Merry Christmas 2012

There aren't any recent works of mine Christmasy enough for this post, so I dug deep into the past and pulled out a couple wintry scenes done in colored pencil from when I lived in Pennsylvania. My style is completely different now, but I thought it would be fun to share these with you.

 

Early one winter morning I was up to see the twilight. Looking out I saw the deep blue of sky and snow becoming split by warmer tones near the horizon. Also there was the waning crescent moon anticipating the coming sunrise. I made a sketch and later took photos of the scene. From those I made the drawing above.

On a winter's walk in woods just outside of town I saw the trees in the scene above. Struck by the intricate lacework of the spreading branches and twigs, I got out a sketchbook and recorded my impression of the scene. Although whitetail deer frequent the area, they weren't there when I was. Someone I knew had a few captive whitetails in a fenced area, so I went to visit him. There I sketched the deer and took photos. Later I also studied photo references in library books. From those sketches and photos came the drawing shown above.

 I found the initial tree sketch the finished work is based on:

 



These days I prefer painting plein air, and portraits drawn from life, but would like one day to do some more studio works from references.

Merry Christmas!

Pre- Apocolyptic Mayan

Guatemalan Man, 12" x 9" Charcoal on Paper

Two days and counting, roughly. Two more days and the Mayan calendar ends. What will happen then? Will the sky fall? Will it be too late to see that movie? Will the planet implode in a thunderous clatter of collapsing tectonic plates as molten lava oozes everywhere? Will strapping firebricks to the bottom of my shoes protect me from the fiery oozing lava? Of course, there might be an inevitable and simultaneous zombie apocalypse. Maybe even Mayan zombies. I'll need a good Ulfberht sword to defend myself against apocalypsing zombies. Since millions of years of geology will be broken up in the collapse of continents, there could be zombie dinosaurs! I'll need a bazooka! So with a bazooka balanced on my shoulder, a sword in hand, firebrick strapped to my shoes, and maybe a good hat, I'll be well prepared for the impending end of the Mayan Calendar. It's about time, too. I've never been ready all the other times the world ended.

Or it may be even worse. I found this on Facebook:

So, in honor of the Mayan Apocalypse, I bring you a charcoal sketch of a Guatemalan man, shown at the top of this post. It was drawn in the weekly drawing session a few years ago, back when neither he (the model) nor I, nor anyone else in that session seemed concerned about that calendar.

Then again, maybe I'll just go for a pleasant Winter Solstice walk. If I see a movie it will most likely be "The Hobbit", and probably not until it comes to the dollar theater. Check back with me in two or three days. I'll let you know if the world ended.

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

This Week's Charcoal Portrait

Charcoal on Paper 12" x 9"

This is my sketch of the woman who modeled for our drawing session last Thursday. Three-quarter or profile views with side or edge lighting are what I usually look for at these sessions. This time, though, I went for a nearly straight-on view with flat lighting. A change-up in the set-up is good every once in a while to make one think outside of any growing comfort zones.

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

Holiday Exhibits, 2012

Today, December 7, 2012, is "First Friday Gallery Stroll." Galleries stay open later than usual on the first Friday of every month so patrons can spend an evening going from one gallery to the next, enjoying the artwork on display. The gallery stroll is free, and while you're out you could have dinner at a local restaurant, or visit some of the other attractions in your town. You might even find some artwork that would make great gifts!

Here are galleries that have some of my paintings for sale:

• Evergreen Gallery, 3295 South 2000 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84109. Phone:  (801) 467-8770. Website: http://www.evergreengallery.com/
•  Window Box Gallery, 62 W Center St., Provo, UT 84601. Phone: (801) 377-4367. Website: http://www.windowboxgallery.com/
• Juniper Sky Gallery, 851 Coyote Gulch Court, Ivins, UT 84738. Phone: (435) 674-2306. Website: http://www.coyotegulchartvillage.com/junipersky.html

• Terra Nova Gallery, 41 West 300 North, Provo, Utah 84601. Phone: (801) 374-0016. Website: http://www.terranovagallery.com/
• Crowley Gallery, 115 25th St., Ogden, Utah 84410. Phone: (801) 391-8764. Website: http://utahfineart.com/
•  Logan Fine Art Gallery, 60 West 100 North, Logan, Utah 84321. Phone: (435) 753-0333. Website: http://www.loganfineart.com/

Taiwanese Woman

12" x 9" Charcoal Pencil on Paper

Our model for last night's drawing session was a cute Asian woman who's modeled for fashion photographers. Once again I wanted to keep things simple and focus on values. This sketch was made with charcoal pencils. A kneaded eraser was used to help bring out the light areas.

