Posts in Category: drawing
Local folklore
Sacred Book
Dancing Jew
Finally some sketches from Israel. It was hard to find an opportunity to upload and post sketches, but at last here are two. Just simple pencil studies of local folklore. Hopefully now that I got access to a computer, figured out how to scan images and downloaded GIMP to process them more sketches will come soon.
Hello and shalom to all my friends back home!
First life drawings
Lora
Victoria at Tojo
This week was both very exciting and very frustrating at the same time – I attempted drawing a life figure. Both drawings are long pose, one hour each. Both model were so beautiful, but I can’t say the same about my drawings – that’s the frustrating part. These are done in two separate locations, the first – in my class where the teacher invited a model for us to try in our chosen media, and the second – in Tojo Gallery.
The first drawing didn’t go well for me at all, body parts wouldn’t come coherently together in short poses. In a long pose due to my sheer determination the drawing resembles a human form. I erased the head 5 times… This was probably the most difficult undertaking in my entire (short) art life.
I realized that I cannot allow myself to give up just because it was so difficult. Just the opposite: because it was so difficult I had to do it again. I found drop-in figure drawing sessions here in Chicago and went there. It was just the same difficult, the short poses (1 min, 5 min) are a killer – it takes me just about that long to decide where to start. I did better with 10 and 15 min poses. The long one was going OK until I peeked at other easels during a break, my clumsy attempt was the worst of them. The difficult part was to push this thought out of my head and continue. I know I will become better if I persist, perhaps not brilliant, but at least proficient.
For being alive
For being alive
An almost first attempt at figure. After I sketched about a dozen marble statues in the Art Institute I felt brave enough to try for a finished figure drawing. This is a graphite study for a painting. I am still working on a painting, and if it will come out decent I will post it here.
A couple of words about the title. “For being alive” is a half a line from an English translation of a Russian poem by Osip Mandelstam. The poem was written in 1909.
For my guests who read Russian, here is the first stanza:
Дано мне тело – что мне делать с ним,
Таким единым и таким моим?
За радость тихую дышать и жить
Кого, скажите, мне благодарить?
And a translation by A. S. Kline:
What shall I do with this body they gave me
so much my own, so intimate with me?
For being alive, for the joy of calm breath,
tell me, who should I bless?
This is not a bad translation, better than many I come across while trying to bring my husband to the magic of Russian poetry. The mood and quiet intimacy of the original poem was nicely preserved. Unfortunately the music and the cadence of Mandelstam’s wordsmithing are lost in translation, as is the case with too many poems of that period. I guess there is no helping that.
9″ x 12″ (23 x 30 cm) graphite on paper
Geb
Geb
Geb was the Egyptian god of the Earth and a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. The name was pronounced as Geb from the Greek period onward or as Keb. He was the husband of Nut – the Sky, and fathered 4 children with her – Osiris, Set, Isis and Nephthys. As deity, he became associated with the habitable land of Egypt, it’s cultivation and harvest. (More on Geb in Wikipedia).
I imagine if Geb had ever taken a form of a man, he might have looked like this. Isn’t mythology great?!
In reality the story is much more prosaic. As told by a fellow artist from WetCanvas, the man worked as a guard at the temple complex of Karnak, Egypt. He was one of those guards who, when no one is looking, would show you all the places no one else will show you (of course!) and then ask for money, and that’s when you realize you’ve been had. This man was better than others though, he did not blatantly ask for money and agreed to pose for photos. He is now known around the world as many have drawn and painted him for the wonderful worn face full of character.
I’ve been working on this portrait since November 2009. Had to pause for a time to teach myself negative drawing – I couldn’t get the white beard/stubble right by any other method. Then I waited for Hi-Polymer 0.3mm graphite leads to arrive, because my regular 2mm lead pencils were too fat and too shiny for the task. This is the third version of the beard, not counting numerous trials in my sketchbook. As it sometimes happens to me, I was afraid this drawing would go unfinished because my skills were not up to this challenge. It looks like I was wrong.
7.5” x 9” (19 x 23 cm) Graphite on Bristol Smooth 300 Series.
Sly
Sly
sly (sl
)
Too bad about my paper. I chose to draw on Stonehenge with the thought that this would be only a study. This paper is a bit too rough for a young skin like that and shows too much tooth. Bristol Smooth paper would’ve been much better.
6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm), graphite on Stonehenge.
“Like a rolling stone”
Like a rolling stone
New portrait is complete. I probably spent 30 or 40 hours on it, but that’s over the course of 4 weeks. I don’t know who the guy is, the original photo is by amazingly talented Christine Lebrasseur. I had Bob Dylan continuously sounding in my head while I was drawing, and therefor the title is “Like a rolling stone.” My fellow graphite artists from WetCanvas! Drawing & Sketching forum have helped me tremendously by giving constructive critique in the most gentle and useful way.
