I haven’t posted in this blog for a while, but I’ve been drawing or painting every day. During the pandemic, my most common subjects have been family members. This quick watercolor sketch is one example. It depicts my lovely wife, exhausted from a long day of work, dozing off at the kitchen table while still wearing her parka.
Geoff Watson, “Dozing in a Parka,” watercolor on paper, about 4” x 6,” March 2021.
Painting these sculptures is great practice. I often find it harder to get a likeness with a sculpture than a human figure. I think part of it is the tiny size of this sculpture; the tiniest error is magnified. But part of it is that living, breathing models seem easier to draw, even though they move. I wonder why that is.
Anyway, this one is coming along. I may continue tomorrow, or I may start another still life. One thing’s for sure: I won’t be going outside to paint in the 98 degree heat.
Geoff Watson, “Caesar (in progress), day 2,” oil on linen, 5” x 7.”
I set up across from Tia Queta, a charming Mexican restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, and a family-owned business. As usual, passersby stopped by my easel to chat, and more than one emphasized how nice the owner of the restaurant is.
Sure enough, the owner, Roberto, sauntered by to see what I was up to. He was indeed a delightful guy! He offered to move his truck -- that's it in the painting -- but I liked the truck and encouraged him to leave it there. In fact, the truck was probably the most successful part of the painting! I’m out of practice with plein air, having hibernated all winter, and I’d forgotten how fast the light changes — and how challenging it is to draw complicated architecture in an hour or so. I didn't get a great photo before delivering the painting, plus I wasn’t happy with my incomplete roof, so the top and side of this image are both cropped a bit.
Roberto liked my effort, flaws and all, so I gave him the painting, and in exchange he treated me and my family to a free dinner — a very generous gesture! The food was terrific. I highly recommend the tamales. We will go back soon and pay full fare.
Geoff Watson, “Parked at Tia Queta (study),” oil on panel, 8” x 8” (detail), 2019.
It was a beautiful but hot day, so I decided to draw and paint at the swimming pool. I wasn't sure I'd finished coloring this piece when it was time to leave, but maybe less is more?
Geoff Watson, "View from poolside," ink and watercolor on paper, 4" x 8," 2018.
Here's a picture of the piece after I'd finished drawing, with just one thin wash of watercolor on one part of the roof. I love drawing architecture! If the weather stays this hot, I may draw this building a lot this summer.
Geoff Watson, "Drawing from poolside," ink and watercolor on paper, 4" x 8," 2018.
I've been using my new fountain pen all over the place -- in the doctor's waiting room, on the softball field, at the shopping mall. Here are a few more examples.
Geoff Watson, "Heads," ink wash on paper, about 4" x 6," 2018.
Geoff Watson, "Ballplayer," ink and wash on paper, 4" x 6," 2018.
Geoff Watson, "Head," ink wash on paper, 5" x 7," 2018.
Geoff Watson, "Doctor's waiting room," ink wash on paper, 5" x 7," 2018.
I did these two charcoal figure studies in life class today. This first one took about 10 minutes. For some reason, some sort of watermark showed through while I was shading! Can you spot it?
Geoff Watson, "Emily with secret watermark," charcoal on paper, about 9" x 12," 2018.
For the second, we had only five minutes. But by golly, when I shaded, I uncovered another secret message! I have no idea what's going on with the sketchbook I was using! But I'm gonna keep using it because it's sort of hilarious. :)
Geoff Watson, "Emily with a secret message," charcoal on paper, about 9" x 12," 2018.
What does math have to do with drawing? A lot, actually. In today's post, I thought I'd highlight two different approaches to drawing. These are time-honored methods that I've encountered in many books and art classes. They overlap, and I don't think one is necessarily superior to the other.
The first approach is taught by the instructor in my Saturday life session. He urges artists to start their drawing with straight lines, not curves. Part of his approach partakes of geometry. He emphasizes plumb lines to line things up, and he urges us to check angles and proportions constantly. And part of his approach reminds me of derivatives in calculus. To describe a curve, he suggests drawing the tangent to it in several spots, then gradually refining each tangent until the series of angled lines becomes a smooth curve. He discourages any shading until the basic contours are right. In this approach, you draw from the outside in.
Here's an example of one drawing I did with him on Saturday. You can still see some of the construction lines I used at the start. This was a short pose; I don't remember whether it was 5 or 10 minutes, but it was no more than that.
Geoff Watson, "Figure sketch using lines," charcoal on paper, 12" x 16," 2018.
The instructor at my Friday life session emphasizes a different approach. She urges us to mass shapes in without drawing contour lines at the outset. She wants light and shadow from the start. She encourages us to draw gesture lines with curves, not straight lines. She wants us to draw and paint from the inside out, not the outside in. Charles Sovek, in his fantastic book "Oil Painting - Develop Your Natural Ability," urges the same approach. This reminds me a bit of integration in calculus, in which you find the mass or volume under a curve. Or of the pretty curvy graphs you make in trig. OK, the connection to math may be more tenuous here, but I hope you get the picture (so to speak).
Here's an example of this more curvy, intuitive approach. This was a VERY quick gesture sketch -- 1 or 2 minutes, tops. So it's not really a fair comparison to the "linear" sketch above, which was a 5- or even 10-minute drawing. But I hope you get the idea.
Geoff Watson, "Figure sketch using mass," charcoal on paper, 12" x 16," 2018.