Charcoal Sketches

Right before going to bed last night I grabbed my charcoal pencil and began a few 'tests' - all tiny, like 6" x 8" - watercolour brushed in afterwards. The self-portrait done in a dark room is overdone but you can't undo charcoal; the woman in the middle, well, what can I say, the pencil is clumsy to use, it needs larger paper; and the final one is exactly what I wanted.

Though I drew her last night, I wrote a poem for her 6 years ago:

Gaze

Yesterday,
the bus stop,
all the people's heads
turned, watching.

Gaze of anxiety.

The blind woman tapping
her way forward.

Little Magnolia Tree That Is Now Blossoming

Little Magnolia Tree That Is Now Blossoming, 2012, 6" x 10", conte, watercolours, Grumbacher acid-free journal paper.

Just a little experiment... I found a dozen or so tubes of watercolour (Windsor and Newton as well as their Cotman line) in a dusty old box under my desk, tubes that must be 25 years old. Some of them are still usable! A quick watercolour sketch of an even quicker street sketch a week or two back.

Sloth at the Keyhole

From the Madame: "The Keyhole Sessions: the raciest arts community you'll ever experience."

The Keyhole Sessions are life-drawing with edge. With a hunger for the erotic, our community of artists gather for a few hours of debaucherous drawing on the second Tuesday of every month.

Hosted by The Madame, TKS is not for the faint of heart: our models come with attitude. Trussed up in rope and restraints, they’re here to have as much fun as the artists.

Most sessions will see our models exquisitely wrapped in shibari-inspired rope bondage. Keyhole Sessions Head Rigger, JP Robichaud, displays his talents by binding our models in sensual rope to add that extra flair to your drawings. For those unfamiliar with this art, look it up and then come to our class to witness this beautiful craft up close.

Divided into 3 Acts, you’ll see multiple models in varying degrees of undress and restraints, all to a soundtrack of some pretty sweet beats.

There are chairs for 60, and the women-only models obviously appeal to men, who are the majority, and, though I was quite scared to go, I am happy to report that there was a good sprinkling of women artists too. :)

These drawings and paintings were done at the Keyhole last night. It may be a raunchy life-drawing venue, but those beautiful women and erotic poses are a lot of work to draw! As art, I'm thinking of Toulous-Lautrec. The lifestyle alluded to in the props and poses is a bit out of my range - I've never had a Mowhawk or ever tried a hookah or been tied up, and aren't thinking to either. :))) I am drawn to the exploration of the body through unique poses and models. I had to explain to my 25 year old son where I was going to draw and what I'd likely come back with, and not to worry about what might appear on the walls of my apartment! I wasn't... falling into Sloth (they're doing the 7 Deadlies, and last night was sloth).

It was a huge amount of work drawing the models last night - they start out with one model and 3 minute poses, then move onto two models with longer poses, and finish the evening with a 45 minute three model configuration. I like how my little series began, but trying to finish them so I can get back to what I was working on before the session has been exhausting, along with quite a bit of stress in my life, and perhaps it shows in the final painting, which I feel is the most worked and the least successful. Or is it my tired eyes?

Three, On The Edge, 2012, 20" x 16", mixed media, 90lb archival paper.

And Then, 2012, 20" x 16", mixed media, 90lb archival paper.

Better Left Unsaid, 2012, graphite on 90lb archival paper, image digitally finished.

This sketch is on the back of Three, On The Edge and which is now hanging on the wall. Better Left Unsaid is in light pencil, and I coloured it digitally.

Shadow, 2012, 20" x 16", mixed media, 90lb archival paper. (This is the dusting of charcoal on the back of the sheet facing the first drawing. It is the shadow of the figure on the right, and I quite like it.)

Take It Easy, 2012, 20" x 16", mixed media, 90lb archival paper.

Women Models, sketch, 2012, 14" x 14", graphite, 90lb archival paper.

A Tangle, sketch, 2012, 17.5" x 15.5", mixed media, 90lb archival paper.

A Tangle, 2012, 17.5" x 15.5", mixed media, 90lb archival paper.

Drawing at the Keyhole in April 2012. 

Photo by Susie Caboose. (I was working on And Then.)

The Living Carry the Souls of the Dead

The Living Carry the Souls of the Dead, 2012, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", charcoal and oils, Moleskine folio Sketchbook A4.


