Painting Challenge 1. Sketch - Second Phase

I've done another sketch. I wasn't too sure about the first one because I felt the figures were too large. I am not too sure about this one either. I think there was a better dynamic with the rendering and positioning of the painter in the foreground of the first sketch, but the background is more resolved in the second and there seems to be more confidence with the drawing of drapery as well. We'll see. I can't do any more today but I have given the canvas one coat of oil with Liquin. This will serve as the basis for the glaze I am going to put over the whole format. The light is going and even though today was brilliant as the sun was just shining in, I cannot do any more. In fact, after reflecting on this second sketch, I think I am going to base the painting more on the first sketch. It is amazing what one has to work through to get something clear. It's also good to see so many new sketches on the Drawing Vault in two days after such a long absence. I hope to post more sketches tomorrow and start the painting itself. Then, I shall be posting my progress over on my other blog, the Painting Vault. I just hope I have enough time to finish the project to send it in by 4 March. Time is very tight and I have complicated things out of all proportion. Ambition is good, but this.....?! T'was a Good Day Today.

Second Sketch.

Painting Challenge 1. Sketch - First Phase.

At last! Some real sketches for the Drawing Vault. An explanation of what they are 'for' is required, because they don't stand on their own; they are sketches of a painting I intend to send into a competition/challenge in a couple of weeks. I posted the full story on my other blog, Painting Vault, yesterday.

I have accepted a challenge to paint a picture, send it in to a website and have it published. Well that sounded prosaic and dull, but luckily for me there is a fantastic and extremely generous artist in the USA who has started a blog 'challenge', open to all, where a photograph is put up every two weeks and anyone can create a painting based on that photograph. The basis of the challenge is to be 'inspired' by the photograph and use it as a basis for our art. The photograph is extremely challenging in itself as a subject - a shot of a window display for wigs! Who would have thought of issuing such a challenge to artists? Here is the photo:

So what on earth can one do with such a subject? I would never have noticed this display and I guess that's what this challenge is all about; stretching oneself. What flashed into my mind after staring at this picture for ages, was something probably a few steps too far from any real recognisable representation of the photo above. Here's what I am going to do: I am going to create an 8"x10" oil on canvas of myself painting a fresco, partially finished, with these heads and wigs turned into either minstrels or angels. Okay, well, that's the idea and I had to get home tonight to do a rough, very rough, composition of what I wanted to create. These are give below. You can see the development of the rough idea with all its tentative, pale marks, developing into something a little more confident and resolved. I have also learned a lot from doing this sketch which took about an hour inbetween serving dinner and making tea. I hope to post more sketches tomorrow. The only problem I have is that I have two weeks to complete this painting and I only have weekends. If only it was high Summer with available light after work...... Apologies for the photography....it will get better soon.

First tentative sketch.

Figures more resolved and the addition of myself.

Mapping in the oval as a compositional device


Random Sketch - Close Up


Close up of detail


Key Figure emerging on the left.


Close Up of Key Figure.

Drawing Vault: No 2 Link on Google Front Page.

Yay me!

Today I checked on Google's front page and 'Drawing Vault' was No. 2. As I said before, those two words are hardly the most searched-after keywords on Google, but it is fun watching it go up and up and up. Now off to get some drawings done after my earlier rant.

No. 2 Link on Google Front Page Today!

Time For Drawing Has Been Zero

I just need to write this here to calm myself down. I have been longing to do some really intense drawing for weeks, but work has overtaken everything else. This has got to change. Maybe next weekend? If I wasn't so tired now I would turn this blog entry into a full blown rant. I don't even like looking at the Drawing Vault as it has hardly any drawings on it at all. This wasn't supposed to happen. A thought came to mind recently and that was I should just photograph all my sketches and record them here. I'll think of that, but I wanted to retain this site for some really good work. We'll see; rambling over. Ish.

Drawing Vault: No. 3 Link on Google Front Page

I just have to record this day. The link for my blog has now risen to No. 3 on the Google Front Page. It is a tiny blog and the words-Drawing Vault-are hardly typed in by millions of people, but watching how these links slip backwards and forwards from the front page to the second, almost overnight in some cases, makes this a good moment. Yay, back on the front page. Pray for light for me for this weekend so I can draw. I promise to put some sketches up soon - I promise!