The charcoal pencils I use are various brands, lengths, and hardnesses, though I tend to favor the softer leads. They are "sharpened" with a pocket knife. I'm not too finesse about it. I'm also so stingy that sometimes I'll use a pencil for as long as I possibly can.

No sense in throwing away a perfectly good pencil!

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

Rainy Day Sketchbooks

This is part four in an on-going series about sketchbooks.

What do you do when it's too rainy outside to sketch outdoors? Or too cold or too dark? Actually, none of those conditions necessarily preclude sketching outdoors. But on those days you really can't get out, say, you're down with a cold, or waiting between appointments, or what-have-you, what can you sketch?

Outdoors is my preferred place to sketch, but - as has already been shown in an earlier post about sketchbooks - there's plenty indoors waiting to be put to work in a sketchbook. Anything and everything can do. The day pack shown at the top of this post was purchased in Northwestern Pennsylvania in 1982 and has seen a lot of outdoor time in one Eastern state and three Western states. I still use it to this day. But on this particular day, I just propped it along the base of the living room wall and made this sketch.

The knife shown above didn't look like that when it was given too me. It had a flimsy wooden handle and "sheath" which were soon broken. I made a new and better shaped handle for it out of durable mahogany. The sheath I made from an old worn out leather jacket. One day I set it on a tabletop and did this sketch.

The various shapes and facets in the brass candlestick shown below held my attention long enough for a sketch:

I was curious about how the shadows and reflections would play out if I took a plain white coffee cup, set it on white paper, and illuminated it from three directions. The next sketch shows the result:

The other sketches in this post were all drawn in graphite pencil, but this empty green pop bottle made a good subject for a study done in colored pencil:

Here's another soft-bodied subject, an old L. L. Bean carrying case for camera equipment:

This cast iron skillet served as a model for me one day:

This exotic wood turning was from Nepal, I think. It was in the home of someone I was visiting in Utah for a few days. During some quiet time in between other places to go and things to do, I sat down and made this sketch:

Reflected Light

Pastel on Gray Paper

Here's another portrait from the weekly drawing sessions. From this angle there isn't much direct light visible on the model's face. What interested me in the model's shadowed side was the way light bounced from her white clothing into darker areas of her face, illuminating her jaw, underside of her nose, and the area between eye and eyebrow. Note that the reflected light is not as bright as the directly illuminated areas of her face.

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

Escalante Part II, and a New Exhibit

6" x 8" Oil on Panel

Tonight (Nov. 2, 2012) a new show opens at the Terra Nova Gallery, "Great Things, Small Packages", and runs through the 28th of December. All works are for sale. Two small paintings of mine are in the show; plein air oil paintings I made in the Wasatch Mountains. You're welcome to come see my paintings and check out the rest of the show! Terra Nova is located at 41 West, 300 North in Provo, Utah. They can be reached at 801-374-0016.

But now it's about time I finished writing about this year's Escalante Canyons Art Festival. You can read part 1 here.

After dropping off my entry for the plein air painting competition and spending some time at the artist' reception, I headed off into the desert to find a place to camp for the night. It seems my usual way to find a place to camp in unknown territory is to drive down some dirt road after dark, then find another dirt road and follow that until I come to a likely spot. This night, I found a nice sandy spot amongst the pinion and juniper trees.

Having made camp, I decided on a night hike. The full moon was brilliant, and there was no need for a flashlight, though I kept one handy in my day pack. The dirt track led to a sandy wash which I followed as it meandered through the expansive desert night. Stars near the horizon seemed to bob and weave as the rising desert air distorted their images. The sand gave gently beneath my steps. As I wandered along the desert wash, my mind wandered many other trails; different kinds of trails which frequently intersected and intertwined with the sandy wash somehow. What else is there that can sharpen the senses and open pathways for the mind like a desert night hike?

Before breakfast the next morning I walked back down the dirt track to the wash. There I saw the footprints I had left in the sand the night before. Superimposed over my footprints were small paw prints - tracks of a small coyote or kit fox that had followed my trail.

