Lined up feet

November 20, 2012

Felled by flu last week -- and I missed the foot class! Yup, the foot. That limb of ill omen (well, for artists), and the major reason I signed up for anatomy art class. My feet are absolutely wretched. I fought back by doing lots of foot studies at home.

The poorly-photographed green person below is from the previous class devoted to the torso. My teacher told us we weren't allowed to use brown so I crept back into the land of colour. In the doing, I realised my Grumbacher pastels were absolute shite. Even my teacher said I needed a trip to the art store.

November 8, 2012

And we all know how that turned out. That's right. Expensively. $136 in one sweet hour of goggly-eyed lust.

Did you know you can buy marbling kits, tie-dye t-shirt kits, and face-painting kits? Yes, and you can pay for them, too! Along with washable, non-toxic finger paint, on-sale watercolour paper blocks, black pastel paper and a Faber Castell black marker (fine point) because I only had it in brown.

I'm a glutton, but at least I was spending on my little girl and not just myself.














I also bought the Prismacolour Nupastels I was supposed to get and MY WORD they are awesome. Like butter. Here's a pillow.

November 18, 2012

Personal best

Caroline, October 25 2012

Since I started Bus Drawing out of necessity, my attitude has been to draw what I see, anywhere, anytime, with whatever I've got on hand. My art class is changing all that.

I'm rediscovering traditional art supplies like charcoal, pastels, big sketchpads, easels and kneaded erasers. They are all so easy to use since they are designed for artists and perfected over centuries. I'm also exploring traditional colours: all the old favourites -- burnt sienna, raw umber -- and standard drawing techniques, like hatching, shadow blocking, and the like. My art class gives me things like time, teaching, and developmental exercises, too, for all of which I am fervently grateful.

Theo, November 1 2012

Mostly, it's just so easy to draw in this environment that I'm focusing on improving my work artistically (I'm not totally sure what I mean here, but hope the gist comes across!) instead of on contextual challenges (like sitting on a bus or drawing a moving target like my children) or technical challenges (drawing with markers in small books when I would prefer to do large format work with brushes, inks and paints).

At the same time, those 1.5 years on the bus were so difficult that my technical abilities grew enormously. I am constantly amazed in art class by how easy it is for me to do assignments that would have had me sweating pencils a couple of years ago. I'm not trying to say I'm the greatest or anything, just that I can't believe that a relatively short term of drawing on the bus did for all of my art, not just rapid portraits.

Art class is three hours of sheer joy every week. May there be more and more and more.

His right hand

November 2012

November 2012

Though my husband and I got together in 2005, I've rarely made a study of him though I've always wanted to. The larger portrait isn't quite right -- too Arnie -- but I did a good job on the drawing above. A devotee of the computer, Jeff writes software by day and at night he can be found writing ever more code, gaming or reading online. As someone with fingers in all sorts of pots, I admire his dedication.