there are two exhibitions on this weekend. The Macquarie Towns Arts Society has its Autumn Exhibition in Richmond, into which I have entered an oil painting of an Upper Hunter Landscape.
And the Hawkesbury Community Arts Workshop is having an exhibition at the Deerubbin Centre in Windsor. I have put in these two twenty minute drawings from our thursday night drawing group.

Only 2 weeks left to go with the outdoor portraits... if the weather holds up!
It's possible to see from this photo taken the other day, that the autumn leaves have been dropping on us, and it's starting to get a bit cold sitting there!

Portraits in the Mall

This photo was taken on my very first day of drawing live portraits of people in the Sunday Craft Markets in Windsor Mall.
The sitter was a tourist from USA, and I mailed the drawing to his address in the US, and he emailed me this photo of me drawing his portrait.

I found that using colour was taking too long... about 20 minutes, and so this was the first and last colour one that I have done.
Since then I have experimented with various mediums, from graphite, to charcoal and conte pencils,and various types of paper, and have now settled on using brown colour pencil on a sand coloured paper.
In the last 12 months (apart from a 12 week or so break for winter) I have drawn over 600 ten minute portraits.

Why I draw and paint the figure

Figures reach out to us, they draw us into a picture and stimulate our thoughts and emotions.
If an artist is to do that convincingly, an understanding of the figure is needed...
and the skill to ply the tools artistically is a constant process of development.
My work with the figure at the moment are just steps up a ladder of indeterminate height!

this is an 'all prima' portrait painted in oils 700 x 500