Complete figure drawing at GCA drawing intensive workshop

finished cast drawing!

Here is my 4 week cast drawing.  What a great learning experience.

Drawing Intensive Workshop at GCA Week 1

Here is my first cast drawing!  I am excited to get to take this workshop taught by Angela Cunningham, Carla Crawford and Colleen Barry. 

Here you can see the progress after the first day: block in using my H pencil to measure a half way point and where my height to width ratio corresponded to the whole and broke down to halves and quarters. Start rough with thick lines and gradually sculpt your lines down with an eraser until it looks as close as possible to what you see.  I recently got this great eraser called a MonoZero eraser from a Japanese bookstore near Bryant Park.  It works like a mechanical pencil and is shaped like a long, thin cylindrical tube.  Works great for thinning those lines down.

The next day I took my kneaded eraser and rolled it across the drawing to lighten my lines.  This makes it easier to add the final, crisp ones.

This is Angela's demonstration to me of how to draw exactly where the line should go after spending a couple days figuring out where things should be.  Once you know for sure, you draw straight little 1/4 inch increments with exact angles for a sharp, precise line. I would probably switch to a 2H pencil for this.

Now you go over the entire drawing again with your razor sharp pencil and begin flattening your shadows.

Pick a mid range value for your shadow areas and try your hardest to shade them in as evenly as possible in little 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch increments.  Color in every little speck of white left and use a kneaded eraser to pull out every little dark dot.  This can take hours. 

Once all your shadows are flattened, begin modeling!  

Me and David on the Highline

This is one of my favorite places in the city: the Highline.  It's this amazing new park that was built on top of an old railway bridge that goes from 30th to 14th street in Chelsea.  The top is covered in beautiful plants and landscaped to expose some of the original rail way ties.  If you look one way, you see the cool shops down 10th Ave, if you look the other way, you see the Hudson River.  This is right next to where I work, so I get to come up during my lunch or walk down it after on my way to Trader Joe's to pick up some tasty and organic groceries.

Upcoming Group Show at Gallery HO NYC

I just found out that my painting, "Genevieve" will be in the show "Stop Staring II: Portraits", a summer exhibition at Gallery Ho in Chelsea.  My friend Melissa Anderson will also have some work up, as well as three other great artists--so everyone mark your calenders for the opening on July 12th from 6-8pm.