It's a New Day

A New Day  

8" x 8"  SOLD

I always feel optimistic in the morning. It's the start of a new day and anything can happen. Time seems abundant. 

Carpe Diem!

Ingres Inspired

Ingres Inspired
24" x 18" -  ink, pencil, watercolour on watercolour paper - $50

I am calling this one Ingres Inspired, referring to the great French neo-classical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. He was mainly a portrait painter, but also painted the female form. Whenever confronted with a nude model in a back pose, I always think of The Valpincon Bather by Ingres .....

And when a back is 'too long' as in my painted drawing, I also think of Ingres and his Grand Odalisque ......

A Classical Figure

A more classical interpretation of the female form ............

Classical Pose
12" x 12" - watercolour on watercolour paper  - $50

T

Molly

  

Molly

17" x 14" - watercolour & marker on watercolour paper  $50

Molly was the model in an open life drawing session......and one more in this series of painted figure drawings.

Titles for Reclining Women

Femme Fatale
18" x 24"  mixed media (marker & water colour paint on water colour paper) $50

Thinking of a catchy or interesting title for an art work can be challenging when the image or subject represented, regardless of the style, does not have a specific location or identity. Certainly the motivation for painting any subject can suggest a title. When the subject is less specific, I try to build some 'word' fun into the title, like Big Macks - the title I gave a recent painting featuring two mackerels on a plate, or Pom Pommes which featured two apples on a background. 

The painted drawing posted here depicts a female nude in a traditional reclining position. Searching for a title, I began to think about other famous reclining nudes in western art. Did you know that the Venetian Renaissance painter Giorgione was the first artist to depict this subject in Sleeping Venus, painted in 1510? 

Since then many artists have been painting the single female form, reclining, awake or asleep. Their attitudes range from demure and virginal to provocative, to bold and challenging. Here is a small sample of that range....

Manet: Olympia, 1863

Goya: The Naked Maja, 1797-1800

Matisse: Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra, 1907

Modigliani: Nude with Necklace, 1917

Leger: Reclining Woman, 1922

Suzanne Valadon: Reclining Nude, 1928

     Lucian Freud: Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995

As for titling my painted drawing - which I quite like for it's bravura colour and graphic strength - I am calling it  Femme Fatale. 

Painting Figures

A Woman of Colour  

24" x 18" - mixed media - marker & water colour on acrylic paper - $50

Another recent figure drawing - to which I applied some water colour paint.

I love the painterly looseness and intense but transparent colours.

Playing with My Paint Box

Resting Figure18" x 24 "  mixed media - marker & water colour on acrylic paper  SOLD

In February I posted several drawings I did in a recent Open Life Studio session - and said that I wasn't sure what to do with them, or how to process them further. This has been an ongoing dilemma - creating some interesting figure drawings on large pieces of paper, and then wondering how to paint them, but fearful of losing the graphic image.  Well yesterday,  I decided 'so what', and got out the water colours, had some fun, and am pretty happy with the way they now look - like painted drawings.