Day one hundred and ninety-four: I was contemplating a summer scene sketch at around dusk here in Philadelphia, and my mind jumped to Prairie Lake in Chetek, Wisconsin. The image of campfires at Luther Park must be strong in my memory, because I painted the essence of this scene in just a few minutes. How […]
Tagged fire, landscape, nocturne, waterDay one hundred and ninety-three: I guess it’s going to be a hit-and-miss kind of week. I rushed through this sketch inspired by a theoretical building design by the 18th-century French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée. I saw the original in the study gallery of the Uffizi in Florence a few years ago, and stumbled across a […]
Tagged architecture, art on art, oil, pencilDay one hundred and ninety-two: This study is inspired by a Giorgio de Chirico oil painting I saw in a book today. Made c. 1930, the original is titled Still Life with Apollo Belvedere and Fruit, and I love, love, love it. Maybe someday I’ll make it to the Galleria dello Scudo in Verona to […]
Tagged face, food, sculpture, still lifeDay one hundred and ninety-one: After poking at a quotidian sort-of still life, I abandoned it and gave myself 20 minutes to sketch this figure from a snapshot I took a few years ago in Bangkok, somewhere on the grounds of the palace. I don’t know who the figure is, or what the story might […]
Tagged art on art, figure study, pencilDay one hundred and ninety: Aaaaah. So nice to have some time to spend working on a more detailed sketch. Today’s drawing is based on a detail of a woman in an early 16th-century engraving by the Venetian graphic artist Jacopo de’ Barbari. I enjoyed sketching her, although the curls of her hair and the […]
Tagged art on art, face, pencil, veniceDay one hundred and eighty-nine: Nothing fancy to complicated today. This simply painting was inspired by a fleeting view of a tunnel in an episode from the new Sherlock Holmes series that I was watching after dinner, desperately hoping to be inspired to draw rather than fall asleep. It’s been a long, wonderful, busy week […]
Tagged abstract, architecture, oilDay one hundred and eighty-eight: Anyone who follows these daily sketches may have noticed that when I really don’t know what to draw, I end up doodling something very abstract. Tonight I played vertical lines using black and white pencils to create shapes. It’s something I’ve toyed with before, and sometime when I have a […]
Tagged abstract, black, pencil, whiteDay one hundred and eighty-seven: This morning I read that a man carried a small Picasso drawing out of a San Francisco art gallery and into a waiting taxicab. He didn’t pay for it. Today’s sketch is in honor of the hope that the brazen thief is caught red handed!
Tagged abstract, art on art, cartoon, face, pencilDay one hundred and eighty-six: When I decided to make a sketch based on the style of a drawing I briefly saw at work today, I forgot that straight lines are not my strength. I even tried changing the diagonal angle to the opposite side to see if being left handed might have had something […]
Tagged abstract, art on art, pencilDay one hundred and eighty-five: This morning I found that the remaining cherries I bought at the market a couple days ago were very ripe and needed to be eaten. I immediately thought about making a pie. There wasn’t enough fruit for a full one, so I added some nectarine, blueberries, and strawberries, which is […]
Tagged food, oil, pencil, still life