Landscapes of the Skin - and blessings

This is my favourite nude.

She was painted along with all those others while I was still in college. I think this drawing really encapsulates for me the theme I call "Landscapes of the Skin" I don't think the concept needs much explaining when you look at the line of 'hills and valleys silhouetted against a dark sky'.

Sometimes things just work out for you in every way which is of course terribly satisfying. I like very much the fact that the lines of her body are rhythmic and repeating. I also feel quite proud that although the lines are definitely feminine they are not too soft and have a certain angularity to them which therefore makes her a bit more interesting and edgy and not simply accommodating.

Another thing i like very much about the composition of this drawing is the fact that I have drawn a horizontal figure on a portrait format - and it works.

You know the more I look at it the more I think it would make a really good print too - nice balance of dark and light and all that.

Oh dear I am getting carried away with myself - "Self praise is no praise" as someone once said to me - probably my mother.

I have to admit to feeling quite pleased with myself at the moment though - i hope that does not sound boastful, but it is really not meant that way. I only mean that I have been working really hard and really working through an awful lot of ideas. Getting them down and painting them up and hoarding those ideas for further development. So important when there are so many times that the creative juices run completely dry and I wander round the house thinking myself such a failure. But with paintings and ideas in the bag, so to speak, i have something that I can pull out in those times of famine and tell myself that I am not such a failure after all.

And that is my sermon for the day - When things get bad, cast your mind back to some of the successes you had in your life and remind yourself of those, rather than dwelling on the failures. Or as Pongo said to Missis (or was it the other way round) in 'The Hundred and One Dalmatians" or was it "The Starlight Barking" (I think there are a couple of books I need to reread!), he said "Remember to count you blessings"

So on that note i will now go for a walk, learn some Spanish and count my blessings at the same time. Now that's what i call multitasking!

A Lovely Nude for Monday and a little weep

Here is a nice nude study to cheer you up!

It cheers me anyway!

Not that I need cheering. It has been a good day on the whole. Perhaps a bit Monday-ish in the morning, even though there was no alcohol involved for a change. Monday Morning is just that - Monday Morning. Still as it is no longer Monday Morning anymore, then I have nothing to moan about.

The weather last evening and today has been really good. Very warm and seemingly settled. There is a lovely autumnal tinge in the air - which I love. It excites me and makes me cry. Not a sad cry, I hasten to say, but in fact a very happy sort of expectant crying, if that makes any sense.

So over the weekend and today I had a couple of little weeps - for absolutely no reason at all - and I was not in the least bit sad. I could blame the dreaded Menopause but actually I have always been like this, ever since I was a little girl. It used to upset my father quite a lot as he thought I was melancholy. I think I might have been more melancholy then as a matter of fact. But now I am definitely not.

I really enjoy a good tearful outpouring from time to time. There is nothing like putting on a weepy film and opening a bottle of wine and a box of Kleenex. D'you know what is even better than that - watching that weepy film and sharing the wine and the Kleenex with my daughter, who is also a great old weeper!

It is justice I am certain. When I was a little girl I was the only one of us Gregoriy children who had this propensity to weep at sad films and of course all the other Gregoriy children made wicked fun of me when I did - them being children and cruel! It made enjoyment of a good weep very difficult. Even when I was married my then husband and children used to gather around me when we were watching anything weepy waiting for me to crack so they could have a good snigger at my expense - Kate, my daughter, had not yet developed her own weepiness at that stage, or perhaps she could control it better than I. Anyway, she was a child and inherently cruel, so I was just the target!

Apparently my dad used to cry at films - his favourite being "Dumbo, The Elephant" but my mother also used to mock him when he was at it, which must have really wounded his male ego.

Vic has promised me "Love Story", a box of Maltesers and a box of tissues for my Christmas Present to take with me to Ireland for my Christmas visit to Kate. For some reason he encourages me to weep. It must be the real thing!

Anyway - enough of that - I am actually happy today and am not crying at the moment either so I will have no name calling and there is no need for sympathy either.

Just enjoy the nude.

