A pleasant surprise

Today I got back the last painting I did in the first term: an egg painted in cool and warm, that is blueish and orangish, grays. Although I had known about warm highlights and cool shadows, I only came to fully understand the principle in the course of Representational Painting. In this exercise I applied it more or less intuitively, without giving it much thought, which resulted in a pleasant looseness I had never appreciated until today. The rest of the term was more of a rational struggle with the notion of temperature change, and I can only hope one day you will see this painterly quality back in my work...

It's a shame! (heheheh)

In a local bookstore I had found a flyer of The Keyhole Sessions, dubbed 'The raciest life-drawing class you’ll ever experience.' I could not let this go by unchecked, so yesterday I paid them a visit. Racy indeed.

Due to the fact that its location is not a public place, they have some more options to make things... ahem... well... interesting. This week we had a model of somewhat dominant character, and after the break she was joined by a girl, stylishly wrapped up in Japanese kinbaku bondage.

At the other side of the frontline, I found the usual crowd of artists, armed with the usual sketchpads, pencils, crayons and even one tablet pc. I discerned some fellow students and Dr. Sketchy regulars. All in all, a well-spent evening.

Brush your teeth three times a day!

I am afraid of the dentist. At least I thought so, until a psychologist told me it is not so much the person I'm afraid of, more so the actual treatment. My dentist from Gouda at least did one thing right: he introduced me to Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

On the ceiling, right above The Chair, he had tacked a reproduction of a painting which had kept me mesmerized, if it had not been for the drilling. At home, I could not wait to look it up on the internet, and I did so after the pain had gone. The painting was 'A Coign of Vantage' by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a Dutch artist who never got much recognition in his home country, and only gathered fame after he had left for Victorian England. I loved this man! Or rather, it was more his work that I loved, especially the scenes from Classical Antiquity, with marble and grotesque and robes and women and everything.

For the course 'Color and Water-based media', I had to choose an existing piece of artwork to reproduce in a monochromatic color scheme. So, I took my chance and did 'A Coign of Vantage', with the result shown here. It still reminds me of my dentist.

When I visited my dentist last summer he had replaced 'A Coign of Vantage' by some lame sunset with beach and palms. It was my last visit. I guess I'll have to find another dentist.

Plaster cast study

I had always wanted to do a plaster cast study, but it was not until a few weeks ago that I found a suitable cast (for those interested, it is an eye from Michelangelo's David). The study of plaster casts is a traditional exercise in art education, which forces one to observe and replicate the values of light and shadow.

Had I been younger, I probably would have chosen to go to a traditional atelier to spend years on studying the nuts and bolts of representational art. However, I severely doubt whether I will ever be able to sell these traditional skills, so therefore I decided to go for Animation, as a field of applied art. But whenever I have the chance I will continue to do something traditional.

A second chance

You remember the pigeons? Well, I thought the mother of the two was hiding in a flower box at the other side of the balcony, but it appeared this was a second pigeon, with its own set of eggs. Today, they hatched out, and the little babies are quite adorable!

A tribute

Tonight, Dr Sketchy paid a tribute to Michael Jackson. I must say I'm by no means a fan of the man, although I recognize his role in the history of pop music, so I was a little reluctant to join. Fortunately, our model Katherine brought us an interpretation of the phenomenon gorgeous enough to count me among her fans. Here are two 5 minute quickies and two 10 minute poses.

Just her mother

I had hoped to cover the whole development from snug eggs to cute little chicks to nice young birds etc., but during my vacation in The Netherlands in the last two weeks, the eggs hatched out.

In retrospect, I think my expectations were somewhat colored by the modern Eastern industry, and what I found in our flower box were not exactly sweet soft and yellow balls of plush in a bed of flowers and chocolate eggs.

Boy, they are downright ugly. And they smell. Their mother is hiding at the other side of the balcony, which is quite understandable. My guess so far is that some evil person has replaced the eggs by ostrich eggs, which promises some nice scenes in the next few weeks. I'll keep you informed.