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Friday, December 04, 2009

Of Life Drawing, Ice, and Funky Chickens...

We've had a few days in a row of chilly, frosty weather -

(iced fountain in the courtyard outside of our Life Drawing class in Country Village) -

-the chickens do not seem the least bit daunted - neither the funky ones at Country Village (this is a Crested Polish) nor mine in the backyard.

Inside, we had a full house of folks drawings today! (yay!)

This past weekend, I participated in a streaming live-course from ConceptArt.org called "Sketchbooks and Observational Drawing". One of the things that were discussed were timed gesture drawings. George Pratt, who was one of the instructors, showed a number of examples of amazing 5-second gesture drawings. That is definitely faster than I've ever done before - so we tried that today. Wow. I didn't get much done in 5 seconds - but after a page of those, 60 seconds felt like forever!

And then 20 minutes seemed incredibly long - for poses at least. I'm still not happy with my ability to manipulate charcoal in an accurate or pleasing way...

...yet another thing I'd like to work on when I finish up these books...

Speaking of which, I must back at it...

8 comments:

Loni Edwards said...

Hi Tara! Cool pics! I used to have a chicken like that! :) They are so silly!

I love your sketches. Thanks for the link, I'm going to go check it out. Beautiful foot! Wow!

Sandi McBride said...

What a beautiful chicken...and your sketches, as always, are captivating...the God made ice sculptures are awesome!
Sandi

d. moll, l.ac. said...

What a fabulous chicken! Time is such an interesting thing, I like you five second sketches, what a warm up! Did your foot model have bunions?

Jennifer Rose said...

that fountain look very neat frozen, interesting patterns to the ice

5 sec?! o.0 don't think I could get much done in that time, but sometimes 20 mins does seem really long

LDahl said...

Liked your pic's very much Tara! I miss having chickens. They are such a delight.I had a friend that couldn't understand how I could really love my chickens but didn't have a problem eating chicken. I told him I just never ate my friends! Hehehe!
(I was raised on a farm and he was raised in the city.) I still miss my Sir Crows-a-lot and Little Red.

Tatiana said...

I really like that foot. The big toe is turned so demurely to the side. Almost like the foot is shy-ly hiding its smaller toes from view. I really like it!

cindy said...

i like the chicken with the punk hair, he's pretty interesting! nice sketches.

Laume said...

Those fountain photos are fantastic! Wow, I'm all about alliteration!