3H-6B pencils on Stonehenge paper, size 6.25″ square.
Café Ennui
From Café Ennui
But I was not at all bored. My friend Mike and I got together for coffee and sketching in this dear neighborhood joint. Not trendy or snazzy, it is more of a cheap student place, old-fashioned, a little dumpy and in need of fresh paint, but serving good coffee and free Internet.
From my street level window, looking up, I saw an abandoned patio, now empty and closed for the coming winter. The café is on a garden level, so I had to look up at chairs turned in and a convenience shop across the street. The day was gray and blustery, I was looking for shadows to draw, but there were none, because there was no sun. Winter is coming…
Mechanical pencil, micron pen, watercolor pencils in my Artist’s HandBook.
Chicago Cultural Center
Preston Bradley Hall, Chicago Cultural Center
Our Monday Sketch group met in Chicago Cultural Center today. Nobody can call us uncultured now! Us and about 90 Chicago seniors who happened to have some kind of event there. They looked about 80 and upward and were extremely frisky, running around like spring chickens, although some dragged their unused canes behind. I pray I would be that energetic when I get to be their age…
Chicago Cultural Center was built in 1897 at a cost of $2 million of that money. The firm of Shepley, Rutan and Collidge of Boston had the honor of doing it. These are the same guys who designed the Art Institute of Chicago.
We sketched in the Preston Bradley Hall on the third floor. Named in honor of an important Chicago theologian, the Hall is spectacular. The space is beautifully proportioned and exquisitely decorated: 38-foot tall Tiffany stained glass dome and Tiffany chandeliers, Carrara marble walls inlaid with mosaic of color stones, glass and mother-of-pearl, just to name a few things.
I was seduced by the curves of entryway arches and the ceiling and set out to sketch far too large of a view. You probably need to sit there for a week to do justice to the details. I had an hour and a half. Mechanical pencil and micron pen.
Sketching in Chicago
Artists-bloggers have been extremely kind to me. It deserves a separate post to express my gratitude. Pete Scully sent me a very useful tutorial and a title of a book that talks about sketching techniques. Christy DeKoning stopped by my blog and offered me useful advice and suggestions out of the kindness of her heart. Roz Stendahl answered my newbie questions. And finally Barbara Weeks of Drawing Breath, a fellow Chicagoan, a sketcher and a blogger, invited me to her sketch group. Thank you all!
On Monday I went to sketch with a new group. Chicago weather did not cooperate. It was blistering cold and windy, probably 20 degrees lower than it should have been this time of the year. But a group of women gathered to sketch in Mariano Park was undeterred. All 39-years-old and not a day more, we were sitting there – our noses red, pencils firmly clutched in our blue fingers – sketching, laughing and chatting. Barbara, it was a blast, even if it took several hours to regain my normal body temperature, – thank you so much!
This is what I produced on location.
Mariano Park 1
Well… When I showed it to my husband he asked which Chinese restaurant is this. I knew at that moment that I have to do the sketch again. The little building in my sketch is a coffee stand that was designed and built by Birch Burdette Long, a Frank Lloyd Wright student. I was blissfully ignorant of this fact until yesterday, when my fellow sketchers told me. Here’s my second attempt. I think this time it looks more Prairie School and less like a pagoda.
Mariano Park 2
Reading on it later I learned that Birch Long was the architect who brought Asian influences into Prairie style architecture, so my husband wasn’t that off the mark.
Gethsemane on Clark St.
Gethsemane on Clark St.
There is a giant pots sale in the Gethsemane Garden Center on Clark St. The pots are beautiful, they are tree size pots, substantial and heavy. Gethsemane is often on our trajectory as we walk in the neighborhood, we stop by and look at the flowers for sale, trees and bushes, and of course Christmas trees, depending on a season. “Pansies” gift shop there sparkles with beautiful and tempting curiosities from around the world, teapots, incense, porcelain, fabrics and art books. I warn you: it is wise to leave your wallet at home if you are planning to visit. Now that I think of it – they should pay me a percentage for all this advertisement I making for them in Blogosphere.
This sketch was giving me a run around, I attempted it 3 times. First I tried to do a true sketch with a quick gesture drawing. It was a complete failure. Note to self – need to practice gesture drawing. Then I tried to exercise more control, but it went nowhere as well, the shapes were not there, the line elegance and symmetry were lost. I didn’t want to give up this idea, so I doggedly set out to build my symmetries with a help of vertical center axis. Better. Perhaps I cannot call it a sketch anymore, but I got the image I had in mind on paper after all. Mechanical pencil, micron pen, watercolor pencils wash in my handbook.
Oh, my dad is sending me his watercolors, the true Russian ones, made in St. Petersburg. He says they have real “meat” in their colors, unlike anything else he tried. I am very excited to try real WC washes, although I will miss a variety of pre-made pigment mixes I have in WC pencils.