It’s been a month since the last session of the previous figure-drawing studio, and in that time I haven’t done much painting. Is that why, last night at the first session of the fall term, I felt totally off and awkward? It took me forever to get any feel for what I was doing, and the vast majority of my short gesture drawings are so uninteresting, I didn’t even bother to photograph them for posterity.
The only gesture drawings I'm happy with
Two ten-minute poses
However… sometimes a little break is good for art. I go into each new term of figure drawing with slightly different eyes than I had before. A few sheets of subpar drawings are a small price to pay for that fresh perspective. This time I tried to use bolder strokes and colors, and that came across a little bit in these twenty-minute poses.
Craning (20 minutes)
Gilded (20 minutes)
After two and a half hours, when we only had one pose left to go, Kato asked me, “Have you thought about using colors other than the ones you see?” I had thought about it — in fact, I probably think about it every time I paint — but hadn’t given it a serious try. She said I could just use different colors to represent tonal values, and that made something click in my mind. I went for it.
At home in the lotus (25 minutes)
I hadn’t thought I was consciously trying to make pretty paintings before, but once I made up my mind to use crazy colors, something freed itself up in me and I felt much more able to experiment. I applied the paint in a totally different way than my usual, and strangely enough the final result was much more accurate than I expected, given that I didn’t do a pencil sketch. It was tons of fun and I can’t wait to try this again!
As always, click on any of the above images to see bigger versions, and read longer descriptions of the process of creating each.
Great use of the colors for your drawings. A fresh perspective goes a long way to bring out a new dimension of creativity. Thank you for sharing this Lisa :)!
Thank you, Ariane! I agree, our eyes and perspective make all the difference in what we create. 🙂
I love the abstraction in the lying down pose – I suspect the second of the 10 minute poses. Great. The colour journey will be fun.In trying to capture the essence of something you will create a new stand-alone image. Go for it. 🙂
You’re quite right, Alan, it was the second of the two poses! 🙂 Thank you for the encouragement as ever! Can’t wait to try more colors.
[…] Yesterday the Richmond Art Center had an event to celebrate the life of Kato Jaworski, their education director, who passed in December from ovarian cancer. There is an interesting obituary online, and I’ve also mentioned Kato multiple times on this blog. […]