I've been attending life drawing sessions on a regular basis for over 45 years. But, I haven't posted many on this blog. We do timed drawings starting with 1 minute sketches, then 3 minute, and up until we get to one or two 20 minute poses. lately we've been finishing up with a 30 or 40 minute pose. It may be the best way to keep that eye coordination sharp. Here's the 25 minute pose from last night.

 

Here's a second quad of drawings I did while doing a residency in Italy. The top drawings are from Rome and others are from Farindola. Farindola is a small town in eastern Italy that was built over a thousand years ago. Old town is full of folksy romance with its’ thick stone walls, barrel tile roofs and narrow pathways.

#linearPERSPECTIVE#atmosphericPERSPECTIVE#artist#residency#fineART#art#artwork#drawing##pencil#graphite#style#Rome#Italy#Farindola#outdoor#vacation#creative#travel#abroad#mountains#wine#abruzzo#lazio#molise#nationalPARK#southFLORIDA#pleinAIR#architecture#colosseum

 Some of the 30 composition/value studies done on a recent artists residency in Italy. I was honored to be one of six south Florida artists invited to do a 12 day residency in Farindola, Italy. I did some watercolors too but this is a drawing blog. We spent a few days in Rome first, hence the Colosseum sketch.

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 Third and final version of this figure. Yet another finishing treatment to keep things interesting.

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 Second version of this subject. Same image but different finishing treatment. I'm bringing back a series thing I used during the first year of my blog.

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Saw this girl at the airport. Took it as an opportunity to do some work with style treatment. 

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 The drawing a day feature of my blog ended after the first year. Since then I have posted drawings only occasionally.

Here are studies from a life drawing sessions I attend twice a month.

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 We had a small reunion of sorts. Friends seeing friends after a few decades. We met up near St. Augustine. Quite a nice weekend

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 Here are some recent on-site or plein aire value sketches with their notan or near notan preliminary thumbnail sketches. I do the very small preliminary sketches to get the basic values before I move to the larger value sketches.

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 I did this one a few months back. I thought our life drawing model struck an unusually nice pose so I worked it up later into a finished drawing.

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 I did this a while back, not sure why I never posted it. I think it fits well on the blog, so here it is. It's a little neighborhood home in Ft Lauderdale, Fl, probably built in the 50s or 60s. I liked the underlying abstract shapes in the composition.

# linearPERSPECTIVE #atmosphericPERSPECTIVE #artist #fineART #art #artwork #drawing #pencil #style #house #creative #door #plants #Florida #southFLORIDA

 I've continued to work on a figure drawing styling/treatment lately. I think the technique is working. I'm feeling good about the progress. Here's a recent drawing.

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 Here are some hand studies in a style I've developed recently. 

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 I've recently developed a fuller richer method of life drawing. I've been doing life drawing from a model all my life and this method helps me do better finished life drawing work. Hopefully this method will translate to other subjects such as landscape, still life, etc.

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 A quick life drawing from several years back.

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 Here's some practice learning how the standard planes of the face work with our individual differences.

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 I did this pastel at home today. I've been keeping in practice during this Covid thing. This is from a photo of Green Cay Preserve in Boca Raton. It's a beautiful place to visit and paint, I'm pretty sure it's closed right now though. I haven't gotten out to paint onsite in quite a while, it's very hot out here in south Florida. Although I have some friends that have been painting out, they're really troopers!

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 I went back to on-site life drawing after just remote life drawing for a few months. After several standard realistic drawings I couldn't resist a creative approach. This one is obviously influenced by Pablo Picasso and the Cubists. Maybe a little Paul Klee or even Fernand Leger.

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Still doing life drawing via Zoom. Not a bad way to keep the drawing chops up. Here's our model who now lives in Georgia. I thought I'd try toned paper to see what I can do with it.

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A friend found me some coconuts so I've updated my drawing with a fuller treatment. I actually used the same pencil but took a little different approach. So, in the future I'll use different implements to see what results. It might be interesting to see.

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We've been doing something different lately. Our friend Libby has been hosting life drawing sessions for the last year or so. She now has set up life drawing sessions online amid the Covid 19 crisis. Very different but much better than doing nothing during this time. It's good to see friends and get some drawing in. In this drawing you'll notice Noel is wearing pajamas, a statement on what's happening in our lives.

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Here's a drawing session of something familiar in these parts. Growing up in Key West Florida we kids learned how to open these with our bare hands. We'd have to slam them on the ground a few times first to loosen the husk. Turns out they're also good subjects to practice drawing. I used a mechanical pencil for these which gives a clean crisp line. I'm going to have to do another coconut drawing session using different types of pencils to see the different looks that result.

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Yes, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything. I've been busy working on my plein aire painting. I dug this old drawing up and I think it deserves to be posted. I was concentrating on design mostly when working on this one. It's a view from the north end of Smathers Beach in my home town of Key West, FL. I think it owes treatment style to both Paul Cezanne and maybe even the Surrealists.

#fineART #artwork #art #drawing #pencil #graphite #keyWEST #floridaKEYS #florida #southFLORIDA #tropical ##outdoor #nature #ocean #pelican #shorebird #shoreline #jetty #landscape # linearPERSPECTIVE #island #seashore #atmosphericPERSPECTIVE #avantGarde #AudubonSOCIETY #southernmostCITY #southernmostISLAND #southernmostPoint #southernmostTIP

Here's another one I did a while back. Not sure why I never posted. Growing up in Key West, Florida, this was a familiar sight to me. I think shrimp boats are going away though, a friend said they're not building them anymore. Maybe a little Paul Cezanne Influence but mostly Andrew Wyeth.

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I've gone back to doing some life drawing with some friends lately. I think I've found a nice combination of drawing implements that work well together. Here's the final drawing from last nights figure session.

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I've been up in Jupiter, Fl. this week painting with some of the participants in the Plein Air Festival sponsored by the Lighthouse Art Center. A good place to see the state of plein aire painting in America today. Here's a pastel I did at Riverbend Park today.

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It's been a while so let me post this still life of random objects from the studio. This one is pretty straight forward without too much of a creative finish.

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I was looking through some drawings and came across this block study. Definitely owes a debt to Paul Cezanne.

#artwork #fineART #art #artist #drawing #pencil #style #stillLife #creative #blockSTUDY

Well here is an example of the 'keeping tuned' process. This is something most artists don't do enough of. These are notan/value studies I did while watching some safari videos. I think doing these kinds of studies is similar to a musician practicing scales. It helps an artist keep tuned with the most important part of a painting, design and composition.

#fineART #artwork #art #drawing #pencil #style #nature #wildlife #value study #safari #leopard #ranger #giraffe #antelope #warthog #savanna #notan #africa #savanna

Another one I painted over a year ago. I'm not sure why I didn't post it. This is from a lovely public gardens in Palm Beach.

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