The Making of a Werewolf

Another sequence.

Carried Away

I am working on sequences now. A sequence is a series of drawings linked by time or logic. A sequence tells a story.

Princess Drops a Gold Bar

Princess dropped a gold bar on her foot. Ouch! It's karma, Princess. You gotta give a gold bar or two away.

Princess Meditates

Princess meditates upon a bar of gold. Princess sometimes gets the nagging doubt that "gold" and "meditation" don't go together, but she just pushes those thoughts from her mind.

At the time of this writing, a bar of gold, which weighs around 28 pounds, is worth between $300,000 and $400,000 (USD). Since gold is very compact, a gold vault can store billions of dollars worth of gold. You can read more about gold here. If you are ever in the Wall Street area in Manhattan, I highly recommend the Gold Vault Tour at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Princess Opens Her Gold Vault

Princess Walks the Dog

Princess strives to be the person her dog thinks she is.

Illustration Friday - Primitive

For this week's prompt, the Venus of Willendorf was my inspiration. This statuette is a woman with large breasts, belly, and thighs, suggesting fertility. The statuette was created 24,000-22,000 BC. Here is the statuette:

My idea was to start with the statuette and create a real woman in a real situation. Surprisingly, Venus of Willendorf looks right at home on the beach.

Crayola Drawing Chalk and Micron pen on Strathmore 500 Medium paper.

Princess Practices Downward Facing Dog

I am working on another Keys to Drawing with Imagination exercise. The exercise is to draw an imaginary character in different poses and situations. After playing around with different potential characters, I finally settled on a princess.

Here is Princess practicing downward facing dog.

Book Review - The Lost Painting

I just finished reading The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr. It is a page turner.

This nonfiction book documents the search for, discovery of, and restoration of the lost Caravaggio painting The Taking of Christ. In this painting, Judas is giving Christ a kiss on the cheek, Roman soldiers are arresting Christ, and John is running away.

The book reads like a detective novel. It interweaves three threads:

• Caravaggio's biography.
• Art historians' search for facts that might lead to the lost Caravaggio.
• The discovery and restoration of The Taking of Christ.
  

Caravaggio was a talented painter that quickly rose to favor and obtained important commissions. He was also a scoundrel who frequently was in trouble with the law. Although his talent was recognized in his time, his art was considered to be too realistic. In Madonna di Loreto, he showed the dirty feet of pilgrims. In Death of the Virgin, Mary's corpse is bloated. Even worse, Caravaggio used a prostitute as the model for Mary. In Madonna and Child with St. Anne, the Madonna is very well endowed. All of this was considered vulgar and unseemly. After his death, his work quickly passed into oblivion. It was not until the 1950's that his work began to be revered. A list of Caravaggio's paintings with links can be found here.

The book's action spans Italy, Great Britain, and Ireland. It follows two young art historians as they pour through 400 years of records to determine who owned Caravaggio paintings and when. By following the painting's provenance, they hope to locate it. I was amazed and awed to discover that there are Italian families that have written records that go back more than 400 years. The book gives the reader a glimpse into the rarefied and sometimes petty world of art history.

The book also provides a glimpse into art restoration. Think you've had a bad day at your job? Try restoring a lost masterpiece and almost ruining it! Talk about high pressure.

I highly recommend this book.

Simon's Shauma's Power of Art DVD set and companion book has an excellent segment on Caravaggio. Check it out for additional insights!

EDM #167 - Draw Something that Needs Fixing

My wooden rabbit's leg came off and needs to be fixed. The rabbit keeps smiling, nevertheless. What a great attitude!

Framed Fairy

This is another exercise in Keys to Drawing with Imagination. The idea is to frame a central figure with background objects such as clouds, trees, or man-made structures. The goal is to direct the viewer's attention to the central figure. Here I have framed a fairy with some sort of imaginary foliage. The foliage is drawn from imagination, and the fairy from life. The fairy is a small statute ... I couldn't get a real fairy to pose for me.

Intensifying the Action

This is my solution to the following Keys to Drawing with Imagination exercise: Make a drawing of two silhouetted figures in extreme action (running, fighting, dancing, falling, etc.). Make sure that the silhouette of each figure is active, angular, and placed on a diagonal.

Amazing Grace

This is a sketch from the wedding scene in the wonderful movie Amazing Grace. This is abolitionist William Wilberforce's (Ioan Gruffudd) wife Barbara (Romola Garai).

I have been working very hard the past week and will continue to do so for a week or two more. As a result, I haven't done art in a week ... happily I found time to sketch last night.