The spirits of the dead are held aloft by the living.

My grandmother's spirit was my father's memory of her in me and projected by me into a nurturing maternal spirit of safety.

Has she been with me all my life? Yes. But she resides in the energy of my understanding of her through my deceased father's memory.


The figure I have drawn, that I made from bones, who is an experiment in charcoal, seems not the narrator of the writing, and yet she is carrying the souls of the dead, look at her.

Notes on process: First I drew her skeleton, all her vertebrae are there, and her rib cage and sternum, clavicles and humeri, radiuses, and ulnas, femora, and bony pelvis. Then I drew her major muscles, her craniofacial muscles, pectorals, abdominals, femora, the wrap of arm muscles, tendons over the phalange of the fingers. I traced her body's outline with charcoal, and poured some sizing medium (Gak100, for the paper) over her, smudging and sweeping the charcoal with a brush. Red seemed to be her colour, so on my table of oil tubes, used paper towels, half a dozen water jars, a real mess, I searched through a box for the Alizarin Crimson, and began to dry brush it into the wet solution. I tried other colours, delicately, but she was insistent, and so I rubbed them out. After some indefinable time - the clock stops when you are working with a fast drying medium - a few sweeps of orange seemed permissible in her sheer dress, and the white highlights, composed of charcoal white, white oil pastel and Titanium White water-soluble oil paint. My son says she looks like she could be a cover for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

She is a bit scary, but she has fine bones, a good musculature. :)

She is somewhere between life and death, where the soul resides.

A Spring God, in-process

A Spring God, in-process, 24" x 30", 61cm x 76.2cm, mixed media on stretched canvas.

He is in oils, and when 'he' dries I'll use a whitewash to make him a wee bit less flesh and more statue. Fiddling with the background, added little references to spring flowers, but not sure if I'll continue in the direction I had thought to go in.

The Saluki Returns

Painted this more than a week back, and wasn't sure about the way it scanned, but then I took a photo in sunlight and the colours came up properly, so sharing now.

She was the smartest dog I ever met. The sketch underlying the painting was about her paws, which were almost like elongated hands with thick black fingernails.

The Saluki is an Egyptian desert dog, and often travelled with nomadic tribes across the Sahara.The Saluki is the oldest domesticated breed, representations of Saluki-like dogs can be found on Sumerian seals dating around 7,000BC, and they are depicted in the paintings on the walls of tombs of Pharohs from 2,250BC-1,650BC. Thousands of generations to now, an extraordinarily ancient and intelligent breed.

Painting of a Sleeping Saluki, 2012, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, graphite, acrylic, India and acrylic inks, Moleskine folio Sketchbook A4.





Sketch of a Saluki, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, graphite, Moleskine folio Sketchbook A4.

You remember this one from a bit back. I had intended to paint it also, but a few people, including the owner of the dog, who is considering a commission of it in a large size, asked me to leave it as a simple pencil sketch.

Seated Man (in progress), TSA March 30th

Seated Man, 2012, 16" x 20", 40.6cm x 50.8cm, graphite on stretched canvas.

Sketch from TSA Friday night in pencil on a small canvas, 16" x 20", that I will finish as an ink painting.

Seated Man, in-progress, 24" x 30", 61cm x 76.2cm, mixed media on stretched canvas.

When I go to TSA non-instructional, drop-in lifepainting sessions, I usually spend the first 3 hours working on a larger painting; then I leave it to dry for the last hour while I sketch the model on a smaller canvas. At the top of this post you see the sketch that will become an ink painting. Below is the larger painting I did first. At TSA, I use thin layers of acrylics - they dry fast. To the left is what I completed at TSA on Friday night. At home, I finish the painting with oils - oil sticks, oil pastels, oil paints.

On the left is where the painting is today. It's still unfinished.

I'm considering putting a figure in black line only behind him, and some purple crocuses at his feet. To me, he seems a spring god, the spring rains and sap greens around him, a garden god who represents the fertility of the onrush of Nature's awakening after the long winter months.

Before the light was gone, on my walk through my neighbourhood this evening, I saw yellow tulips, small star-shaped blue flowers (which are? not phlox, or asters, but...?), yellow forsythias, and small magnolia trees just beginning to blossom. I may go by in the next few days with my sketchbook and see if adding a spring fauna to this painting will give it a fullness.