Contours

A few months ago my trusty MacBook’s motherboard fizzled up in smoke.  I vividly recall staring in disbelief, poking at the keyboard with one finger, staring in disbelief again,  cursing the computer gods, pouting, going through the stages of denial, getting a repair quote,  scheming how not to pay the repair quote but instead fix it myself, stalking Ebay, cackling as I tried out all 24 bits of my new precision screwdriver kit, and, amazingly, actually repairing it.  All in all, a great experience.
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“Daydreams” has been accepted into the CPSA 19th Annual International Exhibition.  This year the exhibition will be hosted at the Charles W. Eisemann Center, 2351 Performance Drive, Richardson, Texas.  Show dates are June 29 – July 31, with the artist’s reception on July 16th.

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Today I finalized the proof of “Daydreams” at Lizza’s Studios.  I’ve been selling prints of some of my work for a while, and Lizza’s always does the scanning and giclee prints for me.  Additionally, I use their scans for my CPSA show submissions, since their professional scans look 1000% better than what I can accomplish with either a photo or pieced together scan on my home computer. Read more »

Today I completed “Daydreams”, 12″H x 26″ W on Aubergine Artspectrum Colourfix paper.  Pencils used were mostly Prismacolors, with also quite a few Derwent Coloursofts, and Neocolor IIs used sparingly for the black areas.  All of the crazy fabric folds weren’t the hard part – I love drawing fabric; it was the sheet pattern which gave me the most difficultly.  Read more »

Moving into the home stretch.  I need to refine the sheet pattern on the right, then start putting in the fine details, including the final darks and lights.  Maybe I’ll finish it next weekend!

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This weekend I turned a corner on the picture, and hit the point where everything is drawn and I can focus on pushing in color and building value.  The pattern on the pillow is still giving me trouble, but strangely the pattern in the sheets is coming together on its own.  I decided to hit the piece with a layer of fixative before continuing work early today, because it was getting pretty waxy and difficult to see how dark some areas were.  I’m always a little nervous about doing that too early, because the paper becomes slicker overall, but it seemed to work okay.  I also encountered the usual paradox where my darks didn’t seem dark enough, but in actuality I needed to make all of my lights lighter.

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Kiersten finished another piece on the loom this weekend, and Iggly decided to model it for us:

Slow going, but steady progress.  The pattern in the sheet is going to drive my bonkers, but I feel the angles and lines it makes really add to the movement of the composition.  I think I’m happiest with how the hand turned out – I was worried about the foreshortened hand being front and center, but that part went actually surprisingly easily.  The lower right hand portion of the picture still has the least amount of work done, just with blocking and a few glazes of jade green to color correct.  You can see the pattern of wrinkles in the sheets starting to form.

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I’ve been working steadily on the piece that I prepared the swatches for in one of my previous posts.  The finished piece will be a panoramic 26″ w x 12″ H on Aubergine Colourfix paper.  If it turns out well, it will be one of my submissions for this year’s CPSA show.  I love to draw twists, turns, and folds in fabric, and this piece has plenty of it!  Most of my work so far has been on the figure, and with different stages of blocking in for the fabric. On the flat portion of the sheet on the right there’s just basic geometric shapes right now where the wrinkles and shadows are, but the crumpled comforter is fully blocked in and has some initial refinements, and I’ve started adding details closest to the figure.

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After completing a few hand woven Christmas presents for family, Kiersten finished a dish towel for us.  I love that we have custom designed, hand woven towels!  It’s also fun to be working side by side in the studio, with me scribbling away on a new piece and Kiersten on her loom.  I think she’s contemplating a rug next.  Here’s a few shots of the towel, and the loom:
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I’m just getting underway on a new piece.  It has an interesting panoramic crop, which is somewhat different for me, with a final planned size of 26″ W x 12″ H.  I’ll be working on my favorite paper, Colourfix, in a color that I haven’t used much: Aubergine (usually I work on Storm Blue or Fresh Gray).

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