Later that day I went back into the town of Escalante. There I signed the painting I'd entered into the show, visited with other painters and enjoyed the exhibit. That evening I went to an entirely different part of the Escalante Desert to camp. After driving several miles down another dirt road, I camped on some slickrock. In all the low spots in the slickrock and in the surrounding sand were thousands of moqui marbles. They were also found embedded in the slick rock and nearby cliffs of Navajo Sandstone. I had never seen these iron oxide concretions in the wild before - and they were in such abundance. I honestly - and maybe irreverently - wished I had brought along a slingshot. Those little round iron and sandstone balls would have made perfect ammo! Instead of doing that, I made the painting shown at the top of this post.

That night, under the stars and full moon, I stood on the elephant-hide-textured slickrock and watched the flood of moonlight wash across the Escalante Desert. Some movement several yards away caught my eye. Something large was flitting around near the tops of some pinion pines. As I watched, a large bird with a wingspan of maybe two feet or more flew toward me. It made no sound as it circled me, slightly above and just a few feet away! I turned to face the silhouetted bird as it circled me one and a half times before it departed into the desert night. Just a curious owl?

Cooking Breakfast

Bath Time, Such as it is, in the Escalante Desert.

The next day was spent exploring mesas and trails, and making a couple more paintings, one of which is shown below. Weather began moving in as the day wore on, making painting challenging as the lighting changed from sunny to cloudy and back again, over and over before changing to scattered rain showers. That evening I returned to the Arts Festival and to the happy discovery that my painting had sold. Afterwards was the long drive home, getting there around 1 AM.

6" x 8" Oil on Panel

Sketching in Museums

There have already been a couple of posts in this blog about sketching in museums. You can find those posts here and here. The sketches featured in this post were made at the Edge of the Cedars Museum in the Four Corners region of the Colorado Plateau. Edge of the Cedars has a huge collection of ancient Anasazi pottery, artifacts, and other displays. The first sketch I did from their collection is shown above. If I remember right, the pot was around 12" or 14" across. The intricate pattern was a dark gray on very pale gray clay. It may look as though it might have been tedious to draw, but I found the pattern mesmerizing, and wanted to record it in my sketchbook. And - I had to draw it. For me, a photograph would not do. The image at the bottom of the sketchbook page (shown above) is the beginnings of a sketch of a bone-handled stone knife in the museum's collection. It's unfinished because the museum's closing time caught up with me.

The more recent sketch shown below is of a small gray pot in the same museum. I was intrigued by the pot's irregular shape and mysterious quality, in contrast to it's simplicity. Was it made to be hung over a fire outside of a pueblo? Or was it carried on long trips to special cliff faces where mysterious rock art can still be found?

Sketching in museums can be very useful and enjoyable. It sharpens drawing skills, offers glimpses into the thoughts and attitudes of artists from other times and places, and - for a little while - steeps you in the art-world-at-large. If you plan visiting a museum for sketching, be sure to check with them ahead of time. Many museums have policies regarding sketching. There may be restrictions on when you can sketch, sketching mediums, sketch size, and what may or may not be copied. Carry out your own trash and be sure to leave the place clean. Don't block the way for other museum goers. In fact, for me much of the fun of sketching in museums is talking with museum visitors and staff who seem fascinated with what I'm doing. Above all - DON'T TOUCH THE EXHIBITS! I never have, but I've heard a few horror stories about people who have.

On another note, this is the last week for you to VOTE for Peoples Choice Award in Terra Nova's Plein Air Provo exhibit. Polls are open now until Noon this Friday (Oct. 26th). You can vote by going to Terra Nova's blog: http://terranovagallery.wordpress.com/

Terra Nova Gallery's "Tidbit Tuesday"

Terra Nova Gallery featured my Plein Air Provo entry in their "Tidbit Tuesday" this week:

Tidbit Tuesday Early Autumn by James Gunter Early Autumn by James Gunter West Provo - with it's ranches, hay fields, cottonwood and willow trees - is a popular place for those of us who paint plein air landscapes. If you look around this year's Plein Air Provo exhibit, you'll see several paintings that were done there. I've painted in West Provo many times. In fact, I've painted this particular tree in different seasons and from many different angles over the years. This year, not only did that cottonwood provide the subject for my entry into the show (with Mount Timpanogos in the background) it also was the muse for several other painters in this year's Plein Air Provo. Like the Pre-Raphaelites had Jane Morris, we Plein Air Provo painters have - that tree! Take time to look around the exhibit and see the different versions of Populus fremontii. -James Gunter Early Autumn  Oil on Board 9" x 12"  Have you voted? Vote for the Plein Air Provo exhibit  People's Choice Award at:   TerraNovaGallery.wordpress.com  See you in the gallery.   EXHIBITS: Plein Air Provo 3-26 October Great Things Small Packages 2 November - 28 December download PDF information sheet here  Terra Nova Gallery 41 West 300 North Provo, Utah 84601 3:30 - 6pm M-F other times by appointment You can find us on Facebook and become a fan. Read our blog Saga about happenings in the gallery & studio. And if you like what you see use the "forward email" link below or tell your friends.

