Jennifer Soldiers On

I've been working a good deal with Jennifer recently, though the first sketch here is from back in the winter when she was going through chemo. It was done down in her place, and she has her hands full with the twins! I put it up now because I'm in the process of turning it into an etching (with the assistance of the folks at the print studio down at the Mahone Bay Centre). (pencil on Canson sketch paper).

"...I am alive, happy, and breathing"

The quote in the title is from Lawrence Durrell's Livia: or Buried Alive.

Jennifer and David

As I've mentioned before, these two are wonderful two work with, they create very graceful poses that at the same time feel natural.

This one was a a continuation of one posted below:


This is from this weekend. The split down the left hand side of the image is because I had to extend the drawing by about 50%...

David & Jennifer, and Lisa

I have been spending too much time on the latest encaustic (with nothing to show for it yet), but here's a couple from this week....
David and Jennifer


Lisa

This one has some odd artifacts in it because I didn't plan the drawing too well, and had to extend the paper to the left and below.

Jennifer and David, Tangled

Not much to say, other than I love working with the visual rhythms David and Jennifer set up. And I could have spent a week on the hands alone....

A Couple of Couples

A couple of couples from the last little while.

Jenny and Eric


Jennifer and David:


I quite like both, but I think the second is quite special. I like the feeling of sheltering and sheltered created by David and Jennifer, and it would be be worth pushing forward into something more permanent. If, of course, David's back can take it (it's actually a difficult pose to hold). In return, I promise to put in his missing fingers.

Jennifer and David

Jennifer and David are a couple I've been working with for awhile - with Jennifer somewhat longer than with David - and I am dying to do a double portrait (or a family one), maybe in encaustic, or maybe in oil. The problem is that it can take me forever to actually "see" people, especially when they are lively and fascinating. So in the meantime, I work with them individually.

Jennifer:


David:


My initial ideas for a family portrait run to something like Schiele's:



but not so morose. But it is a classic sort of ordering, echoed in in things like this old milk ad Jennifer sent me:

Jennifer R., Reading Aura

Wednesday was much nicer than Tuesday - sunshine (most of the time) and temperatures in the mid 20's (mid 70's for the US). Way too nice for working inside. So Jennifer and I sat in shade in the backyard.

The book she's reading is Aura's Erato, which is a wonderful allegory of the act of creation in its different manifestations. And as Jennifer pointed out (and I quite agree), Aura's play with language is quite delightful.



There's a couple of others I did with Jennifer last week, but they aren't finished yet.

Another week goes by....

At least this time I have a good reason for not posting much, it's been a busy one for drawing! Probably the best way to catch up is just to put them up in the order they were done, all in one post. I try to schedule two to three sessions a week, but this week two new-to-me models became available (Jennifer R. and Aura King); both brought an interest in the arts as well as the history of modeling, so I got to learn a lot.

Monday was with Shawn. Unfortunately the session got cut short somewhat, since I wanted to go over to his place and meet Sasha (his dog). I would like to get to work on a painting including the two of them.



Tuesday was Lisa. If she's looking a little pained, well she was, with a bad crick in her neck. But she was kind enough to sit anyway, and I sort of regret not getting the icepack in. Or a bag of frozen peas....



Wednesday was the first of the new models, Jennifer R. Jennifer is an experienced photographer & model, but I had my usual trouble sorting out drawings with new people. As an added bonus, she lent me the book Alias Olympia, by Eunice Lipton. It's based around Lipton's search for who Victorine Meurent really was. She also provided a link to quite an amusing website for playing with digital photos, BigHugeLabs.



Aura E. King is a writer, dancer, and a well known model in Halifax (especially at NSCAD), who is currently working on a book on classical modeling. I got to pick her brain quite a bit on the history of classical modeling (I had no idea, for example, that for much of history since the Renaissance, modeling was generally the domain of families, much as any other craft..)



And finally on Friday, Jennifer. Maybe it's the fact that I had been drawing all week, or maybe it's the fact that Jenn's a country and western fan (like me), but somehow we managed to get two drawings done, both of which I like.