nanke's stuff

I'm back from Nashville and I'm feeling great!  I got a tad hammered by the pollen when I got there and so was a bit under the weather, but all is well now and I'm getting back in the saddle again.  I had a great time playing with our soon-to-be-3 grandson.  He's so much fun and gets more interesting every day.  Our new baby is just the best!  He's good-natured,  happy,  and becomes more and more engaged with the world every day.  What pure joy grandchildren are.

I did this sketch of the baby after I got home.  I find children (especially babies) very difficult to do.   I'm not really sure why they present such a challenge to me, but there you are.   That said, it's so entertaining to just watch their little faces as they assume every possible  human expression in the course of just a few minutes.  It's as though they're practicing doing them without the slightest idea of which face goes with which emotion.   I could watch for hours!  This drawing was done from a photo I took while holding him on my lap.  We stared at each other intently, and I can't help but wonder what he was thinking as we looked into each other's eyes.  I know what I was thinking .... "I love you to pieces my dear, sweet, little Oliver" .......

Another rather busy day today without a lot of time for art, but I did manage a bit of time to spend with Rafael.  As you can see, I'm still struggling with the foreshortening and the proportions, but little by little it's beginning to come together.  So far I've done all of it with a 2B pencil (and, of course, a kneadable eraser, lol) and when I get it further along, I'll darken some areas.  I used the "auto contrast" thingy in Photoshop, which makes it look darker than it really is.

As always, your suggestions and comments are more than welcome!

Well, I got wonderful suggestions from you, and I tried them.  I had already been doing the "upside down" method for the beginning, and I continued to use it as I went along.  I also tried lightly penciling in  his body, and that did help me some.  It isn't shaping up to be a perfect copy (again), but then, I know none of these will be.   The reason I'm doing them is to glean whatever I can from the process.  The other reason I'm doing them is that it's fun .... oh, and one more .... I don't have to come up with an idea of what to draw for awhile, which for me, can be the hardest thing of all to do!

We had a bit of a birthday party here last nite for our son Andrew and Carrie, his wonderful wife.  Their birthdays are just a day apart, so we celebrate them together.  I've spent the last few days shopping, wrapping, cleaning,  planning and cooking, so I haven't had the time (or energy) to spend making art.  Also, since I'm not in the habit of staying up late, I must admit that today I was a tad slower than usual.  Oh, and in a non-art aside, I got a treadmill delivered on Friday, and today was the first chance I've had to give it a go.  I have to say, I do love having it here .... now all I have to do is develop the habit of using it!  No easy feat for a person of my athletic persuasion ... that is to say, I really have a strong dislike for working out.   Enough of that, tho.

I finally decided on my next attempt.  Rafael wins the day!    The name of it is "Study for a Soldier, His Leg Repeated", done in black chalk.  I found the drawing in one of the books I recently bought, and it's filled with really complicated, difficult, sketches.   Part of the challenge of this project for me is that each artist has his own style and "hand".  Switching from one to another has been hard for me.  This is the first one I've done that involves the whole body, and I'm finding  the position of this body especially difficult. I don't know if I'm going to include the second sketch of the leg in my version of it, but I'm thinking probably not.  As in my previous drawings, I'm using pencil.    As you can see, I've only just started it, and even tho there's almost nothing to look at yet, I'm going to follow my practice of posting the day's outcome, no matter how small.