Art materials

       It has been brought to my attention that people may be interested in the art supplies I use and why  therefore,I will begin with my favorite drawing mediums. 

I really favor charcoal and sanguine chalk when I draw.

 Nitram charcoal is my favorite brand- it is square and comes in HB, B and very soft in very large sticks. It was a french company at first but then it was bought by a canadian company. For the most part it is very consistent  and you can sharpen them to a very sharp long point. There is a sand paddle you can get that does a marvelous job of sharpening and it lasts a long time which makes it worth the price.

  Below is a drawing I did using these materials

The sanguine chalk I like to use is either creatocolor originally Hardmuth and I usually use a metal holder to use it.

I love the sanguine chalk and this brass holder is just the right thickness for me. It is, however, hard to find the narrow ones. One finds the thicker ones more often so if you do find a narrow one -just get it- since one never knows when you will see it again. Other brands I like are generals though they are harder and more like a pastel in a way.

I am not a fan of conte as I do not think it is easy to use and its texture does not suit my way of laying down marks.

Below is a drawing of my student Jessie I did a while ago and I used very little charcoal mostly sanguine and white chalk on this marvelous paper my father -in -law gave me 

i wish this paper were still available but alas it has been discontinued along with a lot of other favorite art supplies. must be Murphy's law that if you really like a surface the manufacturer will discontinue it.

I am also very fond of using the sanguine chalk/ pencil combination when I do smaller drawings

I learned this technique when I was living in France and went to see two exhibits of french drawings, which made me wantI to try it and I have never really gone back to just black and white. I feel it gives n extra dimension to the subject. One can get so many more nuances with sanguine chalk than with pencil or other black on white medium. 

It is only recently that I have found this type of drawing is called a drawing 'a trots crayons' ie. with 3 pencils- who knew.

Next time I will try to talk about some artists of the past that I admire who used this technique . So till next time

      It"s January and it"s pretty cold out there, so needless to say I am not painting outside although I know there are some hardy plein air painters who do. 

    Instead I have been focusing on studies of the nude and trying to make compositional  studies involving the figure in nature. Also I have been working on some gouache on an interesting board that really lends a feeling of oil. Above is the first painting I did on this board made by Davinci- its called a dual sided board.. I have been enjoying working with it.

here is a little oil done on the same board. I need to tinker with this one a little bit more but I like the effects I am getting.

As for the nude studies- I am trying some compositional things with the figure studies. Here is a pastel study of one I am now doing in oil

I basically focussed on the figure here but my oil has a rocky landscape since the figure will be spear fishing. I will post it when I am closer to finishing.

Finally over Christmas I had an interesting commission . One of my former students wanted a pastel of my studio for her future studio.

  

    That is all for now. I will talk to you again next time

        

      

     I have been very excited as I have finally been able to take a Robert Liberace course on drawing the figure. Granted I could not swing the full course with critiques but I took the one with the class and auditing the critiques. It has been very exciting and inspiring to say the least. I have admired his work for some time especially his drawings which I think are exquisite and he has such a large knowledge of anatomical parts of the body. You should look him up

   I have always loved drawing the figure and got a good base at the Schuler School where I went in the late sixties early 70"s but they did not teach the figure per se. They did however give me a firm base of anatomy and schematic drawings on  which I have built ever since.

Our first couple of assignments were the torso of the male figure. here is the first one i did

Here is another and the Ecorche drawing I did of the same figure. This was a lot of fun though hard

  

We proceeded tp painting after that and ended up with the portrait. Below is my first attempt.We focused mostly on the torso but i would like to finish this one as i like the way it has developed. I am working on two others and a portrait that i will post later.

This has been a very satisfying experience.

Till next time

 

 It seems like it is time for me to write another post on my blog. Although I try to be regular about it, it seems time simply flies by me. Therefore when My son Dave, who is a writer in Baltimore sends out his blog, I know its time for me to write mine. He is amazingly regular. he writes on tiny letter if you want to check him out.

Actually I have been working on a number of things: The first being a conservation of a painting for my sister.It's rather large 28 x 26 and it was supposed to be a tempera on canvas. However I discovered that it is actually an oil though it could have some tempera in there somewhere. There was a period before Van Eyck finally found the good oil paint formula when they combined the two. This painting though dirty was really full of fly feces which had to be removed by scraping gently with a scalpel-. here is an image of the painting

I also had to add a new piece of canvas to the edge and discovered the painting had been reduced so I added the piece back after consulting with my sister. I am still working on this painting so I will take another pic when it is done

My sister has a good friend Emily M who likes my work and she really liked a piece I had done several years ago and sold, so I told her I could re-do it in a different format so I did working on Uart paper rather than pastel mat ( my favorite paper) and adding some tops of buildings . I also handled the foreground darks slightly differently with a combination of purple, blue, dark brown and very dark green- no black at all.  I also wanted to get the detail of the electric wires and lights more precisely which  the Uart paper allows you to do.I liked the way it turned out

It is going to go to a friend of hers in California so I will be packing it myself before sending it off.

