Met with architect friend Andrea Deng by the Arco Della Pace. Sat in a cafe across the street and sketched while enjoying cocktails and a buffet.
After finishing my sketch of the arch, I turned and captured the scene behind Andrea. Andrea overheard the provocatively clad young lady and her friends mention going Salsa dancing later in the evening.
Drawn with fountain pens, DeAtramentis ink, and Pitt Artist Pens in à Hanemühle watercolor sketchbook.
A truly bizarre addition atop the convention center in Milano. Mario Bellini’s erotic aquatic imagination got the best of him with what looks like the desiccated remains of a whale that had collapsed in the act of major flagrante delecto with a mis-identified paramour. Imagine the budget the selection committee had to sling at Mario’s go-for-broke moment.
can’t quite figure out whether Mario was enthralled with the convention halls architectural voluptuousness or if he was expressing his inner aggression at not getting the gig to design the Center in the first place.
Fountain pen with DeAtramentis Document Brown ink and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens on Hannemühle way er paper sketchbook.
President Biden, I’m wondering how you’re doing and where you are on this day of days. Me, I’m in Milano and I seem to recall a story of a family of refugees; in particular, an infant, a young mother and an older gentleman, seeking sanctuary.
Drawn on site in Milano, Italia with fountain pens and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens
Revisions. “Work that page!!” I urge my students to make the most out of your sketchbooks and studies. This ledgerbook I’ve been drawing in since 2017 is getting worked over pretty thoroughly. I can’t leave alone pages of the quick 1-3 minute gesture drawings or sprints as I call ‘em. And if a figure drawing can’t stand on its own then I jump into any open space that begs to be assailed. Tends to keep things nice and loose. Robust. It’s a learning process in which I don’t want to be prissy or treat my studies as precious. The studies over the last 3 weeks of Elizabeth, Tor, Gretchen, and Bobby were slung onto sketches from 2017 and 2019. All done at the Palette and Chisel. I may like a figure but still feel the page needs work. Or, I may like a page as it’s developing but am disheartened by some of the studies. The first page, for instance, the drawing of the model on the step ladder irritated me for a few years and last night I dropped a pose of Bobby on it that I felt was one of my better studies this last month, and the gray background only served as a challenge to work highlights back into his shoulders and torso. The page of Elizabeth and Gretchen was fun and I liked the color play but Gretchen doesn’t look like Gretchen. And while I let go of getting a likeness if the structure and values and marks all add up to a well constructed head, but….I have drawn Gretchen scores of times and I confess, it bugs the bejezzus outta me that I miss the mark on her likeness. Maybe if I actually spent less time on the bloody internet and more time drawing.
Consider me a devout practioner of pentimento and palimpsest. sprawling the thought process out onto a page.
As for medium used, all the usual suspects are here, fountain pens, Platinum Carbon and DeAtramentis inks, grease pencil, and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens.