L'Heure Bleue has inspired me with her wonderful drawings, at the very least, to dig out some random evidence of my past investment in drawing from over a serious range of years and, at most, to get me drawing again.
Here are some portraits I produced from the past when I managed to invest time and money in an art class or two. I love the drawing "zone" -- a blissful, proactive meditative state -- and feel it is time to fight my chronic artistic anorexia and find it again. Portraits appeal to me because of the challenge to quest after the essence of a personality and capture it.
Thanks, Bleue!!! Would love to see more artistic work of yours and our fellow open saloners. Hopefully I'll start generating my own fresh drawings.
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I can't draw but my sister can and I like to use every opportunity to show off her work so I'll participate in that way.
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Your art is wonderful incentive for me, if someone I know is doing it then I feel like I'm free to try it too. I think if I hadn't got to know artists here then I would never have taken an art class.
and nice models, too. each, very expressive, and you captured it. love the lady with the stark look in her eyes and the slightly downturned but solid mouth.
But with that history of "girls must be modest" from the 50s and I think my mother's particularly Scandanavian culture for humility (something I read in a book once) it was a bit of a struggle for me to strut my stuff in the above blog and now I am so glad I did! I feared my presumptuousness would be off-putting.
But I got so inspired with Bleue's sharing her artistic efforts and it reminded me of how gratifying I find it and decided to take the risk and post some of my portraits.
I am working on two political blogs but I took the time to post some of my photos two days ago and now the art and my conscience is scolding me for making the serious less self-indulgent blogs wait. That Puritan ethic and self-denying mandate I also learned from childhood and one of my favorite sayings is, "There is time for every purpose under heaven." I am still trying to believe it after many years!
fernsy, thanks! I am much more wobbly doing figure drawing. Something about trying to capture the facial likeness of a person makes the exercise more challenging and motivating for me. Would love to see your sister's stuff!
just phyllis, charcoal is one of my favorite mediums. Looking forward to seeing your stuff!!! What subjects do you like best?
Marilyn, thanks so much for your support with this! I learned how to use that little insert button in posting the blog and it is a new and novel toy. I may overuse for a bit! Very easy for such a luddite as me. :-)
jmac! thanks! nice to see you!
jlsathre, you impress the hell out of me with that talent!
algis, I LOVE your style!!!
Bleue, I can't thank you enough. I am so out of practice, I have to babystep my way back to the hand/eye coordination once again but that zone is delicious for sure.
Sheila, thanks so much! :-)
Nilesite, would love to see your drawings or photos! I am so grateful Stathi and Bleue have encouraged us all in this.
daisyjane, thank you! yes, the models were a real treat. makes such a difference in terms of inspiration. Sometimes I see a face on a subway ride I just yearn to draw. It reminds me that I need to get back to this most enjoyable hobby, even if it is only 15 minutes a day.
I also threatened to try other mediums and especially water color that so frustrated me but I don't want to be a quitter.
zanelle!!! thanks so much! appreciate!
best, libby
Rated, Libby, with thank you for the motivation!
Stathi, that first one is an early portrait that worked up quickly and compellingly. The model had wonderful attitude. I would like to think of her image as my inner artist for sure. (My self-portraits have not worked out so well (vanity messing with my hand/eye coordination).) Thanks, Stathi for more from your heart fountain of generosity!
Zachd, now animals are hard for me! different strokes, etc. thanks for visiting!
Olga, thank you!!! Would love to see Mom's artwork!!! :-)
best, libby
Your eye and awareness of light and shade are very fine ~ your ability to draw goes without saying.
There needn't be conflict between the political and the "self-indulgent" ~ the two can meld as one, find the balance and work together.
I think you'd make a formidable satirist visually, for example. The linework in the last ( skeleton ) one is so ... confident.
The ability to see and communicate what you see is vital. In words and pictures you're across both. I think if you brought them together, there will be fireworks.
... & the front page of OS could do with a damn good political-satire graphic. Like they say ~ a picture and a thousand words ...
I am an art lover and prefer the subjects to be people still, and I would tell you how much I admire and am moved by your people, but I'm afraid my opinions are suspect. Draw on.
Satire? Sounds interesting. I did make simple illustrations, editorial cartoons, for my college newspaper once in a great while (and a puns humor column in which the mechanical publisher often corrected my pun-spellings sometimes before publishing since he wasn't reading and correcting for context ... sigh ... -- that was more than a little frustrating! But I didn't have a style as a cartoonist. That might be fun to play with but weathering the beginning phase of a dimension is hard for me. I am cowardly not trying more art media but never too late, right?
Thanks so much!
best, libby
best, libby
best, libby
how great to see you!!! Thanks for your validation and enthusiasm!
I am sorry your teacher wetblanketed you! I really appreciated the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain I think it was by Betty Edwards who insists everyone can draw. (I always felt sorry that I couldn't seem to carry a tune. i had a singing teacher who told me to just move my lips after putting me as the only girl in the alto section. really broke me on that score. I still usually just move my lips)
In that art book, they have you do an exercise where you draw a picture of a person but you have to draw it upside down and that lets the right brain really look at what is there real line for real line before you and frustrates the left brain so it won't impatiently barge in and cause your hand to create an image from memory. There goes the excitement and integrity of the image.
I once had a group of students do an experiment with me. They had to write a letter to Santa and pretend to be much younger kids. They did a decent job. Then I had them write the Santa letters with their opposite hands and they suddenly were experiencing the challenge of writing a letter as a young child. Much better letters and they got a big kick out of it. The physical challenge gave them an empathy and a memory for back then as younger kids.
We didn't have much money in my family growing up and i remember my mom gave me wax crayons (those precious flat boxes with how many basic colors) and cut up brown paper bags for me to draw on. I felt quite sorry for myself since drawing on brown paper bags certainly didn't make those colors pop! I should have been astute enough to take the black crayon and really let loose!
I once mentioned elsewhere on Erica's blog that my kindergarten teacher praised a drawing of Peter Pan I did and for many months I was a Peter Pan producing machine. The teacher was extraordinary and hung them up all over a wall of the classroom. I would say I was hungry for validation!!! When my Dad put down my coloring ability once I came back at him that I had a strong witness who didn't think I was a loser with that at all. God bless her!
take care, my friend! Thanks for visiting!
love, libby