Forward email

Don't forget - only a few days left to vote for Peoples Choice!

It's Time to VOTE!

No, I'm not talking about those guys. I mean for People's Choice Award at Terra Nova Gallery for their 5th annual Plein Air Provo competition. 

Gallery owner David Hawkinson has arranged for the voting to be carried out on line. Anyone can vote. Just go to http://terranovagallery.wordpress.com/ and follow directions. Scroll down to see photos of all the paintings in the show. Make your selection and click in the little circle just to the left of the painting's title and artist. Then scroll down to the bottom of the column that shows the paintings and click on the "Vote" button. It's that easy! Voting is open NOW and closes October 26th at Noon (note time change).

You can vote just from the images on line, but it's really recommended that you come into Terra Nova Gallery and see the exhibit. It's one of the best Plein Air Provo shows ever! I only entered one painting but it split Second Place with Robert McKay's painting "Sentinel." Terra Nova is located at 41 West, 300 North in Provo, Utah. Check their website for hours or call 801-374-0016.

It can be difficult to decide how to cast your vote, but perhaps I can make the decision easier for you with a little bit of (shameless) advice: Vote for ME! There, now wasn't that a nice break from those two guys who are all over the news channels these days?

Navajo Man Charcoal Sketch

Charcoal on Gray Paper

The picture shown above is of another sketch from a past drawing session. He posed for the class a few times and was an excellent model. One of those times he even entertained us by bringing his Indian flute and playing it. If I remember right, he works as a river rafting guide on the Colorado, and has spent a lot of time in Europe, particularly France and Germany. 

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

...And Another Show Opens Tonight!

The Salon d' Automne is a juried art show in Logan, Utah. The quality of artwork in the show is quite high, and I'm happy to have been accepted into the show. The show opens at 5:30 PM this evening (Friday, Oct. 5, 2012). For more information, visit their website:

http://www.loganfineart.com/

Or call the gallery: (435) 753-0333.

Plein Air Provo 2012

Event Flier. That's someone else's hand and stuff.

Plein Air Provo opens to the public tomorrow night (Friday, Oct. 5th)! I met a number of other painters taking part in the competition as I was out painting this afternoon. Unlike last time, the weather for this year's competition was gorgeous! Bluebird skies and mild temperatures, with just enough haze to give good atmospheric perspective. Because of other things in my schedule, I was only able to finish one painting, but I'm happy with it. You can come out and see my freshly painted landscape, along with brand new paintings by a lot of other painters this month at the Terra Nova Gallery.

A Wirlwind Trip to Escalante 2012

Devil's Garden Hoodoos, 9" x 12" Oil on Canvas Panel

Last year I spent nearly the entire week at the Escalante Canyons Art Festival, but because of other matters, this year Escalante was put off until the last moment. I called on Wednesday to ask if I could still register for the plein air competition, and left at 5:00 the next morning for the long drive to southern Utah. Finished paintings had to be turned in by 7:00 that evening. Sandy Larsen registered me and stamped my canvas panels around half past ten, then I headed straight for the "Devil's Garden" where I did the painting shown at the top of this post. The painting was finished, framed, and turned in before 5:00 PM, well before the deadline. Later that evening I spent a little time at the artist's reception, then headed out into the desert to find a place to camp for the night.

Competition rules require that paintings entered not be signed until after the judging so as not to influence the judge's decisions. I wonder about the rules effectiveness, but of course follow it anyway. The paintings have to be signed before the "silent auction" on Saturday or they won't be sold. So, late Friday morning I drove back into town to sign my painting. Taking my little cherry wood pochade box into the exhibit hall, I signed my painting. Then Brad Holt, last year's winner and a featured artist at the show, asked if he could borrow my brush and paint to sign his painting. Of course I was happy to let him do that, and left him so I could go peruse the exhibit and visit with other painters there. When I returned to my pochade box, I found other painters had used my stuff to sign their paintings, too, and most of them were this years award winners! If I wasn't an award winner this year, I was happy to be of good use to those who were.

