sketches

This sketch is the seventy-eighth in a 365-day challenge to draw a picture a day, every day, for a year…

Day seventy-eight: After trying my hand at ancient Greek fresco painting yesterday, I thought it would be fun to play Athenian vase painter today. This drawing is designed after a detail of Ajax carrying the dead body of Achilles on a handle of the famous “François Vase,” an enormous volute-krater discovered in Chiusi, Italy, and now in the  Archeological museum in Florence. The black-figure vase, with a gorgeous red-orange background dates to c. 570 BCE, and is signed by the potter Ergotimos and the painter Kleitias. I love the stylized shapes and lines, which required a steady hand.