Josie: Profile Quick Sketch

Profile quick sketch from my moleskin sketch journal

Preparation for Josie

For the most part I’ve been working with portraits using graphite pencils — however for the present project I am creating — I find myself relying on the medium of charcoal and graphite dust (leftovers of sharpening my graphite pencils). I use chamois cloth, paint brushes and my fingers to help lay down tonal mass across the substrate.

Preliminary studies on my easel. Ignore the studio mess.

The portrait is of a young Canadian woman named Josie. She admires vintage films and culture of eras gone by.  However she brings them to the present in how it affects her tastes and styles. This combination of past and present into one has given rise to a beautiful, different and unique personality.  This is one of the main things that really stood out for me and compelled me to ask her permission in drawing her portrait. She is a student of art history and passionate for whatever she sets her mind to.  She is also interested in Middle East politics which I can’t say for many young people. A desire to understand this world (which is reaching out to everyone to be understood – but very few hear the call) is an admirable quality. Kudos to Josie on her adventures!  In portraying her I am only catching a fleeting glimpse of someone whose character and personality who in all probability has more depth than what my mind and eyes can perceive. (And that’s probably how it should be for aspiring artists).

Closer shot of two studies of Josie

The preliminary studies are quick sketches that assist me in warming up. These sketches were based on photos of the subject and by no means are they accurate. I use them to help establish value and tonal relationships and as I hone in on the main portrait proportion and accuracy come to the fore. I am usually embarrassed by my preliminary sketches – because they are so unlike the finished drawing. I am still undecided about certain aspects of the drawing, particularly the medium of either graphite or charcoal. It may end up being a combination of both. Well…wish me luck.

Thank you Josie for allowing me to do this.

Slowing Time Down

The title of this post was inspired by contemporary artist Anthony Ryder, who in a video mention what it was like for him to start and work on a drawing. The key thing is having patience in order to articulate what you see in your mind onto a surface. The process involves slowing time down – which is akin to meditation.

This is a perfect description of what it means to draw academically and should I dare say naturally? I’m sure many in the art community may disagree with that. Naturally may mean to them what comes what may. But the taking the time to study the object or person to be drawn in an accurate way of interpretation inolves a natural way of harmonizing what our mind sees and sharing that with people.

I will be dragging on time in the following weeks. I have several drawing projects that I am currently undertaking, in the midst of all the other responsibilities I am taking up. One is a commision portrait for a friend of mine for his upcoming novel – and another drawing project for a mural I am working on with a number of youth. The third is another portrait – uncommissioned and with permission of the individual. I’m really excited that i am being so busy.

It makes me wonder with this philsophy of slowing time down – if time itself can be stopped? As a student of art, drawing and painting (and hopefully of sculpture) I didn’t think I’d be able to manipulate time – but in essence that is what artists do.

Unrecognizeable Creature

There is a danger of being unrecognizable to those meant to recognize me. Though we share a common lineage; a common set of circumstances for which we have grown in and sometimes together, I sometimes can’t help but think that I am perceived as a different creature altogether. One by one I hear their hushed whispers joining together in a chorus of wind tones:

“What is she saying?”
“Who is she? Where has she been and gone? How come I don’t know her, though she is a part of us.”
 ”Is she a part of us?”
“I read her words but they make no sense to me.”
“She is not speaking our kind of language. It’s not relevant.”

I spit forth narrative like wildfire but it is not relevant; not grasped, nor understood. I wrote my narrative for you and you alone. You breathed life into me. You were the thread that holds the center. Have I lost that thread?  Has my narrative become too alien, strange and monstrous? Has it indeed become unrecognizable?

Though we share a common lineage; a common set of circumstances for which we have grown in and sometimes together, I have returned and you do not remember me. You remembered me as I was, but today you look upon me as a stranger, a foreigner in your midst, speaking riddles and nonsensical things. In your eyes that was once filled with wonder and curiosity, I see it now replaced with a tinge of fear and forgetfulness. I have been forgottened, forlorned, and traces of your memory of me obliterated by the vestiges of time and change.

How can I get you to remember your first true love and companion? Perhaps the stranger, more alien I become you will be forced to recall what you have done to me and maybe — just maybe I can be free of this profound weight upon my soul called loneliness.

The Knox Farm Landscape

The Knox Farm, oil on canvas paper

Figure Sketch

Figure sketch, graphite