the year is running out

Xmas day was a good opportunity to get out and paint a couple of quick plein air sketches, hardly a soul around,

 but I find it hard to comprehend how some people can turn an idyllic location into a garbage pit... (photo of the same location from two different angles)

and I was invited to contribute to a self portrait Facebook page, so I painted this on Sunday, an A3 size Oil  on paper

the end

every year at this time, the life drawing and portrait groups around here stop for a couple of months, and nothing resumes until the end of January- beginning of February.
here are some from the final sessions

a 5 minute pencil sketch

and a 30 minute oil sketch

and from the portrait group at Richmond Art Supplies, two one hour oil studies, I usually like to alter positions if I do a second one... but there wasn't enough room this time!

Kate

yesterdays Oil portrait of  Kate24 x 18, painted at the Hawkesbury Community Arts Workshop, UWS Richmond

Life Drawing at Glenbrook

back to regular life drawing at the Blue Mountains Creative Arts Society, all life drawing in this region stops in a couple of weeks at the beginning of Summer and doesn't resume until the last month of Summer. These are some from yesterday with a great model for twisting short poses

... with graphite

and with oil paints

Theme Night

It was theme night at Cinematic Life Drawing in Parramatta,, and the model was acting out various Manga characters. These are not professional models and seem to have a bit of difficulty in holding a pose, but it makes a break from regular sessions!

I had my oil paints out for the the last poses which were to be longer, and they turned out to be 20 minutes and 6 minutes!

Life Drawing

To achieve any sense of realism and life in an artwork, I think it is important to work from life as much as possible, and going to Life Drawing groups when they are available helps to develop the hand eye coordination, observation of forms, angles, proportions, light and shade etc. and like music practice just helps to hone the skills, and like anything else... the more you do the better you will get!

Life Drawing in the Richmond area has waned in the last couple of years, but fortunately there are other opportunities in the Sydney region, and I can still get to one, and sometimes two sessions in a week.

I usually try a variety of mediums, most often colour pencils for the quicker poses and then a variety... charcoal, graphite, Conte or paint for the slightly longer ones... following are some sketches from the last few weeks, from one minute...  and up to 30 minute poses..

Still Life Paintings

It's been quite a while since doing any Still Life painting, I thought I should set some up in the Studio and start doing some regularly, all 10 x 8

Portrait and Life Studies

24 x 18 Oil Portrait from the monthly group at Richmond Art Supplies, a lady of Indian heritage

and it's not usually a treat when the life drawing model cancels, but it was this time when a lovely girl from Sudan filled in with clothed poses, I had taken water Colours and some paper which was very absorbent... and a Conte study as well

Plein Air Paintings

some recent plein air sketches

From Life Drawing

Some Portrait sketches during recent Life Drawing Groups

Recent Portraits

two portraits from the last two portrait groups at Richmond 24 x 18 on some old Morilla canvatex that a friend gave to me, probably about 40 years old