Merry Christmas 2018

10" x 8" Oil on Panel

As often as I can, I attend painting and drawing sessions at other artist's studios. A week or so ago, one of the studios had none other than ol' Kris Kringle himself sitting for us to paint! Of course, instead of using charcoal, I had to break out the oil paints. As usual for my portrait oils, I used only four colors, almost a pure "Zorn palette": titanium white, yellow ochre, cadmium red (instead of vermilion) and ivory black. My little oil study of Santa is shown above.

Saint Nick is a fun subject to paint, and far easier than painting an entire nativity scene on portrait night. Of course the real reason for Christmas is expressed in the following video:

Merry Christmas everybody!

Man Reading a book

12" x 9" Charcoal on Grey Paper

Last Wednesday the model for the portrait session at Howard Lyon's studio brought along a book to read as we drew or painted him. You'd think that would make it easier to draw the subject, but even something as small as the model moving his eyes from one page to the next changes his appearance. That creates a challenge, but you learn to deal with it. The picture above is how I dealt with it.

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

Portrait Session Drawing

12" x 9" Charcoal Pencil on Gray Paper

This drawing is from last week's portrait session at Howard Lyon's studio. Once again, I relied on one of my favorite mediums, charcoal pencil and toned paper. 

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

Back to the Portrait Sessions II

12" x 9" Charcoal on Grey Paper

It's about time I started regularly attending weekly portrait sessions again. Last week at Casey Child's studio we had a male model. The drawing I made of him is shown above. I plan on getting back to using oil paints at these sessions, but for now It's charcoal on paper and focusing on drawing. Honestly, I might love drawing even more than I love painting!

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