Day three hundred and thirty-four: A discussion among students visiting the study room this afternoon about self-portraiture in prints reminded me that I haven’t sketched a proper self-portrait yet this year. At least not that I remember being any sort of serious attempt at a realistic representation of myself. This self-portrait was made in brown […]
Also tagged pencilDay three hundred and seventeen: With no plan to draw any particular subject, I started to doodle a bit of what was sitting right in front of me. This is the typical view I see while making the daily sketch. Lately, Caprica has decided to be involved (entangled?) in the process, and either pokes around […]
Also tagged landscape, pencilDay two hundred and fifty-nine: My father’s comment about the sketch I made yesterday reminded me of an old family photo of my younger brother and me around the ages of two and five playing in an old row boat. It had been abandoned on the edge of a wild pond on my parent’s farm, […]
Also tagged landscape, water, watercolorDay two hundred and sixteen: I was invited to my first dinner party in Philadelphia! My co-worker, Eliza, and her husband invited me to a little dinner party they had. It was delicious and fun, but I found myself home later than when I usually finish my sketch. Wiped out, and without a subject, I […]
Also tagged pencilDay two hundred and fifteen: This morning one of the curators asked the fellows (me and Brooks) if we could take a look at a Dutch book by Samuel Ampzing in praise of the city of Haarlem, and published in 1628. There are many engraved illustrations throughout the text, made by the notable printmakers like […]
Also tagged book, pencilDay two hundred and thirteen: Continuing the “life in Philly” theme, today’s drawing is an impression of the exterior of my apartment building. Although my address is technically Pine Street, my apartment is in the rear of the building, and overlooks a very narrow residential alley-like street called Waverly. I park my bike inside the […]
Also tagged bird, pencilDay one hundred and seventy-two: The broken bust in yesterday’s sketch gave me an idea for a megalithic stone hand, broken at the wrist. Tonight I sketched my own hand and its shadow in grayscale, and by chance it ended up stretched across a blank square. I went with it, colored in the square and […]
Also tagged abstract, bird, oil, pencilDay one hundred and sixty-three: I know this sketch is morbid, but a conversation with some friends this evening reminded me of an etching that the Belgian avant-garde artist James Ensor made in 1888 called “My Portrait in 1960.” In it, he imagined himself at the age of 100 as a skeleton. My sketch does […]
Also tagged allegory, art on art, ensor, skullThis sketch is the ninety-eighth in a 365-day challenge to draw a picture a day, every day, for a year… Day ninety-eight: Whoops! Getting this posted just under the wire. I am preparing a paper to present next Friday at an art history conference, a project which has distracted me all evening. So in a […]
Also tagged cartoon, pen and inkThis sketch is the eighty-first in a 365-day challenge to draw a picture a day, every day, for a year… Day eighty-one: I woke up to heavy rain this morning, which came and went all day along with stiff winds. I love the rain, and even though it was cold, was delighted to pull out […]
Also tagged oil, pencil, spring, water