Drawing with intention.

I paint, but know how to draw.  To have given it up for color, composition and paint technique – I use it only to indicate where dark darks and lights are,where the composition should live. I draw in my sketchbook,for assignments and story boards, but rarely to finish. Today in class I lectured about perception and maintaining a clear mindset to overcome the materials. Not let the school dictate your course, and to use the resources available through the past masters (museums, books, peers). We drew from the model, first doing 1 minute poses, then up to 5. All in charcoal on drawing paper – I circle the room and call out ideas on how the background dictates what is happening in the figure. The model had a very bad attitude, and I later found out it was due to the kids sitting on the stand. She was also rolling her eyes at kids, and had a generally uneasy way about her. The kids, regardless of the models shitty attitude, made the best of it. I am starting to see real progress, and the marks are beginning to take on a more random, interesting pattern. The background is so important in drawing the figure, as it is in painting. Beauty is in the eye of the artist. It is up to us to see the beauty and capture what it is, not let it move away. Something that appears beautiful can seem ugly a moment later – and to recall and memorize what it is that attracted you in the first place is quintessential to a strong outcome.

This painting is what I’m working on this week. I also have a small landscape going. I have been studying faces,animals and skulls – neglecting my landscape lineage. I am coming back to the pleine air experience!

I can’t wait to get absorbed in nature –  in the mixture of green and umber. In breathing air and working without stopping.