Proud and Alert

This model is a flamenco dancer and you can tell by her proud and alert bearing.  This was a very  quick sketch in which I was trying simply to capture the model's attitude.  

This is how I feel

Sometimes I do a quick watercolor sketch and save the face for last, but then it seems to look so right without the face.  I was pondering this today (are you thinking the same thing I am, Pinkie?) and I think that one responds to a faceless figure when one is drained or very tired.

Verdant repose

The exercise here is painting only the parts of the body that are in shadow.  It is amazing how the eye still reads the entire form, even though only a part has been painted.  I also used granulation medium in my paint that makes the pigment separate and "bloom".  I like the unexpected effects.  

Nude in front of fruit

Another watercolor from the same studio session.  I love the way watercolor is uncontrollable and you end up with happy surprises all the time, like the pear in this painting, the way the orange bleeds into the green.

Nude amidst the fruit

This is a small watercolor done in the life drawing studio that I attend every week.  The exercise that day was to incorporate some object into the nude study.  I chose the fruit and I decided to make the fruit really large in scale compared to the model.  The results were satisfying and I made several watercolors which I'll be showing in the next few days.  

Back to my happy place

Today I will be able to reconstruct my studio as they are finally finished painting in that room. Oh happy day!  To celebrate, I've chosen to show you this botanical that I did after one by Maria Sibylla Merian, a courageous woman who travelled the world and made botanical drawings in the 1600's.  Maria worked with watercolor and ink so the drawings are true to life.  This drawing is a plant whose name escapes me and the book is still in a pile somewhere.  However, I saw it growing in Costa Rica at the Wilson Botanical Research Gardens in southern Costa Rica several years ago.  It is a very exotic plant indeed, and the journey to reach this place was an adventure I made with two nephews and my daughter Madeleine.

Please help me, Lord

This is how I feel and what I really mean.  After being gone for a week, I returned to find that practically nothing had been accomplished in the renovation of the house.  The studio is still wrapped in plastic with everything in the middle of the room.