This is a 40-minute figure sketch done recently in red and white chalk on tan paper. Very soon to be a painting. The technique owes a lot to Greuze’s working methods. Or Dave Gibbons, take your pick.

This is a quick copy of one of my favorite drawings of all time, a piece by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. This is one of the drawings featured in Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters, and indelibly stamped on my brain. It’s supposed to be a study for a Roman story about charity and faith to one’s parents. (A version of this story was done excellently by Rubens, see below). However, I’ve always thought it would be better used as a pose for Susannah and the Elders.

Ideas for a painting composition I plan to tackle.

Close up of the most worked-through idea:

Another recent page from the sketchbook, again, all from my head. (Yes, even the parts where I’m working with the Ernesto pose from a couple of days ago.)

Here’s a close up of that back at the top of the page:

A recent page from the sketchbook. These are all doodles straight from my head. (Actually, those two plaster cast sketches at the top are from observation. They were sitting on top of my bookcase across the room.)

A warm-up drawing to get the feel for the model I hired a couple of weeks back.

Since it’s been over a month, I thought I would show some work on the drafting board as I type this.

Here’s the same drawing Photoshopped for use in the opaque projector, to transfer the image to the canvas:

One of the things I’ve learned for myself is that I work best with a strong linear underdrawing as a foundation for the painting to come. Not only is this good basic painting practice, it’s the best working method for me.

I’m working on a new series of self-portraits in strong lighting situations, involving poses that I couldn’t possibly paint from life. Yes, the camera is involved. There are two schools of thought on the use of the camera in fine art: one thinks this is sacrilege, and the other thinks that you should do whatever it takes to get the best painting. I’m of this second school of thought, though I’ve had my struggles convincing myself that this is the way to go. My rationale boils down to this: if you’re tracing over a photograph, using it as a substitute for good drawing skills and observation, then yes, you’re not doing yourself any favors, and your art will ultimately suffer for it. (If you’re doing art [not student studies for training] that is merely copying slavishly whatever is in front of you to exactitude, what is the point of the piece?) However, if the photos are being used as reference, or an expedient way to get the drawing done quickly in the face of inhuman deadlines (illustrators know what I’m talking about) then go ahead.

My use of them here is twofold: I wanted to do a series of self-portraits which are about a mood other than “the artist stares into a mirror, concentrating” and I want to make the paintings all about the application of the paint, in surprising and hopefully wonderful ways that while they coalesce into a realistic image, are not about that on a formal level. They’re about me putting the paint on the canvas in daring and unexpected ways, adding layers of enjoyment for the person who sees the painting in person. After all, the person who comes to see your painting in front of their face should be rewarded with more from the experience than looking at a reproduction in a book, no?

Anyway, with all of that aside, this is my working drawing for the first of this series. It’s a diagram, a correct drawing, but not a very “good” drawing from a pure drawing perspective. After all, I’m using it to tell me where the landmarks of light and shadow and shape are in the painting, and I don’t need a lot of artsy nonsense getting in the way of clear thinking.

So the final composition winner was this one, a odd down-angle on the protagonist and her Mr. Not-So-Right, and the man holding is hand behind his back to reveal to us his bloody shirt cuff. Uh-oh! This is where people start screaming at the screen telling her to run.

Anyway, this is the final drawing, done from some photo reference and a background mockup I did in Google SketchUp. What a great little program for Google to give away for free.

I also want to thank Kate Seidman of The Art Room Boutique and Paul Cary Goldberg for the wonderful opening on Snuday. We had quite a crowd for a cold February Sunday afternoon, and there were several times where the little store was packed to capacity. Thanks to all who came out!

This is a book cover piece. It’s a mock assignment on the Cennini Forum. Here’s the synopsis of the imaginary novel:  “set in an urban setting, Lucy is unaware that danger stalks her. A serial killer is on the loose and she is his next target. But her attentions are elsewhere since she met Charles. After only two weeks, the normally skeptical Lucy has been swept up in a love affair she’s only dreamed of. Charles is attentive, bright, handsome and…well, he’s perfect. Perhaps a little too perfect. This Hitchcockian thriller moves at a breath-taking pace with unexpected twists at every turn as a mysterious McGuffin falls into her lap, driving the story forward to it’s final surprise ending.”

