I've been ranging around again this month, going from small pencil sketches to large-scale oil painting and everything in between. Sometimes I'll settle on a certain way of working, as in the mixed-media drawings below. The only constants seem to be outdoor painting and work from the model. I've been thinking about still-life and landscape-based abstraction, but my attention keeps returning to the figure.
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| "Looking Left"-black pencil on paper, 8" X 5" |
I draw & paint from the model every week. In good weather, we work outside. The complexity
of space and color in natural light almost always generates unexpected results.
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| "Figure On A Garden Swing"-acrylic on wood, 12" X 12" |
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| "Figure In Gray"-acrylic on canvas, 12" X 9" |
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| "Figure & Lemon Tree"-acrylic on paper, 12" X 9" |
The sources for this set of mixed-media drawings are usually photographs and previous drawings. Sometimes, as in the case of the first image in this group, I reverse standard practice and let a completed painting serve as a study for the drawing.
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| "Garden Table"-mixed media on paper, 12" X 9" |
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| "Figure, Shoe & Shadow"-mixed media on paper, 9" X 7" |
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| "Arranging Her Hair"-mixed media on paper, 9" X 7" |
Large-scale painting can be as intimate as a sketchbook drawing. This 4x5-foot canvas had the usual sources, a drawing from the model & a photograph from the drawing session. There's an odd combination of early & late 20th century approaches to the figure here. The challenge was to connect the elements of the composition through the tactile nature of the surface. I'm not sure it all works, but then again, I'm often the worst judge of my own work.
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| "Leaflin In Light"-oil on canvas, 48" X 60" |