Later, I traveled out to a different place in the Escalante Desert to camp, once again under the full moon. That evening I did a painting in the little cherry wood pochade box and the next day painted two more before returning to the plein air show. There I found my painting had sold.

More about Escalante 2012 later...

Pastel Sketch - Red Haired Woman

12" x 9" Pastel on Textured Paper

Here is a sketch from a few years ago.  It's a pastel on Art Spectrum Colourfix paper, drawn at the weekly drawing session I attend.  She was a model I just HAD to get the colors out for!  Not only is red hair fun to draw, the skin tones in fair-skinned blonds and redheads are full of color.  Look carefully and you'll see not only pink and orange tones but also yellows, greens, blues, violets, and lavenders.  These subtle and natural colors are challenging - but so much fun to draw!  Exercises like this also help open your eyes to the various kinds of subtle color shifts that are present in skin tones of people of all ethnicities, races, and backgrounds - and to the colors you might not have originally known were there.

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

Evergreen Framing Co. & Gallery

Evergreen Framing Co. & Gallery has accepted several of my plein air oil landscapes into their gallery. I'm excited to be included in their gallery! Evergreen has a wide variety of artwork by Utah artists, as well as jewelry, gifts, and custom framing for sale. Be sure to visit and see all the exciting things they have in their gallery. Evergreen Framing Co. & Gallery is located at 3295 South 2000 East in Salt Lake City, UT. For a map and directions click on the "Location" link at the bottom of this post.

For more information, visit their website: http://www.evergreengallery.com/index.html

Evergreen Framing Co. & Gallery can be reached by phone: (801) 467-8770. or email: info@evergreengallery.com.

Sketch Everything! Part 2

This is part two of a series about sketchbooks. Part one can be found here. 

The sketchbook page shown above has three different sketches. One is a trompe l'oeil of an antique fishing lure. One evening I got out the colored pencils, placed the lure on a white sheet of paper and drew what I saw. It was done for practice.

The other sketches on the sheet are simple line studies done on a different day. On that day, the leaves were being drawn in a backyard in Pennsylvania when a bumblebee suddenly landed on one of the leaves close to me. I was a little concerned about possibly being stung by such a large bee, but then I began to notice unusual things about it. Bumblebees look for flowers, but this "bumblebee" had parked itself on the face of a a leaf and then didn't move - something I don't think bumblebees can do. Closer inspection showed it didn't have a bumblebee's face, but a head more like that of a fly. Overall, it looked like a bumblebee but acted like a fly. I dubbed it "Bumblefly." It stayed put long enough to have it's portrait done. That's it on the lower left quarter of the sketchbook page shown above.

There are a lot of color studies in some of my sketchbooks, done to see what happens when this color is mixed with that color. Here's a small sample (this one in colored pencil) next to quick sketches of honeysuckle blossoms:

Written notes find their way into my sketchbooks, too. Here's just two of several pages of notes taken during a painting workshop:

Quick studies of people who don't know they're being sketched is a way of strengthening people drawing skills without always having to hire a model. It also catches people in natural, unposed attitudes. The next sketchbook page shows quick gesture studies of children playing in a park:

It's important not to draw attention while sketching (pun not intended, but I like it anyway). People are often flattered to learn they've been sketched, and sometimes after the fact I might show them the finished sketch. However, to keep the gestures natural it's important that they don't know they're being sketched. Adults are less likely than children to notice someone is sketching them. One day I went to a local park, sat down on a picnic bench and began sketching children playing nearby. I'd scratched off only a few gesture studies when one of the kids suddenly shouted, "Hey, that guy is drawing!" The next thing I knew I was surrounded by children wanting to see what I was drawing. So much for that! My cover was blown. I quickly showed them the sketches, excused myself and retreated.

On the other hand, sketching pictographs found in a red rock alcove in Canyonlands didn't attract any attention - at least, none that I could see:

Sometimes I'll just doodle in my sketchbook. Doodles can be a useful way of exploring design and other ideas:

One of the most important uses for sketchbooks is planning out finished works. The image below shows a series of thumbnail sketches done in preparation for a finished painting. These "notans" were used to help work out the design for the finished painting. The painting sold in an exhibit and unfortunately I didn't get a photo before it went out the door, but the design I used was the one in the middle of the bottom row (seen on it's side):

One More from Spring City 2012

Stormy Sky over Hayfields, 9" x 12" Oil on Canvas Panel

Here's another painting I did during the Spring City plein air event. I looked at this spot a couple times before deciding to paint it. Driving up to paint this scene, I saw a deer gazing out from between the trees. Too bad Bambi didn't hang around long enough to be painted! 