So you can see it’s good fun. The above is my sheet of 32 compositional sketches, done in pencil with a little red tossed in for design considerations. I’ll show the final design tomorrow.

This is a piece I’m doing more on the editorial illustration side of things. I was ruminating on how to depict the current financial crisis, and I had the idea to do some pieces of a man in a business suit drowning and being thrown a life preserver. Through compositional sketches, this idea morphed into the idea of Uncle Sam up to his chest in heavy seas and forging ahead doggedly. It’s pretty hopeful and patriotic, when it comes down to it.

The figure is done from some reference I shot of myself in vest and shirt with alterations to the face and hair. The waves were largely made up while referring to various images of oceans that I searched for. I’ll have the color version tomorrow.

Sketching is essential to keeping up the drawing skills needed to progress as a realist artist. Everyone will say this, and yet so few people are driven enough to put in the time required to acquire the necessary draftsmanship. Anyway, I went down to the Sawyer Free Library last week to do some sketching and peruse the art book collection there. This guy I sketched was so interesting because he was basically just a face floating in a big black shape. He didn’t really seem keen on me staring at him (one of the hazards of borrowing someone for modeling unaware) so I had to do this while surreptitiously glancing at him to get the gist. The first image shows the complete sketchbook page, with an ink study of the overall shape of the guy on the left and a more accurate pencil sketch of his face on the right and in the second detail photo.

Then I thought it would be fun to do some work out of my head, so I did this figure sketch in pencil and then defined the light and form with some quick watercolor washes.

This is a new type of image I’m beginning to explore. I want to capture a bit of that thinking with lines that goes on in my sketch book, but with a line tool that’s a bit more varied than a pencil lead. This work is sumi ink on Rives printing paper.

Some more work from my imagination today. The above sketch is just me playing with the forms of the torso, trying to get some intense action as well as a feel of the constant interplay of tension between opposing muscle groups. I’m always interested in how these irregular forms of shifting density and hardness overlap, fold and pull against one another.

The sketch below is a little piece I did as a half-formed idea for a political cartoon. (Something I’ve gotten away from, but I used to do them all the time in middle school. Which should let you know just what a strange kid I must have been.) The idea here was “Super Obama” (the majority of the country’s current perception of our incoming president) tearing the roof off of a jalopy where an incredibly obese man (the auto industry) sits trying to commit suicide with a hose from the tailpipe stuck in the driver’s window. As he screams for help, Donkey Boy (Super Obama’s sidekick) looks on. I also thought of having “mighty mouse” (Dubya) flying in crying “Here I come to save the daaaay!!!”

Yes, well, anyway. Here’s the sketch.

This sketch is my effort at wrapping my head around the incredibly complex forms of waves crashing upon a rocky shoreline at high tide in heavy wind. Done after the oil sketch from yesterday, it sometimes helps a bit to get back to basics: just lines and trying to understand. Waves have consistently kicked my behind when I try to paint them, so more work is needed here. (By the way, those dots over the island are a wheeling flock of birds.)

All good work is done first with the pencil. These are a couple of doodles I did out of my head, without reference. The first is a compositional sketch for an upcoming painting, and the second is me playing around, sketching the figure. I’ve been reading a lot about Rubens lately.

Hanko, 5×7″, oil on panel. Purchase here.

Here’s a little piece which I think has a couple of problems. It’s a little skewed in the drawing, and the color for the top of the hanko is poorly observed…or just too flat…I’m not exactly sure. I have to think this one over for a while, see what comes to me. I think I’ll experiment more with this lighting setup though, as I’ve obviously gotten used to the two setups I’ve had until now: a spotlight and the light from the north window. This setup was a pocket LED flashlight on the table.