Deltoid

Here is the progression of a drawing of a model with a muscle overlay. This is such a great exercise if you want to understand anatomy, because when a real model is in a pose in front of you, you really have to consider what the muscle is doing. You can't just copy an anatomical diagram, you have to observe how the muscle twists or shortens or lengthens according to a pose. What comes forward? What goes back?

It's here too that I starting experimenting with the terminator, and noticing that it really is effective. I like that I can see so much progress, this drawing compared to my first of the trapezius, in just a three day workshop.

Arm Demo

I'm in awe of the top line of the forearm shown on the close up just above. I'm so heavy handed with charcoal, even with vine. I remember seeing Sherrie McGraw draw that way too, so much variety in one line, and it came from a very light touch.

The focus of this workshop was anatomy. I had to learn anatomy to be an occupational therapist, and it has definitely helped my drawing. At the same time, I've heard Sherrie McGraw point out that students can get so hung up on anatomy that they get paralyzed, and are unable to draw the beauty that is standing right in front of them.

I've found both perspectives to be true. It seems beautiful drawings are born from both knowing and forgetting.

Leg Demo

Rob's ability to turn the form is so subtle and natural, it's hard to believe it's a drawing and that it happened right in front of me. I'm particularly fascinated that the gluteal fold (rump), is a strip of fascia that squashes down the muscle. It really is so interesting to see what's going on under skin!

Rob uses a brush between layers, to whisk off extra charcoal and unify the surface, to make it look like skin. If you keep adding without whisking away and unifying, you get clotting of material.

Guerilla Knitting

Cozy street art is popping up all over the world. Guerilla knitting, it makes you happy when you find it.

South Street Sirens

Some sensual and sparkly findings on South Street. I love the mermaid and bicycles. My favorite photo is the one at the bottom. A girl stands on the sidewalk in flip flops talking to her friend as the mannequin in the window listens. Who is reflecting who?

Do our outer worlds reflect our inner worlds?

South Street Mosaics

If you've been to South Street in Philly, then you've probably seen the mosaics of Isaiah Zagar. They remind me of this, that I jotted down about the frustration of writing about my trip for this blog.

How do you put something so expansive into words? You crunch and you carve. You throw up your hands, and return to pick up the shards.

The Terminator

These are small drawings Rob did with Verithin pencils on treated paper. Two materials that can be used together to create an "Old Masters" look. One thing we learned about, that is so fascinating to me, that I can see works though I don't entirely understand why, is the terminator.

At the point where light meets shadow, shadow is darkest, creating a line called the terminator. The reason this fascinates me is that the mind does not think so! The mind thinks dark goes to light like a value progression, and you can see it often in beginner drawings. A mushiness occurs in beginner drawings because shadows fade to light without a terminator. It's a bit hard to see on these tiny drawings, but you can see it best on the man's arm on the drawing underneath. A dark line, the terminator, separates shadow and light.

How could I be surprised, when it is so often darkest before the dawn?

Portraits

"Be very careful about eyes and nostrils, leave those for last," Rob said. Isn't that fascinating? Artists out there, aren't eyes and nostrils one of the things you tend to go for first, simply because they seem the darkest and most important? Rob pointed out that the way we recognize each other is through the shape of the cranium, not those tiny details. You can really see this in Rob's portrait demo at the bottom.

In the right corner of the center photo is a small demo Rob did, illustrating a point about line quality, on the corner of a student's work. The artist who created that drawing was 13 years old.

Streetwalking

After class wandering revealed murals and cobblestones, old world, new world, and a whoopie pie at an Amish farm stand. The mural at the top is titled "The Artist." I like how you can see the cars at the bottom of the mural just above.

Class Torso and Back

I loved being in a class with so many talented artists. It was fascinating to see everyone's work during breaks, the way we all approached the same assignment differently.

I would love to see a movie where life drawings come to life. It would probably be a horror movie due to all those proportional details artists struggle with; shoulders that are too square, heads that are too big or too small, hands with no fingers because they're hard to draw.

