Buttnekkiddoodles

Just drawing the full figure from life enough these days. So this past Thursday and Friday I put in a little time but still got caught up in the partials.

Steven Assael happened to be at the Palette & Chisel teaching a workshop and sat in on the Friday night life drawing session. I was behind him for a couple of poses and enjoyed watching him draw as I sheet he’d him n the act. Also included are a few head studies acquired in transit.

   

Various inks, fountain pens, Pitt Artist Pens, Seven Seas Tomoe River Paper.

Got on the CTA to head downtown for a job and saw this gentleman get off the north bound train at Howard, it’s final destination, cross over to the south bound platform, board the train, and fall to sleep. The trains run all but 4 hours a day I believe and it is possible, if homeless, and cold, to spend most of the day at least warm, and dry. I’ve asked myself how I would manage if I became homeless, and until such a time that I face that possibility I’m speculating. Where would I have parked the belongings such as books, artwork, clothes, other things way more than I could carry around, or pay for at a storage unit, or leave at a friend’s garage. Whatever the circumstances a person goes thru that would deliver them to the state of homelessness, and there are several, loss of employment, debt load, broken family, mental illness, addiction, I personally can’t image the ability to endure that hardship for long. A very good friend of mine did wind up on the streets after a long, slow decline thru poor financial decisions, substance abuse, frustration with career struggles, wearing out the welcome of friends who tried to help him. In the end, he gradually poisoned himself with alcohol till he had a systemic collapse. It was his way of killing himself, of that I’m sure. I would try to see him on return trips to the city he lived in and towards the very end, the loss of will, and his mental and emotional decline sealed his fate.

Now, as my generation gets old and the possibility of safety nets and affordable health care and affordable housing seem anything but certain, this challenge has become too possible for a frightening number amoung us.

My generation became obsessed with how they were going to get their children into good schools and pay for insanely expensive college degrees. Having cleared those hurdles, the conversations will definitely turn to their wellbeing and management of their August years.

Head studies done while traveling on public transit or in public spaces. Drawn in ink.

 

A selection of head and hair studies while out drawing in public. A few friends graciously held still for me, but most were captured while drawing in transit, in cafes, airports, and a couple during life drawing sessions. You can tell these were executed on a variety of papers, some in ledger books, some on watercolor paper, Tomoe River Paper, in various journals, but all of the drawings were made using ink and pigmented pens.

Can you ever get bored drawing heads and hairstyles??? Trying to capture as wide a range as I can, the tonsure zoo of hair. Dreads, ponytails, crew cuts, B-52s, pompadoured crowns, flips, dips, cowlicks, comb-overs, straight, Boticelli & Michelangelesque curls, sprays, tinted, two-toned, razor cuts, haze cuts, feathered, bed head, pig-tailed, braided, gathered, bearded, moustachioed, Van Dykes, Imperials, goateed, sideburns, mutton chops, pencil-thins, cornrows, bobs, top-knots, bro-knots, high-n-tight, Mohawks, faux-hawks, French braids, Amish bowel cuts, Page girls, conks……yee-gads!

Staying close to home and watching the citizenry. Pat, one of the residents in my apartment compound watches a movie set up in the courtyard. I found her much more engaging than the flick.

And so, after forty years of watching others  build their chops with watercolor, I have decided this month that I am to take the plunge with the medium. Previously, I have used watercolor and gouache to tint and hand color prints and drawings.

i know several masters of the medium, Clive Powsey, Shari Blaukopf, and Ron Stocke, whose work will serve to inform and guide me with the additional benefit of keeping me humble.

The above watercolor, done while in a cafe with the added fun of a fidgety student, has some light guide lines but I also tried to just knock in shapes with a flat brush.

       

The above watercolor of the parking lot and club house of the Jackson Park Yacht Club, was actually, my first, plein air watercolor in forty years. My color may have reflected somewhat, the washed out summer day in a parking lot with white, silver, and black cars, but felt muddy so I did a study after John Singer Sargent, the gourds below, to hopefully  amp up my hues and loosen up my brush work.

Above, I ventured to a rose garden in Evanston in the late afternoon, but failed to catch the brilliance of the light. Again, I tried to use minimal structural lines and worked as directly with the brushes as I could. All the other figures, save the blue shirted guy and the window counter, were executed with Pitt Artist Brush Pens.

Some more captures from a street festival, a movie in Pulaski Park, this cluster was drawn from life with my standard gear.