron Saint of Lost Keys and Small Things.
Reminded me of this poem by Elizabeth Bishop.
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
These are some gesture drawing sketches I did in ink with white pen highlights on brown paper. I was in Europe and sitting around a fountain watching people go about their lives. This was a really fun figure study and I think people make for great works of art.
Well, I'm joining the Tumblr exodus, which is unfortunate because that's where I post all my sketches! Oh well. Hello DoodleAddicts! This was half of a recent assignment for a figure drawing 2 class, to draw our model in low key lighting. :) Time: 30 mins Medium: Charcoal on Paper
I finally did it. I completed my 100 gestures Challenge. You can do a gesture in 2-3 minutes (or even faster if you are trained), so you can complete such challenge in 4-5 hours. I decided to do gesture drawing as a habit, take some extra time to select poses which I find interesting and draw on most of the days at least one gesture. I started in April and now I'm done in December, which means 7 months later. As it is now a habit I will not stop drawing gestures after the challenge, but I passed a milestone. Thanks for watching.
I tried to work on my gesture drawing this meetup. The red marked are my favorite. I have tried to reduce the figure to just the flowing lines. It is very satisfying to draw like this
Well, I'm joining the Tumblr exodus, which is unfortunate because that's where I post all my sketches! Oh well. Hello DoodleAddicts! This was half of a recent assignment for a figure drawing 2 class, to draw our model in high key lighting. :) Time: 30 mins x 2 Medium: Charcoal on Paper
Did some more gesture drawings today,this might be my last day of doing them at least for a couple of days I want to do more of the features of the body, like hands and feet and definitely get some more practice into doing eyes.
