BONNE ANNÉE 2008 !

Bonne Année 2008! Happy New Year everyone! Têtes À Claques nous aide à célébrer la bonne année. Bonne Année! Bonne Année! Bonne Année!

Avez-vous besoin d'un Willi Waller 2006? Regardez le video suivant de Têtes À Claques pour décider si vous en avez besoin d'un (Video suggéré par D'Arcy Lee de Terre Bonne, Québec, anciennement de Winnipeg).

Man on His Knees
graphite, ink, charcoal, and conté
22.9 x 30.5 cm (9" x 12")

Another non-Christmas nude, this drawing was done about a month ago.

There's lots of waste space in the drawing, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It was done quickly, without much thought given to composition.

grow-a brain recently featured this site: Gustav Klimt: His Life & Work. It's a beautiful site, befitting Klimt.

M. Seated on a Stool
graphite, ink, and conté
30.5 x 22.9 cm (12" x 9")

I didn't spend Christmas drawing nudes. This drawing was done a month or so ago.

M. is a super model, who never moves once in a pose. His work is greatly appreciated by local artists.

Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas today.

Shower House
charcoal and conté
13.5 x 17.5 cm (5.3" x 6.9")

This drawing was done a couple of months ago in an almost deserted campground near Chesapeake, Virginia, not far from the Great Dismal Swamp.

The darkness of the scene has been greatly exaggerated.

This short YouTube video has nothing to do with art or Christmas, but it's interesting. I found it on Ed Winkleman's site. The locale is Bangkok.

Belly
graphite, ink, and charcoal
35.6 x 20.3 cm (14" x 8")

I'm not sure if I've overdone the model's belly or not. The drawing didn't seem to bother the model, so maybe I got it right. Real or not, I like the belly.

S. Reclining
graphite, ink, and conté
22.9 x 30.5 cm (9" x 12")

There are a few problems with this drawing. The model looked quite a bit less feminine than I've made him, and had nowhere near as pronounced a forehead or ribcage. For a quick drawing, though, done in thirty minutes, it will do.

Osborne Bridge, Evening
oil
16.5 x 30.5 cm (6.5" x 12")

Originally, this painting was larger, 9" by 12" instead of 6.5" by 12". I cut the painting down just before posting it. You can see what was lost by comparing the painting with the study for it, which was posted on Friday, December 7th. While the study looks fine the size it is, I found the extra foreground in the painting added nothing. Instead it was a distraction, in part because it wasn't painted quite as well as the rest of the painting, and in part because the extra black just seemed too much.

I'm saying a prayer to the X-Acto knife gods.

(The study has been reposted directly below the painting, so that they can be easily compared.)

Study for Osborne Bridge, Evening
oil
22.9 x 30.5 cm (9" x 12")

Hatteras Island
gouache
11.4 x 17.8 cm (4.5" x 7")

Hatteras Island is part of North Carolina's Outer Banks. To the right of the road, over the dunes lies a seemingly endless beach on the Atlantic, and just to the left, New Inlet, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, and Palmico Sound.

Hatteras Island is low, flat, and narrow, and covered with dunes, grass patches, and a few scrub trees. It seemed desolate to me, but to a fisherman or surfer it might be paradise.

Reclining Portrait
graphite, ink, and charcoal
29.2 x 35.6 cm (11.5" x 14")

This is a better drawing than it is a portrait, but isn't that usually the case?

Unfinished Nude
graphite, ink, charcoal, and pastel
20.3 x 30.5 cm (8" x 12")

I anticipated having more time than the twenty minutes I had for this drawing. The colour ended up being frantically added in the last couple of minutes. This gives the drawing an almost abstract look, such that you have to search to find the figure. Whether this is good or bad, I guess, depends on your point of view.

Sand Island No.2
gouache
11.4 x 17.8 cm (4.5" x 7")

This is a partial repaint of last Thursday's study, Sand Island, Palmico Sound, North Carolina. The clouds have been both darkened and lightened, the lower distant sky has been lightened, and some black has been added to the sea.

The original study is posted immediatley below for comparison.

Sand Island, Palmico Sound, North Carolina
gouache
11.4 x 17.8 cm (4.5" x 7")

Yellow Torso
graphite, ink, charcoal, and pastel
30.5 x 22.9 cm (12" x 9")

This drawing was done last night in about thirty minutes. I'm neither happy nor unhappy with this drawing. I don't mind the overall look, or the sketchy colouring, but I could have been more attentive while drawing the face - it's not as good a likeness as it could have been.

The model was excellent. Although it's not evident in the drawing, the pose was difficult. The stand, that the model's arm is resting on, wasn't stable. It was the model who was holding it in place.

Late Afternoon, Riverview
oil
16.5 x 19.8 cm (6.5" x 7.75")

This was the view across the Red River a couple of weeks ago.
The river was and is still icing up.

The road in the distance runs atop an embankment which serves as a dyke against spring flooding.

Study for Osborne Bridge, Evening
oil
22.9 x 30.5 cm (9" x 12")

An interesting thing about this study is that it gives the impression of a winter evening along the river with so little work.

I'll post the oil for which this is a study early next week.

Sand Island, Palmico Sound, North Carolina
gouache
11.4 x 17.8 cm (4.5" x 7")

This painting is a gouache study for a small oil that I'm working on. It was done very quickly in perhaps fifteen minutes.

There are many such islands as this sand island, if indeed island is the right word, in Palmico Sound, which lies between North Carolina's Outer Banks and the mainland. This particular island was on the ferry route between Ocracoke and Cedar Island, where the Sound is quite shallow. Lone fishermen could be seen waist deep in the water with no land in sight.

Orange Back
pastel
22.9 x 30.5 cm (9" x 12")

As is often the case with pastels, and for better or worse, the colours in the drawing bear little resemblance to the actual colours of the scene.

The drawing seems too dark to me, and the colour contrast between the orange and purple is a bit much. Also, the perspective is a little odd. Just where was I when I drew this?

The drawing was done last Thursday evening. Needless to say, the model's right hand went completely numb over the course of the session.

November Evening, Red River

oil
16.5 x 19.8 cm (6.5" x 7.75")


Fortunately, or unfortunately, winter is upon us, and the Red River is beginning to ice up. There are still patches of open water, and it will be awhile yet before the river is safe for skiing or skating.

Contemporary African culture is the focus of African Painters. An excellent site.