Back Again

February has flown by & I've gone month without writing to you. My very deep apologies for this lapse. I was exceptionally busy working on my drawing with my cool teacher, Gregory Paquette. If you are at Kingsborough and seeking a powerful teacher, he's your man. I'm trying to incorporate drawing as a regular part of my practice. Discipline is not my strong suit. But I am working at it. Our model was clothed one day and these are the pictures from that day.

On a more personal note, my birthday was this week and my wonderful, darling daughter, Shayna, known to the blogging & knitting worlds as Knits McGee wrote me a beautiful tribute. Take a look at it.

CAPTURING THE ESSENCE

It's a really interesting thing about drawing, and I guess it's true of other art forms also, but sometimes it takes only a few lines and moments to capture the true essence of something. What is the essence? Is it a movement, a moment in action? Or is it perhaps a look, the position of a foot or hand, the gesture? I think it is not a portrayal but rather a moment of truth. It is holding onto something that is fleeting, that for one moment, or even a nanosecond, was the absolute reality of your subject. I find that I frequently capture the essence quickly, as I did in these drawing that took less than two minutes. The model struck a pose and I was able to see into the very core of it. It is not about drawing; it is about seeing. I saw it as soon as I looked. Had I spent longer on these drawings it might well have been lost. The drawings might have been more fully developed, would certainly have had more detail. But the centrality of these drawings might have been lost in all the additional labor.

AT THE METROPOLITAN

While my sister, Davina, was visiting from California, we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She really wanted to see classical European art, much of which left me dry. But after we had a bite of lunch, I went in search of something 3 dimensional that I wanted to draw for my drawing class homework. He said to do a minimum 10 minute drawing. (No problem for me, they always take much longer.)

We went to the Egyptian section (really great collection, I'd certainly recommend it.) and to the Temple of Dendur. Decided to draw the Sphinx. Here is my homework drawing.