It's been a decade since one of my art hero's passing

Jeffrey Catherine Jones still influences me, every day.  I will never understand what they went through, mentally.  But I'll spend my days trying to see what they saw and work it into how I see.  Jones, Fechin, Sargent, Mucha, Klimt, Cornwell, A. Wyeth... the list goes on.  But Jones stands above them for me.  I met them at one time, before the change.  I got to spend hours with the artwork when it was exhibited at The Joe Kubert School, probably 35 years ago.  Amazing experience. 

Finally starting to get a feel for things

 I only got to spend about 30 seconds on her face in this long pose but I finally feel like I might be getting a bit of a grip on things again.  I expect that I'll still be a bit uncomfortable for another couple of weeks but at least there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

  I'll start posting everything again starting Friday, good... bad... or ugly.  Sketch shaming may work for me, we'll see.

Gestures of Cody

 

Last night started to feel like the old days.  Looking forward to being in the flow again.  Not in the right frame of mind to really do gestures yet.  Getting caught up in details rather than letting the arm just move.

Still struggling

 Without my usual drawing tools I was trying to get used to what I could find.  This pose is one of those where the model slowly turned over the course of the pose.  Kinda throws off the finish.  That's okay since I don't expect anything worthwhile for a couple of weeks and I'm just trying to get back into it all.

Ouch, so rusty and outta drawing shape

 

We had a shortened gesture drawing session last night and this is (thankfully) all that came of it.  After nearly 14 months without life drawing it was humbling to pick up the conte and charcoal and get my butt kicked.  I could blame my own stupidity and say that leaving my drawing supplies in my studio and using what I could scrounge at the school.  But truthfully it was so much time off that made it a fun yet painful evening.  Looking forward to next week and the coming weeks.

The Black Hand Group is returning this Thursday, May 6th

 Let's get back to work.  With a few simple restrictions (masks, social distancing, hand washing) in place, MSU-B is letting us resume our normal Thursday night sessions.  So looking forward to this.  Drawing from life is infinitely better than working from photographs.

My submission to the Brinton 101 small works show

My studio is a wreck since we just finished moving to a new home.  Covid has wreaked havoc on The Black Hand Group (as well as just about everything else on the planet) so I just haven't been posting much.  I hope to get the studio up and running this weekend assuming we can track down a water leak that is preventing me from getting set up.  In the meantime, here are the three "miniatures" that I sent down to Big Horn, Wyoming to the Brinton Museum for the annual 101 show.