Which leads to another idea I have that I don't have time for. I wish there were a website, I would call it Idea Box, where people could go to drop off or pick up ideas. Some of us have more than we have time for, while others of us have none at all.

My Torso and Back

I'm not crazy about putting my drawings right next to Rob's, but one of the points of doing this blog is knowing that waiting for perfection will get me nowhere, so here they are. The back was my first drawing. I can see now that on the right side of the back I was just copying the shadows I saw. They look like a series of dark lumps because I really didn't understand the way the muscles worked there.

In contrast, I like the right arm on the drawing of the woman's torso, below. By that drawing I was starting to clue in to what we were trying to do, and that arm looks less like copied shadows, and more like turn of muscle.

Often in a drawing, I can see what's not working, but I don't always know how to fix it. Where is it coming from? The proportion of an arm might be wrong, but that might be coming from the opposite thigh. The same thing happens in occupational therapy or yoga. The shoulder hurts, but often that's coming from the slump of the torso, which is coming from the tilt of the pelvis.

Rob Liberace, Torso and Back

It's amazing to watch Rob draw, he is a magician. And, like the other instructors at Studio Incamminati, so generous with his knowledge. Rob would draw a demo, like here of the torso and back, then overlay the muscles so we could understand what was going on underneath the skin.

He pointed out that when we understand what's going on underneath the skin, how muscles and bone rise and fall, it keeps us from blindly copying shadows and lumps in the form. Often these shadows and forms trick the eye, and we end up with a drawing, that while properly copied, doesn't make sense to the eyes of others.

It reminded me of something Sherrie McGraw says; "Don't just draw what you see, draw what you understand." Which differs from another school of drawing thought, which is, "Draw what you see, not what you think you see."

Rob Liberace

After the painting workshop ended, I stayed on for a weekend workshop with Rob Liberace on drawing and anatomy. Here, Rob is doing a drawing demo, overlaying muscles on an arm.

I draw about as much as it rains in New Mexico these days, which is pretty much not at all. The posts about last summer's trip will be running for a while here. I didn't have any time to write then, while I was living it. I write the posts on precious weekends while I try to survive working 50+ hours a week as an entry level occupational therapist in a rehab hospital.

I miss making things. These days, life drawing sessions begin when I have to go to bed. I don't think my schedule will change much in the next six months, but I'm hoping maybe my endurance will. I hope by the time last summer's story is told, there will be a little more space for art making again.

It's September now, it wasn't raining it August when I wrote this, but rain has brought relief in the last few weeks. With each day that passes, drawing draws closer. Here, thinking of there, waiting for then.

Spirits

It is August now. I'm writing about July, a year ago, and it will post in September, the real now. That's what life is like these days. Fantasies of working fewer hours "one day", reflected on memories of a beautiful summer in the past, overlaid on the compressing and searingly long days of right now, which will have passed by the time you read this. Layers of life and lives.

Old bottles in the window of City Tavern catch the reflection of the trees and Colonial buildings across the street. I think its so cool how my cell phone captures things, and how I can't really tell what it saw until I see it on the computer. My favorite is the one on the bottom, the bottle of spirits with its reaching branches.

Final Color Painting

The photo in the middle is my final painting, and at the top is its grisaille underpainting. Not a final painting as in finished, but final as in taking all the steps we learned and putting them together.

It's a bit hard to see in a small and blurry photo, but I started to "get" that everything is a color. Each leg is picking up a color that's reflected onto it. My mind says "No! A leg cannot be red or blue, it is made of flesh!" My eyes whisper, "Shhh, see what I see...."

At the bottom is my palette, just before being packed away at the end of the workshop.

You Must Pay Artist First

Toward the end of the workshop, walking under the overpass, past Reading Terminal, through Chinatown, Old City and down into the trolley stop, I began to see like a painter. The way the black of a skirt merged into the black of a doorway, or how much blue was in the white of a shirt. What to keep in, what to leave out.