Buttnekkiddoodles

Gosh, I miss life drawing. I draw from life on a regular if not daily basis. But to draw the human body, uncovered, to really slow down and take an intense accounting of this marvel of the world. To see the structure and the substructure while capturing the play of light over the form. In the past two years I’ve barely drawn the nude and have stopped attending live sessions. I gave the virtual, online live session a go but there is a subtle spatial difference of drawing from a screen, a two dimensional surface filmed from the singular perspective of a lense and standing before a figure. When drawing live, in the same space before a model, I feel the negotiation between my two eyes. The very tricky play of parallax which creates the jostling of binocular vision.
And the craft of translating the third dimension onto a plane. Dealing with the slow fatigue of the model holding 15 and 25 minute poses, where the greater the difficulty of their pose, the more the wrestling match with gravity creates settling of the body, and the not always slight twists which may ease the strain of the pose but tease the artist to accommodate new profiles and morphing negative spaces. I miss it and I love it. All that and the accounting of lights nuanced play over the form. Again, each minute shift means light edges and slips to new real estate.
I enjoy looking at this marvel that is us.
Every sleek contour, every wrinkle, crevice, bulge, scar, wart, hollow, hump, jut, droop, dimple. The heft and hang, the flab and fold, the sheen and shade, where there’s hair, where it’s spare, the stretched and gathered, the glint of light on pout or snout or knuckle or nail.
Ah and skin. That marvelous organ which wraps and conceals all that writhes and wriggles beneath. At times dry and cottony, other times it more resembles satin or warm alabaster where one can literally see light penetrating it’s surface.
And the extraordinary dance between the hand and eye, and the mind and the heart that is the craft of drawing. The Thesaurusian challenge to describe as simply as possible or with as wide an alphabet of marks as one may, the same features again and again and with tireless return, again with no loss of delight.
Know thyself.
I’ve been missing it.

 
Drawn with a variety of fountain pens – usually with water proof pigmented ink or water resistant inks some of which are dyes, white grease pencils -aka White China Markers, my trusty Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens, on the rare occasion a color pencil, on various papers.

 

Some recent nudes from sessions at The Palette and Chisel. Pitt Artist Pens on Stillman & Birn Gamma Series sketchbook.

 

I seldom walk thru the door of the Palette & Chisel certain I’ll have a strong day drawing. I generally know if I’m to struggle with the need to either relax or bear down. Nice when you can manage both.

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2. All of these were drawn on Tomoe River Paper with Pitt Artist Pens and some fountain pens.

 I enjoy watching people at work. Over the last dozen years or so of going to life drawing sessions, I’ve turned my attention to the artists as they ply their craft. While not completely still, their movements are generally gradual enough to catch the gist of their posture with the added challenge of frequent adjustments. An artist standing at an easel may back off with some frequency but even those seated upon the bench know as a horse might need to shift to relieve pressure or numbness. I draw with ink so should the artist move significantly I either begin a second drawing or incorporate the new position right on top of the drawing in progress in the manner of pentimento. I’ve dropped into life drawing sessions across the country, but the primary place I work on my nude figure drawing chops is the venerated Palette & Chisel.  Some of these artists I’ve worked alongside for years such as my friend Misha, who hails from Minsk, Bielorussia where he studied art as a young man. A wonderful subject in his own right he is very dogged in his approach taking glimpse at the figure before working with a long practiced surety. Others rapidly look back and forth between page and subject. One in particular, Bodo, very actively tilts his head left to right while quickly looking up and down and working alternately on different sections of anatomy making him one of the more challenging to capture a likeness of. Mary Qian, seen in baseball cap and in the final drawing, frequently looks thru a pair of binoculars to help her with detail.

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Medium used: Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens, various Fountain Pens, Platinum Carbon Ink, deAtrementis Ink, Pentel Brush Pen, Tomoe River Paper, Hahnemühle sketchbooks, repurposed ledgerbooks, Stillman & Birn sketchbooks,

 

In the cold grey of winter it’s appealing to work from nudes modeling the warm glow of the flesh.

  

Drawn with fountain pen, Platinum Carbon Ink, F-C Pitt Artist Pens on Tomoe River Paper. The last 2 were drawn with graphite. » Continue Reading…