d.i.y.

Estero San Antonio

this artwork will show at sebastopol center for the arts september 16 – october 23, 2010 with an opening reception september 16, 6 – 7:30 pm. its size: H26½” x W34½” x D2½”. priced at $750.

i wondered exactly what an “estero” is, so i climbed high above the estero just north of dillon beach on the california coast, dragging my art equipment, so i could study and paint the damned thing at my leisure and in the high winds blowing that afternoon on the coast, until late afternoon when the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped down somewhere in the vicinity of china.

what makes an estero (since you asked!) is a frail coastal barrier, like the slender band of beach to be seen on this depiction toward upper left. when the tide runs full, it floods over the barrier into the inland area meeting the flow seaward of a creek or river draining the inland hills. so you have the creation of tidal pools, and a lot of flow of brackish water. when the tide runs out again, much water remains caught in pools or in marshland.

i created this piece, in moments of inspired insanity, using both soft chalk pastels and good old rugged oil-based paints. i like the results of mixing unlikely mediums. in this case, there are drawbacks — not for the art itself, where i like the results for creating a sort of hallucinogenic realization of what the place in fact looks like; but for preservation of the art. need i tell you? pastel can just disappear off the canvas into a pile of oddly colored dust on the floor. i consulted our local high-end framer, the one trained in museum framing of genuine picassos, matisses, etc. she custom built a box frame for the piece mounting real honest-to-god museum glass in it, looks incredibly great — i should be showing a pic of IT! — cost me a fortune, and it’s good. (the $750 price is a steal.)

the show is called “mapworks: the map as art,” which seemed a natural for this piece, so i entered it. juried by kim anno, professor and chair of painting, at the california college of the arts, san francisco, ca.

go see it. or at least wish you could!

Click on any image to go to a page of enlargements of the images (they’re really much better bigger.)

All pics are of charcoal drawings on 18 x 24 inch newsprint dated May 6, 2010.

Playing House in the Old Barn

Seated Insouciant.

Waiting for Him to Look Up....

Who You Lookin' At??

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….I change mediums frequently doing life drawing. One good approach is to mix mediums on each drawing; for example: watercolors, charcoal, and pastel. Odd combos offer fun drawing and weird, unpredictable results — which i like. Watercolors reacts with surprise to pastel; charcoal is jolted awake by crossing a watercolor path.

Another good approach is to choose one medium (or two or three) and stick to it throughout the evening’s drawings, beginning with quick gestural poses one or two minutes long and staying with it through intermediate length and long poses — however long those might be (for TNDG, usually 20 minutes).

All four drawings posted here — and all the others that night — are charcoal on newsprint. After awhile, i begin to get the hang of it, the skeleto-muscular structure of my whole body — especially, but not only, my hands and eyes — gets the rhythm of the model’s body in space as well as my inner rhythm of the moment.

The model for these drawings is a new one for TNDG, and a good one: Wisteria.

Elsa #1

Elsa #3

Elsa #2

……………………Three drawings of Elsa I made April 22, 2010 at Thursday Night Drawing Group. Slow to post? Yeah, thinking of other things.

Alexandria

This drawing is from Thursday, March 25.

It was done at Thursday Night Drawing Group (TNDG) drawing from the model, as always, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Mario Uribe’s back street studio just off “A” street in Santa Rosa. (Cost: all you can draw, 12 bucks!)

TNDG welcomes anyone who wants to draw.

This was the final drawing of several I did that night, and it was with a longer (20 minute) pose. (We start with 1 or 2 minute gestural poses and gradually increase length.)

I perennially have to shake off from myself the cloying limitations of literal representation that insinuate themselves willy-nilly into my fingers, hands, arms, and whole body – either in the very beginning of a session, before I’m warmed up; or sometimes later, even after freer drawings, when my creativity fades. (“Imagination fatigue”??)

My drawing that night went – as usual – back and forth between being stuck in, or near, the literal; and something freer, better at capturing the inner felt essence of the subject rather than merely the external shell.

A couple of the earlier free drawings I like a lot myself for what they are trying to do, but they are perhaps a bit too mysterious and hard to read for everyone else.

This one that I’ve chosen to post here, though, I thoroughly like, and I think it has broader appeal, too, because it does succeed in presenting an essence.

Yea!