Biggest Sculpture Yet!

I am discovering, if one can draw a figure, it is an easy leap to sculpting one.  Now I've heard many sculptors say it is the other way around, but I think either direction must work.  In drawing, one almost always tries to see the form in the round.  In sculpture, it is.  Space is the operative word, whether 2D or 3D.  This life, being an artist, is one amazing ride!

Drawing with a Sculptor's Eye...

With a break from one of the three colleges I am teaching at, I've been able to really get into this new series of drawings I've started.  And the sculpting I've been up to is really changing my outlook! With this I'm planning to push deeper into the 2D intuitive abstraction I have long worked at achieving.  I'm actually using large scraps of paper as my gestural and compositional studies, then taking that work to the gessoed panels hanging on the wall, which are heavily textured.  Often the pose ideas come from simple gestural marks like you see on the left.  From there I am working into the original poses with shifts in the live poses, and photographic sources.  Much of the rest is just intuitive abstraction and imagination.  They change by the hour, and I have no idea what they might become.  Why else would I make them?  That is the fun, and challenging part!

Getting Warmed up with Weekly Life Drawing Again!

Just getting warmed up again with weekly Life Drawing at The Downtown Art Collective I helped to start.  This is a 40 minute drawing from the end of last weekend.  Using mostly subtractive methods, I wanted to see how quickly I could get to the heart of a solid drawing that would still have energy and depth.

Charcoal on paper, 24"X36"

Drawing and Sculpting, An Artistic Duality.

Drawing and sculpting.  The parallels are clear at times, but the different forms that can be achieved striking as well.  Either way, I am having a blast!

Live Music in the Life Drawing Room!

So, I'm teaching so much lately this appears to be becoming a teaching blog!  But drawing and teaching are both considerable art forms, so there is no end to the potential overlaps.

The Community College has asked me to arrange another Drawing on Jazz Event to help promote the art and music programs as their Open House for high school seniors comes through.  It has always been a HUGE attraction for the school when I have put it on to end my Life Drawing Classes.  Now I imagine the number of people that will see us drawing will be greater than ever.  We are sure to attract some new students into the art program when they see just how much fun and intensity we can bring up!  This is unique among interdisciplinary events at ANY college, let alone our little Community College!

I thought I'd dig up some videos and work from the live groups that have played for my classes.    Jazz, classical, either way, it not only gives the students a chance to relate the proportional, gestural, compositional and color work we have done in the class to a real life event, but gives them greater appreciation for these musical art forms that cannot thoroughly be experienced from recordings alone.   What a great way to sum up a semester, and in this coming case, draw in new interest and engagement with our classes!

The Skeleton in the Anatomy Section of My Life Drawing Class

Last week we had a really good couple of sessions studying how the skeletal structure fits within a live model.  We started with a male model in 20 minute standing poses where students where asked to draw one of the best-proportioned linear figures they could so far (it was only week 4!).  We then alternated between the model and the skeleton for awhile, and eventually just the skeleton.  They were asked to put the model in red pastel pencil, and the skeleton in charcoal pencil.

As you'll see I asked some of the more advanced or talented students to draw very large, a first time experience for many of them.  Those were some of the best drawings.  You can see the final results in the showcases on the first floor of the LA building at Washtenaw Community College.  I think they learned a lot, now it's on to the musculature system with live models and plastic anatomical models this week!