From Friday a Work in Progress...

Hello friends,

Sometimes I have such high hopes for working on pieces over the weekend, and then things get in the way {namely this weekend the pain due to my back injury got in the way} so instead I contemplate and read about art. Over the weekend I spent some time reading Robert Henri's The Art Spirit. Probably one of the most inspriation books out there in my mind, I have a friend who reads it every year on her spring vacation.

Here are some key quotes:

"A "still life" in great art is a living thing. The objects are painted for what they suggest, and their presentation has no excuse if it is not to carry to the mind of the observer the fancy they aroused in the artist." (pg. 82)

"ORIGINALITY: Don't worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick to you and show you up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do." (pg. 78)

I love this quote, because it affirms that you already have your voice, you just need to accept it and nurture it. Though getting guidence and some instruction does help in narrowing down the different ways to get where you want to go...

Which is why I continue to take Robert Liberace's drawing class, this is a work in progress of a new figure model. The pose is an interesting one, and probably hard to keep, as the model never gets back into it well after each break. So I am having to stick with my main impression of the pose and rely a lot on my understanding of anatomy, as the angle of the hips were constantly changing, which in turn alters the central line that organizes the torso...

{half sheet of guttenburg laid - general's charcoal pencils}