"Helping" All Drawn Out and Ready to Go

22 x 30, Fabriano Artistico Rough paper

There was no way I was going to draw out all those flowers and stuff, so effort concentrated on the 3 subjects and some of the shadow shapes so I don't forget about them.  This and the next stage are my favorite parts of painting, where all potential lies ahead and no screw-ups have yet occurred.  

The Critic

Drawing at the MFA  watercolor  14 x 10.5

Getting used to making art while John Q Anybody looks over your shoulder can be daunting, but it's one of those skills to acquire along with stuff like proportion, shading, focus, etc.  After all, it's communication, isn't it?  You're supposed to want people to want to look at it.  Fortunately, that gets easier over time.  The real skill is to get to the point where you just don't care if anybody else likes it, so long as you do.

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.

...And Now for Something Completely Different

5-1/2 x 9" watercolor

The local colleges have started up their drawing co-ops for the semester, and I plan to take advantage of the opportunity to work on my drawing skills with live models. I was very rusty, my sense of proportion and perspective completely missing in action. This is the best of the bunch, probably because I settled down with familiar materials and a tried and true approach. However, if this is going to benefit me as I hope, I will have to bite the bullet and stick to pencil or charcoal, without the luxury of resorting to a couple of fresh washes for a quick fix. Why do I want to work on drawing skills? Because my personal "vision" involves using watercolor in a more expressive, less literal way, more as an augmentation for the drawn line -- and THAT needs to be a whole lot more expressive. No more filling in coloring book shapes; I can certainly draw with accuracy, but that's not enough of a reason to make art. I think Ijust might be at that crossroads I didn't used to understand.