Blue Ribbon Nude

14 x 11 watercolor and charcoal

I'm actually quite excited about this piece! Not that it's so special, but that finally I am beginning to see where I want to go in my artwork. What I like about this is the hit-and-miss, hide-and-seek of drawn line and painted form, of 2D and 3D taking turns. Is it a drawing or a painting? Don't know, don't care. Also, some of my purist tendencies may be waking up to the magic of mixing media, of using whatever works best for what I'm striving for.

Drawing Studio Sketches

As mentioned before, I have made a commitment to drawing more in order to paint better. So I joined a drawing co-op at one of the local colleges which features a live model for 3 hours. These are from my 2nd session. I am a little more comfortable being there and engaged in the drawing process, but still find it difficult to settle in and do something more than straight rendering/ documenting. My long term goal is to be more expressive in my drawing, and this will undoubtedly take some time to find my "zone" -- whatever that is. But that's part of it, too; finding MY zone, instead of mimicking somebody else's because theirs looks cool.

I had specific goals for this session: 1) to attend no matter how tired I was or whatever other excuse I might have, and to stay the entire three hours 2) to chose views which foreshortened the head, and 3) to not take anything but a sketchbook and a pencil so as to be forced to draw with no means to "save" it with a few pretty watercolor washes (as in earlier post 9/27). Mission accomplished. I am actually looking forward to next week, and some new goals.