Fran O’Neill giving one of her beautiful talks about drawing a figure in interior with attention to space, composition, and marks, to a nervous crew of artists.
Today, after skittering around with tasks, I was able to attend Fran’s Giant Figures Workshop, held in the spacious light-filled Drawing and Painting Studios at the Seattle Artist League. Years ago, when Lendy and I looked at this big Equinox warehouse space, we had NYSS style drawing intensives like this in mind, so it was a long awaited happy day to open up the rooms, set up stages, and fill the studios with enthusiastic artists and their energy. Many core members of the League were in attendance. It was a reunion of friends and skills.
For model privacy and artist concentration, I did not pull out my camera while people were drawing, but I did catch a some works in progress (WIP) during breaks, and by chance, the yellow hat trio.
Breaktime in the drawing studioToday was yellow hat day, evidently
Here are a couple of sketches, plus my own.
WIP, Connie PiersonWIP, Jared PriceWIP, Lendy HensleyWIP, Mary Shea
This is one long pose. Lendy Hensley, Connie Pierson, and Mary Shea are in the Painting Studio, and Jared Price and I are in the Drawing Studio. My model was in the center of the room. Across the room, over her shoulder, I could see Marina Vogman drawing. Marks in the background of my drawing are Marina, working. If you’ve taken a figure drawing class, you may know the specific silence of collective concentration, with the rhythmic whispers of charcoal on paper. It is, for me, the highest bliss.
15 min, Ruthie V.
I had a measuring error in the first 5 minutes of my drawing, and I knew it. For an hour after that, I was hunting down this error like a terrier hunts a rat. I criss-crossed my way around the figure, finding alignments and misalignments over and over and over. I find great enjoyment in finding new insights while I draw. Not because I feel the need for perfection, but because “solving” the relationships of line and shape is as satisfying for me as completing a sudoku puzzle. I glow in the shimmering dopamine release, and then ascend the sparkling steps up to the next stage of the study.
No concept of time whatsoever
With this study, I criss-crossed the drawing in plumb lines and triangles, measuring and remeasuring, looking for things to line up. But they wouldn’t! Finally, with a laugh I realized that I was moving all over the place, the model was shifting her poses slightly with each sitting, and all my searching for “the truth” was just running me around, adding more spokes to the spirograph. Finally, I remembered that solving the puzzle is nice but it is not actually the goal of my drawing today, and I started darkening and lightening marks for pathways, composition, and space. It was incredibly fun.
The League has two different Friday portrait classes this summer. Which one would you rather be in? Would you rather…. Combine drawings from live models with studies from art history? …or study a variety of ages, expressions, and faces? Would you rather…. Add meaningful elements from imagination and intuition? Or measure and exaggerate to pull …
[image_with_animation image_url=”8555″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Yesterday I talked about Joseph Cornell, and how he didn’t consider himself an artist, but felt he was a collector, and a maker of things. I like to think sometimes I make things. Contrary to my website, I avoid calling myself an artist. Doing so can be validating, but …
[image_with_animation image_url=”6645″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Rembrandt’s Etching Process You can etch with or without acid. In drypoint printmaking, images are etched onto a plate dry – without acid – so the tools directly unsmoothify the copper plate so it can be inked, and printed onto paper in an un-wet humorless non-boozy sort of way. …
What would you do if you loved to draw, and then you went blind? For two years now, Kathy Paul has been a regular in my drawing classes. When she started in figure drawing, I admired her uncommon and interesting way of recording the forms. Then on March 3, 2019 Kathy suffered a stroke in …
Fran O’Neill’s Giant Figures Workshop, Day 1
Today, after skittering around with tasks, I was able to attend Fran’s Giant Figures Workshop, held in the spacious light-filled Drawing and Painting Studios at the Seattle Artist League. Years ago, when Lendy and I looked at this big Equinox warehouse space, we had NYSS style drawing intensives like this in mind, so it was a long awaited happy day to open up the rooms, set up stages, and fill the studios with enthusiastic artists and their energy. Many core members of the League were in attendance. It was a reunion of friends and skills.
For model privacy and artist concentration, I did not pull out my camera while people were drawing, but I did catch a some works in progress (WIP) during breaks, and by chance, the yellow hat trio.
Here are a couple of sketches, plus my own.
This is one long pose. Lendy Hensley, Connie Pierson, and Mary Shea are in the Painting Studio, and Jared Price and I are in the Drawing Studio. My model was in the center of the room. Across the room, over her shoulder, I could see Marina Vogman drawing. Marks in the background of my drawing are Marina, working. If you’ve taken a figure drawing class, you may know the specific silence of collective concentration, with the rhythmic whispers of charcoal on paper. It is, for me, the highest bliss.
I had a measuring error in the first 5 minutes of my drawing, and I knew it. For an hour after that, I was hunting down this error like a terrier hunts a rat. I criss-crossed my way around the figure, finding alignments and misalignments over and over and over. I find great enjoyment in finding new insights while I draw. Not because I feel the need for perfection, but because “solving” the relationships of line and shape is as satisfying for me as completing a sudoku puzzle. I glow in the shimmering dopamine release, and then ascend the sparkling steps up to the next stage of the study.
With this study, I criss-crossed the drawing in plumb lines and triangles, measuring and remeasuring, looking for things to line up. But they wouldn’t! Finally, with a laugh I realized that I was moving all over the place, the model was shifting her poses slightly with each sitting, and all my searching for “the truth” was just running me around, adding more spokes to the spirograph. Finally, I remembered that solving the puzzle is nice but it is not actually the goal of my drawing today, and I started darkening and lightening marks for pathways, composition, and space. It was incredibly fun.
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Would you rather….?
The League has two different Friday portrait classes this summer. Which one would you rather be in? Would you rather…. Combine drawings from live models with studies from art history? …or study a variety of ages, expressions, and faces? Would you rather…. Add meaningful elements from imagination and intuition? Or measure and exaggerate to pull …
“Mixed media”
[image_with_animation image_url=”8555″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Yesterday I talked about Joseph Cornell, and how he didn’t consider himself an artist, but felt he was a collector, and a maker of things. I like to think sometimes I make things. Contrary to my website, I avoid calling myself an artist. Doing so can be validating, but …
Rembrandt’s Etching Process
[image_with_animation image_url=”6645″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Rembrandt’s Etching Process You can etch with or without acid. In drypoint printmaking, images are etched onto a plate dry – without acid – so the tools directly unsmoothify the copper plate so it can be inked, and printed onto paper in an un-wet humorless non-boozy sort of way. …
A Different Way of Seeing
What would you do if you loved to draw, and then you went blind? For two years now, Kathy Paul has been a regular in my drawing classes. When she started in figure drawing, I admired her uncommon and interesting way of recording the forms. Then on March 3, 2019 Kathy suffered a stroke in …