The stormy weather intensified during the late afternoon. As one particularly strong storm bore down on me, I tossed the painting gear into the car and took shelter there myself to wait out the storm. After the lightning and thunder had passed and the downpour lessened to a drizzle, I set up again under the hatchback of my SUV and finished painting. 

Returning home later that evening I had to drive through a flash flood area near Fountain Green. Police were there directing traffic as heavy equipment worked to build up banks and clear channels in an attempt to redirect the floodwaters. My 4Runner got through the flood zone just fine, but now it's covered with mud. Of course for me that's nothing new!

Spring City 2012

Fence Line Rabbit Brush, 9" x 12" Oil on Canvas Panel

This week is Spring City's plein air competition. All of the paintings contestants have done in the last few days have been turned in and the show is hung. The weather was challenging and the painters had to dodge thunderstorms, but it was a good time to be painting outdoors and I'm happy with the three pieces I did for the show. 

This is one of the biggest plein air shows in the state, and one of my favorites. Tonight was the opening reception, and the main exhibition, awards and sale will be tomorrow, Saturday, September 1st. The hours are from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. There's a wide variety and a lot of very good paintings on display, as usual. For more information about the show go to: http://springcityarts.com/ . Hope to see you there!

Русская женщина (A Russian Woman)

Русская женщина, 12 "х 9" угольным карандашом на бумаге

Google Translate can be so much fun!

The woman who modeled for us at last Thursday's drawing class was from Russia. Once again I decided to keep it simple and use only charcoal pencil in a 12" x 9" sketchbook. The picture above shows the finished sketch.

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

Sketches from a Marble Statue

14" x 10" "White Charcoal" and Charcoal on Gray Paper

A few weeks ago I was visiting the Brigham Young University Museum of Art when I saw this statue on exhibit in the museum's lower level.  The marble statue depicts Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael as Abraham sends his wife and son away out into the wilderness.  Despite the unpleasant story it tells, I thought the statue would provide excellent opportunities for sketching.  Drawing from plaster casts - or in this case, marble statues - provides an opportunity to study how light shapes an object, and how bounced light reflects back into shadows. Since there is no variation in color or texture, you are able to clearly see and study the behavior of light on the larger form undistracted by other factors. What you learn from doing this can be applied to paintings of real people, or anything else for that matter.

A week or two after seeing the stature I obtained permission to sketch it, so I headed to the museum with my gear.  I forgot that it was Education Week at BYU and the campus was crowded.  It was hard to find a parking place close to the museum, but by circling the parking lot a few times I found a spot.  After meeting with the museum's Collections Manager, I headed downstairs and commenced drawing. Lots of people stopped to visit as I sketched - something I always enjoy.  Even security guards stopped briefly to chat.  That was a Tuesday and I did the drawing shown at the top of this post.

The drawing shown above might seem detailed to some, but my concern was for the larger shapes and I dispensed with minutiae.  The image below of one of the eyes shows the level of detail in the drawing:

Detail of Drawing

Tuesday I visited again for a second sketch, from a different angle, and on Friday I did a third angle. Here's last Friday's drawing:

It was on Friday that the man who restored the statue stopped to see the work.  He visited with me as I sketched and explained the fascinating story of the statue's restoration.  The statue is titled, "Dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael," and was carved by William Theed in England during the nineteenth century. When the restorer got the statue it was in seven pieces, with chunks missing.  He told me how he had cleaned the statue and put it back together, patching gaps where parts were missing.  I had no idea!  The repairs were not obvious to me, and I still couldn't see some of them even after he pointed them out!

One of the museums curators stopped and talked with me during the course of my drawing Friday. We talked about some of the museum's exhibits and I told him how much I enjoyed and now miss some past exhibits, especially Edward Austin Abbey and Carl Bloch.  He told me about an exhibit that the museum is planning to have in a year or so, so now I have the skinny on what's coming!

The three afternoons at the museum were, I think, time very well spent.  I enjoyed being there, in spite of wearing myself out.  I hope to return from time to time for more study.  Many thanks to the Brigham Young University Museum of Art for allowing me the opportunity to sketch there!