And, I can't WAIT.

Moved up one spot on Google!

Sorry to be so boring, but this blog is No. 4 today (up from No. 5 yesterday) for the keywords, "Drawing Vault". The other blog Painting Vault is still at No. 7. Now off to paint an onion.

The results of my first attempt at painting an onion (Phase 1 only) are over at my other blog: file://paintingvault.blogspot.com/.

My Blog is No. 5 on Google Front Page Today

Over on my other blog, Drawing Vault, I have just written a post about how it is on the Google front page at No. 7, and hey, then checked to see how Drawing Vault was doing and it is No. 5!

These results are really because I am going into my blog every day and checking to see if anyone is reading it. Well, they are coming in slowly and due to a life drawing sketch, both on this blog and the painting blog, I have picked up readers from all over the world. Hello Boys! Sorry, that was presumptious of me; a lot of women like the dynamism of that sketch. I proudly show below the photos of my No. 5 spot and the visuals that have brought up this rating. I shall have to get more drawings going on this blog similar to this life class sketch, but in the interim, I am forgiving myself for a pat on the back! I shall try and post a sketch tomorrow on the Drawing Vault.

No. 5

In Situ

List of Ataliers or Schools that teach Academic or Classical Realism

In my search to become a super draughtswoman, I have trawled the internet to find a really good academic school where one can learn, and I mean really learn deeply, how to draw like the Masters, I found a phenomenal website called Art Renewal. The address is artrenewal.org. It is a huge website, a bit slow, but who cares. I found the page with their approved Ataliers all round the world, so if anyone stumbles across my blog looking for a place to learn, just click on this link or type it into your web browser and you will land on a page with a list of the best studios and art schools in the world. http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/atelier_list.asp.

I am sure they won't mind my putting this link of theirs on my humble blog. It might help a prospective Master of the future!

I have clicked on most of them and I am completely in awe that there are so many of them. It took me hours to get through the list and it was the most superb entertainment I have had in a long time. I had no idea that the demand for training in classical or academic realism was so huge. I hope to go to one of them in Italy. Raising funds for this won't be easy.

Drawing Christmas Baubles

I have just bought some mundane objects to draw...yes, these are the items in question. Christmas baubles and it's only September. No statuary here for a realist challenge, just orbs, shiny orbs, which are well nigh impossible to render, but try I shall. I intended for the Drawing Vault to have a real vault of drawings to catalogue my progress, but with so little time, and so few opportunities to get into the studio, I am having a rebellion all of my own. Who on earth would choose such items? Well, yes, me, but why? They are beautiful in real life to be sure, but they are also difficult objects to draw. I know this because eggs are notoriously difficult to render in paint and nearly as difficult in pencil, but this should be a lot of fun. Once I have had a few tries, I will be painting them in as many styles as I need to investigate everything about them, and I will post them over on the Painting Vault.

I am having a lot of thoughts about drawing, but this one has no real romance in it for me, except the technical challenge. I love the objects and their colours, but they are so industrial and so prolific, I just wonder if I will be able to sustain the project through to its end.

Searching for Objects to Draw

I can't find models, subjects, or objects to draw right now. Nothing will do except some really wonderful statuary. Ancient, un-fresh, time-worn, and with a patina that is almost impossible to recreate on paper or canvas. Mind-blowing beauty is what I am referring to here. I can't stop thinking about where I could find a Roman or Greek head, a soldier warrior maybe, or some great hero of the past, but outside museums, they don't exist, and I want to take one into my home to practice my drawing. Yes, pretty crazy and obsessive I know but these thoughts won't go away and they are pretty well darn near unrequited. Artists suffer from the weirdest moments... Moments which could be called Proustian in nature, triggered by the most unsuspecting assaults on the senses, which turn one inwards to other moments long-gone when one was face to face with the drawing board, just stroking that chalk or pencil across the paper, not noticing time or light or breath, just the two of us, or maybe the one of us; artist and subject, a unit in time breathing in the wonderful fragrances of the artist's life. The Drawing Vault will have to wait a while for the statuary, but I feel so pressured now to find that classical 'something' to have in my home that I could investigate from every angle, with every material and under many different lighting conditions. This will happen.