Emily Loosely

Sue wasn't well so we took turns timing.  Emily struck five and ten minute poses and then moved for about fifteen minutes, holding 3 minute poses.  I've chosen these four from the session. I like the top drawing because I worked differently and think the marks had a kind of energy and looseness I can't always find.

The drawing below feels like Emily and I like the drawing, colours and marks.

My sister has been taking an art class and she sent me an image of a wonderful negative space drawing of a rocking chair she'd made 'for homework'.  I think that was in my mind as I took the side of light blue/grey soft pastel and traced around the figure. I like the way I've broken up the space in this one.

And this one is a little silly but makes me feel like dancing.

Jettisoning local colour for January

According to the Nabis from: https://www.theartstory.org/movement-les-nabis.htm, a painting was a harmonious grouping of lines and colors, with outcomes to include many different solutions. An artist's personal style was, in fact, accomplished through the choice of how to arrange these lines and colors. As an example of the Nabi approach, at the beginning of their meetings, they would recite the following "mantra" together: "sounds, colors, and words have a miraculously expressive power beyond all representation and even beyond the literal meaning of the words." 

When I visited the Barber Institute last week, in Birmingham, to see the current Vuillard exhibition, I came away remembering that I don't have to stick to local colour and that my instinct, even my handwriting has always been about colour and pattern primarily. I reflected  that last year taught me how to see acccurately and how to record what I see better but that my personality can sometimes be obscured when I think too hard about all of that.

Today, arriving late to drawing, I worked quickly to put something authentic down. The two rectangular drawings below, 19 x 28cm were 20 minute poses made before the break. The square below those, 17 x 17 cm, was a challenge in that it was a 1/2 hour pose and I had to look hard to find something to say about it. The moment that I chose the blue, I began to feel it was about shapes and colour and no longer a model.  The image at the top was the final drawing and it was about 25 minutes, 28 x 19cm, and the surfaces and the design elements of the arrangement inspired me. The ground was a lime green which guided me in colour relationships.