Not so feeble

After reading this earlier, I wonder why I bother. I've never understood the point behind deliberately bad painting. The detached cynicism of the "technique," if you can call it that, is distasteful in the extreme. The insider assumptions, the contempt for skill, the mistrust of depth are symptomatic of what is worst in our society.

On the other hand, here am I, wasting my sweetness in the desert air. On the gripping hand, am I just at the other end of the nothing-important-to-say spectrum? At any rate, I sure can draw. Here's yesterday's session. The model is N. Painfully beautiful face and a lovely body, but oddly shadowless; she evinces no personality and is extremely difficult to draw some days. I call her the Little Mermaid, because of her poses, especially her favorite, which emulates the Copenhagen statue.

One-hour pose

25-minute pose

10-minute pose

5-minute pose

Back in class

Figures sessions don't meet in the summer, at least none that I can find (if anyone ever happens to every stumble on this, let me know where there are no-instructor figures sessions). So I'd been hoping to spend a couple of days each week in my studio here drawing friends and family. I thought people would be really into it, but I couldn't get anyone to come except my daughter and just two friends (see prior post). I love drawing the nude figure, but I wanted to work on draped/clothed as well. I'll have to do better at recruiting come winter when gardening slackens off.

Anyway, here are the drawings from the first figure session of the year. It was Hipster Girl (complete with fairy tattoo); I'm not that crazy about drawing her although she has an utterly fantastic body and a gift for finding shadows in a pose.