I also have been working on a color values workshop which happened last sunday. We worked in gouache because the mixing mimics oil painting but dries faster considering it is a water based paint. Although only a couple of students attended, i think it went well and hopefully it will impact their future paintings. here are a couple of examples of my studies for it

This is a house in Gettysburg. I did it using a limited palette of cad yellow ,orange, a carmine red, ultramarine blue, prussian blue and black. Very interesting the color mixtures one can make with just 3 of this colors. This one I used yellow orange and blue

Next time I will show you the window encased in stone and explain the mixtures I used in that one so until next time.

     

      It seems we all have settled into  a covidness with the wearing of masks and massive cleaning episodes. For me and my studio we are slowly getting to a 'new normal" . I have had time though to work on the illustrations of my children's book and to finally finish them. now we wait for the book to be published so the ball is out of my court

 With the Illustrations finally finished, however,I was somewhat at a loss at what to create next. I find when I have an involved project like a large portrait or a series of illustrations, it is all encompassing and very fulfilling so when it is finished there is a bit of a let down....

 I have started some smaller landscapes and am working on a very different art conservation project but I really needed the proverbial shot in the arm.  

Robert Liberace, an artist whose figure and portrait drawings I admire had a zoom demo which iIreally wanted to do, but did not try since I never seem able to attend his workshops- either I am too late or cannot afford it -so I did not attempt it . However he posted several reference photos of the model he used and I purchased them. She is lovely and was dressed in medieval attire so I chose one and did a drawing this morning. It needs more darks but so far I am pleased. I am planning on doing a painting but want to do several drawings first. Here is what I did this morning

I am pretty pleased with it though It needs stronger darks and work done on the hand. I will be doing some more drawings  of this subject.

In addition to this fun exercise, I have been doing some pastel landscapes of sunsets. One of these I tried on a surface of metal with a sound for pastels. It did not turn out too badly, although I personally think it is too stiff for my way of doing pastels. I have a commission for a friend of my sisters and I wanted to see how it would work but I think I will do it on Uart paper as the detail will be easier

I still need to put detail in the poles and the lines but at least you get the idea.

That is all for now. I will be discussing my conservation project in the next blog so till then

My projects during the weird covid Time

    What a really odd period of time all of us are going through; with quarantines and masks as well as social distancing. Many artists have navigated to zoom to teach but I have found it very impractical and I would need more technical equipment which I cannot afford right now and then there would be the learning curve....

Instead I have been teaching small classes- no more than 5 or 6 and I have been able to finish my illustration project. I have been illustrating a book whose author is a speech pathologist and he is telling his own story about a horse with whom he was very close and their adventures in jumping competition complicated by the fact that the horse loved butterflies and would veer off during any jump or run to race after them. I feel i can show you a couple because now both the author and the publisher has seen them so i will give you a sneak peak

This is the first one and it is a combination of pen and ink colored pencil and gouache

Here is another a little farther along in the book. I like to mix color with black ink and use color portions as the main focus. Although I did not do that in every illustration. I am nearly finished with illustrations unless they want a small one here and there

I also have been working on greens in very light circumstances. There is an artist on Instagram whose work I admire, especially how he handles the greens .His name is Timoshenko - at least that is his instagram name.You should look him up and see how he handles his greens. They are muted so lots of pinks and oranges in the mix but they give a wonderful effect of brilliant light.

Here is one piece where I have been trying to get his effect in the bright greens. This little 8 x 10 is done in gouache on a new surface. I like using gouache in the field since it has similar properties to oil painting but is easier done small and has a similar effect. if I like the piece I can re do it in larger format in either pastel or oil if I think the effect would be better. This was done at Price Park not far from where I live.

Coronavirus creativity

What a lovely day today ! Several of my adult students and I have removed ourselves from the studio to the great outdoors. Today we went to Bur-mil park where a couple of us did ink drawing, a couple did oil paintings and one did a really nice pastel. I must say I got my exercise going up and down the hill since two were up the hill and two were down. We have also been to Price park and next week we plan on going to the Greensboro Arboretum. My sister anI went walking there and there some really nice things to paint along the riverbed there.
 Since then we have also gone to Fisher park which has some wonderful stone bridges as well as wonderful trees to do. here is one of my ink was efforts

This coronavirus quarantine has made me get a little creative when it comes to teaching and when I panic because there isn't enough money to pay bills I fill out my form for Arts Greensboro. What a wonderful organization that is. They are helping artists: fine arts, Music, theatre etc weather this financial storm a lot of us are going through so If you are a good wage earner and you can afford it, give to them. They have really helped me out this week!!!! And they were able to help 68 others as well solely on donations.

that is my news for now. I will write soon