some more drawing

Hand studies, 6 from life. The second image is same model from last week, eye level at about her knees looking up. It's a great vantage point when you have a model with sort of a powerful body. We're just getting to the end of this exercise business and going into the end of term projects. It's going fast, in a week I'll be back in Seattle for Thanksgiving and in a month I'll be back there for the Christmas break. Naturally, all I want to do is work on some different art projects. (and maybe relax a little bit)

studio business

The self portraits are becoming easy to whip out now. This was a couple hours while eating a sandwich. It's going to serve as an underpainting for painting class Thursday. We're using monochrome underpaintings and b&w reference photos, and copying the color treatment from an image of an admired artist. I'm trying to go with Ann Gale, but not sure if it's going to work out for me due to a dearth of good images of her paintings. I just sloppily slathered some shellac over the drawing and learned a couple great ways NOT to shellac a drawing. Did you know that shellac is a resin secreted by the Lac bug in Africa to build coccoons? So this shiny stuff is bug secretion suspended in alcohol. I love it.





Ribcage Charlie. This guy is fantastic. I've worked with him quite a lot lately, 9 hours on this pose, and 4 straight weeks in anatomy/sculpture. This was my first completely nice experience with linen and a sort of weirdly luminous lighting setup coming from below.




This model is never very inspiring to me at first, but everybody's drawings seem to turn out nicely.

weiners, models, bento.

I'm in the midst of a posting frenzy! Anything to avoid finishing my readings on the size of the phallus throughout Art History. (actually it's quite interesting)

And a few words of advice. Firstly, don't lose your keys. However, if you do lose your keys (it happens) and your roommates have a bunny (name, Bento) make sure the bunny is locked up. If you do lose your keys AND your bunny isn't locked up AND you need to run around the house in a frenzied keyhunt because you're late for school, don't leave your breakfast on the table because bunnies are hungry in the morning too.



Going on, if you're late to drawing class you get the crap spot. In this case, looking down at the models head from slightly behind profile on the shadow side. Ted Schmidt says "uhhh...well...Degas did a striking portrait from this angle once." but unfortunately I'm just Jason. After a couple hours of fudging headstuffs around I ended up with something presentable. The other drawing I prefer, but it photographs horribly for whatever reason.





Enjoy your cage, Bento.

And it comes

The storm of work is just beginning to hit at once all around. It's a really weird structure for an MFA program, but since we're here to focus on the figure, it takes more instruction. The program becomes much more open and flexible each quarter. Here's the breakdown:

Structural Anatomy: 3 hours of time with the model to work on previous week's concepts in the AM 20-40 min poses thus far. 3 hours of instructed anatomy in the PM.

Figure Drawing: Same structure as Anatomy, but giving way to a 3-4 hour pose toward the end.

Art and Culture: Lecture/conversation with an artist of note or art critic Wed night. Thursday night a 90 minute seminar discussing the lecture, our readings (on the nude in art history this quarter), and gallery openings. Research paper/long art review due toward the end of the quarter.

Painting: 6 hours all instructed. First 4 weeks still life with limited palettes (mono, tri-chromatic, warm/cool, etc), last 10 weeks with a model. a TON of painting for homework.

History of Composition and Design. 3 hours of lecture/critique in the morning. Subjects for this quarter goes from the Middle Ages through Neo Classicism. 3 hours of free studio time in the afternoon with an optional model available every other week.








The homework is REALLY starting to pile up already. I'm getting to the point where I'm there from about 9AM to 9PM or later more nights than not plus doing work and readings saturdays. I'm sure I could do it in less time, but I have too much ego to turn in sloppy work. The end of the quarter is going to be some fun.

all the drawings I drew at Mobius

I spent a lovely Monday evening at Mobius Cycle and I drew a bunch of drawings and drank a few beers as they transformed my bike from a rolling deathtrap to a thing of beauty. It went from squeaky with busted spokes to the smoothest, quietest, bluest machine I've ever rolled down the street on.

Seriously, about 7 hours and they charged me $30 for labor. Of course I bought some parts, but they basically gutted my rear wheel and hub, cleaned the bike inside and out, and convinced me to go all blue on everything and go back to fixie (makes a hell of a lot more sense in NY than Seattle). I'm sensing a wheel build in the near future. Ugh, I'm turning into one of those guys. Thanks Nickie, Sarah, Elias!






Created with flickr slideshow.

sketchbook

Oh yeah, I've been drawing. Some of these are from as far back as Paris, but most are from the last 2 weeks of school where we had Pigeon as a model.

The last 3 weeks or so have been some of the best of my life. Seattle is going out like a champ.


Created with flickr slideshow.