[one drawing #15] rays

July 3, 2018July 6, 2018Leave a comment

I finally got a fixative spray from Blick Art Materials in Central Square, Cambridge (MA). It means that I can keep my charcoal drawings without worrying about them evaporating(?)!Charcoal is my favorite material so far because so many shades can be expressed with such a simple stick… of course, when your hand is not so tight/shaky. And it is so much fun to erase out spaces. I love charcoal also because it is the first material that my teacher (Anne McGhee) taught me to draw. Lastly, it looks so cool (artist-like?… haha) to draw with charcoal!To celebrate my first purchase of fixative spray, I decided to draw something with charcoal today. The only problem was that it was already 10:00pm when I could sit down for drawing. I skimmed through the drawing book of Seurat that I borrowed from Cambridge Public Library, and found the fantastic drawing that I wanted to copy. The drawing seemed to have every aspects that I needed to practice for like middle tone, dark parts, erased out spaces etc. (Oh, how amazing that Seurat expresses the rays by erasing out the sunlight!)

Georges Seurat, ‘Rays’, 1884

So audaciously I drew, and here is my charcoal drawing: so FIXED to the sketchbook with my new FIXATIVE spray!I know, I know… it looks so different from Seurat’s but well…. that is why he is the Master! I noticed so may things I want to change after I took the photo, but found out it was impossible to fix charcoal drawing after putting on the fixative spray.

*one small tip: The book <Georges Seurat, the Drawings> by Museum of Modern Art (MoMA in NY) is the absolute best if you want to study Seurat’s drawings and paintings.

Georges Seurat <The Drawings>

[one drawing #14] window

July 2, 2018July 4, 2018Leave a comment

I was hoping to draw outside today to escape all-day-long air conditioning. However, it was just TOO hot that I just decided to stay inside.
This is a quick charcoal (+pastel) sketch practice, looking out the window with a tilted blind.

A Window with a Tilted Blind…With or Without Tree View

[one drawing #13] cells

July 1, 2018July 2, 2018Leave a comment

I am not really into modern art yet, but when I visited Met Museum in NY I was shocked by Chuck Close’s huge painting ‘Lucas.’ He divided the face of ‘Lucas’ into hundreds (perhaps thousands) of cells and drew it cell by cell. It came up to be fabulous mixture of abstraction+realism.

So, after getting back to sizzling Cambridge (MA), I tried to practice Close’s technique today. I picked a photo from old Time magazine, put a transparent grid (that I made) and started to draw one cell at a time. I started to draw while watching the World Cup game (Croatia vs Sweden. Congrats, Croatians!) and was pretty sure I could finish the drawing by the end of the game. However, it took much longer than I expected… about four hours. I didn’t learn how to use colors yet, so obviously I got some colors wrong. Plus there are other problems I am still discovering with my drawing 😞 , but I am just happy that I didn’t give up this ‘harder-than-I-thought’ project.

Salute to Mr. Close!

Cells: Salute to Mr. Close

The original photo from the Time magazine

In the midst of drawing (in the brink of quitting!)… with colored pencils

This is the painting of Chuck Close. The size is 100 x 84 in. (254 x 213.4 cm)!

Lucas I, Chuck Close (American, born Monroe, Washington, 1940), Oil and graphite on canvas

Chuck Close Metropolitan Museum of Art, ©Chuck Close

[one drawing #12] Matisse

June 30, 2018July 3, 2018Leave a comment

Also from Met Museum NY.
Couldn’t help to sit in front of Henri Matisse <Nasturtiums with the Painting “Dance” I>, not only because it was such an innovative painting but more so because I studied negative space with my teacher Anne McGhee!

Original painting of Henri Matisse’s Nasturtiums with the Painting “Dance” I

Nasturtiums with the Painting "Dance" I, Henri Matisse (French, Le Cateau-CambrÃ©sis 1869â1954 Nice), Oil on canvas

Henri Matisse Nasturtiums with the Painting “Dance” credit: I Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982

go to [one drawing] list

[one drawing #11] Met Museum

June 30, 2018July 2, 2018Leave a comment

Museum visit feels so much different after starting to learn drawing.
Have visited Met Museum in NY many times, but the paintings never felt this much intimate. Tried to sketch a few figures from the masters’ paintings, with little success haha.