Recent Drawings

I haven’t been drawing much this term. But here are a couple of recent 3h life drawings.

SOLD!

I sold four plein-air paintings this weekend, two at the Ontario Plein Air Society show and two through my own contacts. Here are the ones I sold.

Plein-Air Show

I’ll have a few paintings in this upcoming art show held by the Ontario Plein-Air Society. All the paintings in the show must be plein-air paintings, in other words, painted on location in the great outdoors.

For more info, see their press release. OPAS is a new group open to all plein-air painters, both amateur and professional.

Plein-Air Painting along the Humber

I went landscape painting after class again last Friday. It was very windy and I had to attach both of my bags to my easel to keep it from flying off. And it was so cold! I only lasted about two hours, but managed to paint this small study.

Cool Fall Day
West Humber Parkland, Toronto
oil on board
8×10

Latest Plein-Air Paintings

Fall colours are irresistible to plein-air painters! Here are a few recent paintings.

Saturday, I went out to Rouge Park with the Ontario Plein-Air Society. I found a secluded spot along the Little Rouge River and completed this study in four hours.

The Little Rouge
Rouge Park, Toronto
oil on board
9×12

This second one was done last Friday after teaching my morning class at Humber College. The college is happily situated near trails along the Humber River, who’s muddy waters inspired this painting.

The Muddy River
Humber River, Toronto
oil on board
8×10

Some life drawings

Here are some recent drawings. The top one is of Denis, drawn at Brian Smith‘s studio on Tuesday afternoon. It was a 3h sitting.

These next ones are from the TSA last Sunday morning. I haven’t drawn for a while, so it was a bit rough. Here are the best of the session. The model is Anthony. I had planned to practice drawing the face, but Antony gave me his back view for most of the session!

Master Class in Anatomy

This Summer, I took Werner Zimmerman‘s Master Class in Anatomy. I had heard so many good things about Seneca’s life drawing teacher, that I was thrilled to see the Master Class being offered and signed up right away. I wasn’t disappointed! Werner is a generous, passionate and dedicated teacher who knows the body inside and out.

Here I am with my ecorche figure in progress. We used small plastic skeleton models that are very unstable and they eventually broke under the weight of the clay. It was fun putting it together before it broke, and the tactile experience of placing muscles on a skeleton was very valuable.

Werner organized two day trips for us, the first being the most exciting: we went to the Human Anatomy lab at Guelph to handle and draw from cadavers. We could lift some of the superficial layers of muscles to examine those underneath, or push them around to see how they fit into one another. It’s hard to appreciate how compact and tight muscle bundles are and how tough tendons are when just looking at books. We also went to Guelph’s bone room, which holds a large collection of animal skeletons.

Here are a few of the drawings completed during the workshop. I have more, but I didn’t have the patience to photograph them because it would require re-aligning layers of tracing paper over original newsprint drawings of the figure.

Various Drawings

Here are some recent drawings, mostly from yesterday’s TSA Open Life Drawing. The top one is from the 3h afternoon pose. Genevieve was the model.

The two last ones are of Murray who modeled for a group of us in my living room on Saturday. I organised the session for the purpose of completing a few anatomy studies and invited friends with an interest in anatomy to join me. I hope to organise a second anatomy drawing session in September, so let me know if you want to join in.

TSA Sunday – Blairta

Here is the drawing from the long pose on Sunday afternoon.

John Painting in the Park

John is a landscape painter who occasionally goes out to paint with me. I photographed him and painted this in the studio, with the help of a colour study completed that day in the park.

Painting in the Park
Petticoat Creek Conservation Area
oil on board
11×14