Day three hundred and one: One year ago I was in Padua, Italy, and snapped a photograph of the Monastery of Santa Giustina and its reflection in a pool at the nearby park. For lack of energy at the end of a long week, I made only a rapid sketch of the scene. The original […]
Also tagged landscapeDay two hundred and ninety-eight: I got a late start sketching, so I’m keeping this brief. The dinner party for my friends and colleagues that I’ve been planning was a fun success. I had a terrific time cooking several of my favorite dishes to make a little tasting menu. And it just happened to be […]
Also tagged foodDay two hundred and seventy-eight: We were studying several drawings by self-taught artists at work today. If I remember correctly, one was called “Man Talking to Fish in a Chefs Hat and Frogs.” Another was “Pink Man, Pink Bird, and Green Fish” (the fish was actually neon yellow). Many of the drawings used less traditional […]
Also tagged animal, markerDay two hundred and seventy-seven: I must have doodled half a dozen scribbles before I started looking for a photo I could sketch. As I picked through files, a snapshot of a landscape I took from a train accidentally opened, and finally gave my pencil focus. I started to enjoy playing with lines of light […]
Also tagged landscape, waterDay two hundred and seventy-three: Reading about the drawings and etched prints of Italian mannerist Parmigianino made me want to try a sketch after something he made in the sixteenth century. By chance, I found a snapshot I took with my iPhone of a drawing of an angel attributed to Parmigianino at the Philadelphia Museum […]
Also tagged iPadDay two hundred and seventy-one: Today’s sketch is based on a photograph I took of a marble sculpture at the Rodin Museum in Paris several years ago. I’ve always liked the way the natural light from the museum’s windows fell on the contours of the nude woman’s body and created her form in black and […]
Also tagged figure study, pastel, sculptureDay two hundred and seventy: Costa Rica photos are a great source of subject matter. I looked at several in my travel stash before I selected one of an osprey launching from a bare branch. A very lucky snap of the shutter! As I studied each candidate (a landscape, a great heron, a mangrove swallow) […]
Also tagged bird, nature, pastelDay two hundred and sixty-seven: On my way home from the the Undine Barge Club’s Captain’s dinner, I was walking on the bike path along the river. I noticed the repetitive arches of this stone bridge, and the shadows created by nearby street lamps. I decided then and there that it would be the subject […]
Also tagged architecture, landscapeDay two hundred and sixty-three: I wasn’t satisfied with Adam’s head in yesterday’s sketch, and so I tried a closer study of the profile from Dürer’s masterpiece. One of my favorite things about the entire engraving is how much Adam and Eve look like statues of Greek deities, perhaps Apollo and Venus. Of course, the […]
Also tagged classicism, Dürer, faceDay two hundred and sixty-two: Some of my favorites themes that have emerged over the course of the last 261 drawings include parrots, original prints, and classicism. This sketch incorporates a little of all three. It was inspired by a 1504 engraving of Adam and Eve made by German printmaker, Albrecht Dürer. Made between Dürer’s […]
Also tagged art on art, bird, Dürer, face, figure study, parrot