3, 5 and 1 minutes.
"But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."
"This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers."
Today I got to try out my new sketchpad. It's a Canson Watercolor Biggie Jr. These are big 50 page watercolor sketchbooks, about double the size of the ones I was using before. Perfect for flying through in these life drawing sessions.
Here are this week's figure drawings. Wish I had time to go out and do some costumed figures as well...trying to simplify complex clothing would be a great thing to work on. Also, it would be interesting to see how much of the underlying movement I could bring out in the clothes..hmm.
Okay...I guess it would have been more exciting if I'd painted some of the actors...but I was busy watching. This is a part of the set for Madwoman of Chaillot. My friend Rashmi was one of the very talented actors (and mad women) in this fun play.
Here are today's figure drawings. I tried a few with more line. It's really tricky drawing a complete figure in ink straight away, but it helped that the two closeups were 10 minutes instead of 5. It takes me at least double the time to think out these lines if I start caring about making it a little more "refined". I've got to start moving somewhere new with this stuff...too busy with animation stuff lately, but eventually I'll do some more watercolors with a clear mind, hopefully for a few hours straight and things will start going somewhere from here. That's why I have no shame about stuffing my pockets with art supplies wherever I go...I've got too much to do and too little time to do it! Don't we all...
Two Birthdays. One night. Tons of new faces. The Saddle Ranch sketch kind of became a mess of color. I lost the structure and depth of it. I got too caught up in the details. The second sketch, from inside the Backstage Cafe turned out a bit better. I'll have to keep working out how to simplify all that detail into something that gets the idea across. Either way, it's fun, and people are always asking where all that stuff (art supplies) came from. My pockets are always full :).
Here are this weeks figure drawings. Why so much green this time? Well there are many deep philosphical reasons for the use of this particular shade of green...but mostly it is the color I've used the least in my slowly diminishing watercolor set. I lay down the ink for these by drawing as if I really don't care what it looks like. Kind of like when you were a kid and your teacher forced you to write or draw something you didn't want to do and you made that pouty face and scribbled some stuff out of spite. Aww yeah. Except I'm not all pouty about it. I just don't care too much whether it looks good or not. I look at the figure, and make quick mental notes about where all the parts are, but when I lay down the line, I just let it be messy and don't try too hard to make it clean or correct. Then I add the color in much the same way. I put an almost random color down and then push a bit of contrast with some more colors, check out the shadows and light on the figure and finish it up. I think it's time to start reaching for that next step.
