Climbing Out (II)

After finishing the colorful painting Climbing Out, I was on a roll, and did another. This time I focused on the graphic nature of the picture, but since I love pen and ink drawing, completed it in black and white.

Climbing Out II. 4" x 4". Pen and ink on Bristol. 2015

They work as a pair, so I plan to mount them together for hanging. I found this cool metal sign thing at the craft store, so I'll be putting them together on that- once I figure out how to without potentially damaging the surfaces of the paintings/drawing. Hmmm. Need to do some research!

Climbing Out

As I've been creating more faces for my gallery show next summer at Fuller Lodge Art Center, I've been going through many photos from my stash (it's also been an excellent chance to get rid of lots of really bad ones!). I love the facial expression on this guy's face and the perspective was very intriguing– he was climbing out of a hole in some rocks, likely in Wyoming or Colorado, though time does funny things to the clarity of memories...

Climbing Out (Color). Watercolor. 4" x 4" 2015

I cropped the original photo quite a bit and did several prep sketches to decide how exactly I wanted to go about the presentation since the photo wasn't really good enough to try to capture any realism (and who wants to do that all the time anyway?). I chose to go bold and bright, with shadows reduced to graphic shapes.

Behind the Scenes of Climbing Out (Color)

I really enjoyed having to think differently about this one, and about how best to get a sense of depth with a limited palette and shading. And it led to the next face (next week!).

Blind Contour

I've managed to get to a couple of life drawing sessions with a local group, which has been good to do. I'm not passionate about drawing the human figure from life but I know it's excellent practice, and it's nice to have time set aside with others to do this. I haven't yet made any masterpieces, but I really liked this blind contour from one session. Actually, this lady was great to draw and although I got a few more acceptable drawings from the evening, this one is my favorite.

I love the freedom and craziness that can come from not looking at your paper as you draw. When a blind contour ends up pretty accurate, it can be a delightful surprise!