The Drawing Studio - 04.22.07

Well after about 4 months I finally made it out to the Drawing Studio. It was a beautiful weekend (first signs of Spring here in NYC) and I had just gotten over about a 3-week-long funk of crappy drawings and no desire to do any art. Well, funk or not, Jeff Fisher had no mercy, and once again pushed me to do things i never would have tried on my own.

The Drawing Studio - 12.17.06

Another crazy Sunday at the Drawing Studio. I was up early and had to take the train out because my ride (Lynne Foster) was out of town. I also had to "babysit" Lynne's son, Guy, which wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. We met up with David Hollenbach and Doug Cowan along the way and made it out to Jeff's on time for a change. Most of my drawings sucked until i got some caffeine in me.



these two were done with a piece of charcoal taped to a 5-foot stick which i held tight against my shoulder. This forced me to slow down when drawing and use my whole body in the process. moving along with the stick constantly changes your vantage point on the model which, along with less control over your medium, creates some interesting abstractions.









i'm finally starting to get the whole "5-lbs of Bologna" exercise down.


and the "Bug's Eye"

The Drawing Studio - 12.10.06

Another Sunday at the Drawing Studio. The model was a beautiful yoga instructor so she was able to get into interesting and dynamic poses and hold them for a long time. Plus she has a thing for mythology so she "loosely" based a few of her poses on the Greek legends.









drawn with my left hand.


I really paid extra attention to the graphic elements and the composition they create in this one. Unfortunately, I lost that when i moved to the hips and legs.



two more "bologna" exercises. I still don't have it but i'm getting better at it.







drawing with both hands at the same time on this one.




detail


two failed attempts at the "Bug's Eye" exercise.

The Drawing Studio - 12.03.06

After a Saturday of staring at Sargent and Whistler at the "Americans in Paris" show at the Met, drawing on Sunday at the Drawing Studio was as easy as cake (or is it pie). I was tired and sleep deprived from a night of drinking with some college friends, but i was in a good mood for once and after a few shots of espresso I was ready to rock and roll.


Started off struggling a bit:



but this was my turning point. This is a blind contour drawing done with my left hand (i'm a righty) with the paper against my chest, facing away from me. It may not look like much but it really helped me to focus on what's in front of me.


and here is what happened afterwards:


detail






detail


This exercise is called "5 lbs of bologna in a 3 lb bag". Basically you have to stuff the figure into a box so that there is no negative space. I failed on this one. Exaguration is really not my thing.


This one i did drawing with both hands at the same time. I started with the gray pastel in my left hand and the violet in my right and then moved on to the light blue in my left and peach in my right. I forget which hand used the red but it was used together with one of the other colors.


This one is called "Bug's eye view". You pick a point on the figure and pretend you have a bug's eye. The point gets distorted to the foreground and everything else gets pushed back like a modified fish-eye lens. Once again i failed at it.


back to what i'm good at.


detail






detail




detail



Update 12.16.06:
Forgot to include two more drawings. This first one, after some trouble starting out i turned into a study of the planes in a foreshortened leg. Ever since this drawing i've become more attentive to the planes on the figure (even if it may not show :P)


detail


and this one was done with my left hand and the figure flipped (the model was turned the other way and we had to mirror her).