first sketch for portrait

A 20 minute sketch of F. in prep for a 2 hour oil painting.

Pencil on Strathmore drawing paper.

G's portrait

Not sure I'll go back to tweak this one, but it's dry enough for scanning.

I'm doing 11x14s, which don't completely fit on the scanner. But I get a better jpg that way compared to taking a quick photo.

Daniel Smith oils on canvas board.

J in the chair, halfway done

This is 2 hours into the painting. It's dry now, and I'll go back to work on it more, but decided to scan it while I could.

I did the ground in chromium green acrylic with a textured finish. Then drew him in ultramarine, before painting the rest during his session.

I'm beginning to get the hang of this alla prima life painting in oils, I think! Though if I go back to work on this, it's not alla prima anymore.

Daniel Smith oils on canvas board.

blue man on orange

My first alla prima portrait, with an unusual ground color--Octoberish/pumpkin, with ultramarine blue plus some white, for the figure.

One of the artists found this man in the Apple store and asked him if he would model. He agreed, and was excellent at doing it. Turns out that he is a potter and used to artists.

On 300# gessoed watercolor paper.

all 6B, sketching from a photo

Practicing, always practicing.

6B pencil on Strathmore drawing paper, but somehow it scanned much darker.

J. leaning on the chairback

I've been going to life drawing 2-3 times a week. We have 3-hour one-pose sessions (in 20-min. segments) because nearly everyone paints an oil in that time.

That's a total luxury and I've learned to slow down, or change positions to get a different angle for my drawings.

And I'm going to start painting too, just to take advantage of this special setup while it is still going. A rare opportunity to learn from the painters around me.

Pencil on Strathmore drawing paper.

M. head

M is a storyteller and commenter on life. Sometimes we need to tell her to stop talking so we can draw her face in a still position.

Charcoal on Strathmore drawing paper..

Anger and dejection, portrayed

J. really did have this expression, though it was not apparent that's how she felt.

When life models totally relax into the pose, muscles settle with gravity.

Pencil on Strathmore drawing paper.

R. in vine charcoal

Soft charcoal on mi-teintes paper. The hand is not what it should be.

G with a yellow earring

In vine and willow charcoal. Transportation home smeared it a teense, but practice was the point.

On Strathmore drawing paper, which is not great for charcoal. The paper gave up holding on to the charcoal so I had to quit sooner than I'd like.

Paper makes SUCH a difference, whatever the medium is.

T in simulated meditation

A modern Buddha, who can hold really still for drawing.

Pencil on Strathmore drawing paper.

leaning model

J. leaned on one arm and it's amazingly challenging to draw a slanted face onto the square of the paper. The perspective is harder to place the features. But I managed a very good likeness. Charcoal on Mi-Tients paper.

man from newspaper ad

Drawn from a photo printed in a local newspaper ad. Pencil on Strathmore drawing paper.

Tommy Lee Jones in ballpoint

From a magazine cover, on copy paper.

Piper self portrait

Another drawing from the 500 Self Portraits book. Her name is Piper. Pencil in the journal.

Chirico self portrait

I have a book named "500 Self Portraits" and drew this artist, Chirico. I know nothing about him but he has a lot of attitude here.

Pencil on a DS w/c ground, painted on the smooth journal paper.

drawing from a paused video

I really like finding interesting faces while I'm watching a Netflix video, such a great source for drawing practice.

This is Paul Strand, from a documentary on his photography career.

2B pencil on an index card.

reshaping a face

I'm playing with drawing a face, but changing some particular element and seeing how different the face becomes--familiar but not right.

In this case, the friend has a longer, more narrow face, but when I came back to look at this drawing, I see it's exactly like someone at work. A subtle morphing.

Pencil in the journal.

trying an acrylic alla prima portrait

Just for my documentation, posting a new experiment in learning. This my first try at a Karen Jurick-style alla prima portrait with strong colors. Though in the Globe photo of Bobby Valentine, his face was almost this red--white hair though, not yellow.

14x14 (but the scanner determined this bit), done in one hour. I had fun doing it and am not going back to tweak details or give him actual teeth, just learning from the process.

Georgia O'Keefe

I seldom draw from a photo, but besides her interesting features, I was fascinated by this tangle of fingers.

Graphite, in the journal.