Learning Life Drawing

Was asked to join a life drawing group and although I have NEVER drawn humans before I agreed. It was amazing. The joy I felt standing at the easel that first day was painted on my face and I'm sure it was palpable to the other 6 people in the room. Those drawings weren't very good. These are from my second attempt. The first model is Bill. He's actually one of the artists and incredibly talented and agreed to model for a short time because the actual model was late. We draw in a studio on an island accessible only by boat or ferry and the ferries were running late because a death on the island meant the need to hold the ferry until the police were on board. The artists caught the 7am ferry at 8 but when the model arrived to catch the 8:30 ferry (our usual one) it was on thd other side of the water dropping us off.





She arrived shortly after we started. I am amazed by the discipline and strength that our models have.

These were 30 sec poses...





This was a 15 min pose that I'm sure was a killer for her but she was a trooper and held it for us...


This was a 30 min pose...


These last two were hour long poses...






This one... Now she was different. Spent two hours sketching cows in the barn. Tried heads but they were too busy eating and moved around way too much. So I drew some cows bums for a bit before this gal laid down to chew her cud...


All drawings done on charcoal on newsprint.

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Imaginary Creatures Day 1

Taking a class from Carla Somheim and theses are my first creations.








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Apples and Dragonflies

The apples are ripe and begging to be picked. Couldn't resist getting some reference shots...








And as I took a picture I looked up and saw this fellow right in front of me looking at me. Face on he had the greenest eyes... But he blended into the leaves of the tree too much. He kindly stayed put as I moved around so he was silhouetted against the clouds...


He let me get a few inches away and take this pic then I thought he flew off. Instead he landed on my phone, then my hands a couple of times before flying away.

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Wowza

The web was completed. The spider freaked out when I ducked under it to see it from the back and took off running up the web to the suspension cable, along the cable and into the forage wagon. She was quick and nimble... I couldn't get over how fast she could move her relatively large self (she's the size of the end of my thumb) across that delicate webbing...
No good picture will be had of the other three webs inside the forage wagon... But if you look just under the rust line near the left side you can see the spider that built the invisible web it's resting in. This one was about 18 inches across. And there are two more in there that are equally large and situated about 6 inches apart one behind the other...

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Engineering Marvels

I'm not a huge fan of spiders... They generally creep me out. But they are talented engineers. And I love seeing their webs...

Was shown the web I tried to photograph here and she was working on construction at the time.









Couldn't help but stand there and watch in fascination as she went round and round.



The basic construction was done yesterday and it is strung at face height between two pieces of farm machinery on 6 foot long suspension cables that I can't begin to imagine how she managed to stretch the first of across that grand canyonesque gap... You can see her as the whitish dot in the upper right showing up against the tin of the wall.






Watched her filling in the fine details of the web one row at a time. She'd touch her bum down and you could see the silk string coming out which she would guide with her hind legs into the next place where she would attach it by dabbing her bum down again.

There were three other amazing webs inside the forage wagon that the lighting was just all wrong to get photos of but I will try again later to see if I can capture them.

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Inuksuk On Bass Lake

Inuksuk On Bass Lake (mixed media - 20 x 40). NFS.
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Locust Tree in Pink And Green

Locust Tree in Pink & Green (mixed media - 24x24)
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The Hair Cut

Sometimes it's ok to run with scissors...


The Hair Cut (12x12, mixed media)

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Feeling Like Alice

Feeling Like Alice (9x12, mixed media)

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