Another Nude Study and a Good Omen

I have decided to finish the week with another nude study.

I think you can start to see my interest in the human figure. All the structures of flesh and muscle and bone created through the use of shade against light.

While this figure has a similarity with yesterday's post being a torso viewed from behind, I think you can start to see the way I am starting to play around with the figure as I have distorted the shoulder and hip - splaying them outwards. I have also accentuated the slimness of the waist in order to represent the femaleness of the figure.

While the lighting on this picture is quite attractive i have to admit that this is in fact the result of a poor photo which, try as i might, I could not cure. All my photoshop skills could not get rid of that strange central glow. But I will leave it up to you to interpret what it might mean now that it is there.

I like the way this figure almost becomes an abstract picture. When you start to look at it and let your eyes roam over the hills and hollows the subject matter starts to disappear until all you see are the dark shadows, contrasted with the highlights. And then suddenly the dark shadows almost burn right through the paper as if a match had been lit to it. The darkness in turn makes the white areas seem to jump out at you off the page.

Cutting off the head and legs also helps to make the figure less like a human figure and more like an abstract form.

The only thing that annoys me about this drawing is the elbow. i cannot imagine what I was trying to do with that, but it just looks plain wrong!

On a very happy note (and a completely different subject) I had a very strange dream last night. Very vividly I remember sitting up in bed and seeing a large, bright red butterfly flying over the bed. I actually think I did sit up and point and say something about it - I believe I was overwhelmed by its great beauty and mystical qualities. In fact I know that I woke poor Vic, but then I simply lay down and went back to sleep. But, and this is very fortuitous, I had a look at butterfly symbolism this morning and discovered that a red butterfly represents good health. So perhaps the red butterfly flying over our bed in the middle of the night will bless us both with good health for some time to come.

And so I will leave you now and wish you a very happy weekend with lots of good things. A red butterfly for all

Nude Study

When I was in college I was lucky enough to be able to tap into many life drawing sessions that were going on - some during my own studio time, some at lunchtimes and sometimes just at random other times.

I loved it! and I hated it! It is so difficult to do it well! Though of course there are some people who are soooo talented that they just breeze through it all without ever tearing their hair out. I found it very difficult, very challenging but so rewarding when something went right and when you learned something new about the human body that creates such a beautiful form or line.

As you can see from this drawing I am most concerned with volume and form. I look and look at the model until I start to see slight shadows that define the form of the body and the muscles and bones beneath the skin.

Now of course, i could have used charcoal (which of course i do from time to time also) which makes great shadows and wonderful dramatic shadings and forms with good strong dark and smokey greys on crisp white paper. I, however, prefer to use this method of drawing, which is using a fine pen with ink. This one I think is done with an instant ink pen - as in I do not have to load it with ink, but some drawings done with a dip pen do make wonderful sort of jerky lines that are non uniform and come and go and ebb and flow and sometimes make great black blobs of ink! But if you remember me talking about the 'happy accident' you will recall that it can in fact enhance the finished drawings. Sometimes though it can ruin it!

With this instant pen you get a much more uniform line but you can just keep drawing and drawing without running out of ink (well of course the pens do run out and you have to throw them away and get a new one in) and you can do those wonderful hatching and cross hatching lines that I so adore. It is a small bit anal I must admit, but I love the rhythm of working this way and discovering new shadows, as I mentioned above, as you work and work the surface of the paper.

The nude itself becomes nothing more than a slab of meat - if that does not sound too rude, but you do stop noticing that it is a naked body as you become obsessed with the lines, the forms and the volumes.

The importance of life drawing is manifold. For me especially I find that by drawing so much all the time I absorb what a body looks like and how it works - By 'copying' from life, if you will, the information passes into my brain in a subconscious way and then when I start to do a sculpture from out of my head all that information comes out - sometimes it becomes warped or spliced with other forms, nuts or leaves or whatever I am fascinated with at the time, but there are those nice volumes and forms to draw on. It is great and makes the work more interesting even if it is an abstracted or distorted piece.

So those are a few notes on Life Drawing for you and I hope you enjoy the drawing too.