And More

This is another quick figure sketch in the same vein as the previous. Whoever set up this model decided to incorporate props into the pose. I threw some of them in for effect. I am generally pleased with how this one was developing. A light bulb to the right of the girl constantly shone in my face, presenting a challenge.

Figure Study

The past week, I had the opportunity to attend a "sketch class" for a bit longer than the usual few hours. I usually don't sketch with anything more ambitious than charcoal, but with extra time at my disposal, I decided to work in oil.

Just for fun I also thought I would try using my traditional palette, usually reserved for more "serious" work. Up until that point I had confined the use of my hand-made paints to landscapes, and had never applied them for figurative work.

I really like the way I can express the model's fleshtones using these colors. The cinnabar in particular is a deep warm red that stands out in the mixture. I would like to see how I could develop this kind of picture, given more time.

Storms

I'm still feeling the effects of the recent hurricane that swept up the US east coast. The storm came very close to where I live, and I lost electricity for about a week.

The night before the storm hit, the first bands started passing over us, but there wasn't much in the way of severe weather or rain. There were a lot of interesting things going on in the sky, so I decided to go out and do an oil sketch.

I did this picture very quickly, on some scrap gessoed board. The paint did not adhere well to the raw gesso, but I was able to get something down.

The thing I love about storms are the dramatic clouds. The kind of tropical weather that makes for an interesting sky is not easy to capture, everything moves too quickly. The challenge of this oil sketch, was to compose something in real time, on canvas, that would work.