Recent sketches

Here are a few more of my recent sketches. I did this first one a couple days ago, in about half an hour, using a pen. I like using a pen because you can’t erase your mistakes, which makes me concentrate harder. As the saying goes, measure twice, draw once.

Geoff Watson, “Sketch of a living room,” pen on paper, 11” x 14,” 2020.

This next one I did a couple weeks ago, from life, at the Art Students League in New York. It was the last open-sketching session of the year, I think.

Geoff Watson, “Study of a nude,” ink on paper, about 6” x 8,” 2019.

And here’s a sketch from a couple weeks ago. About 10 or 15 minutes, from life. Nothing spectacular, but I like the diagonal construction lines that I inexplicably included.

Geoff Watson, “Sketch with construction lines,” ink on paper, about 6” x 8,” 2020.

And lastly, a sketch in oil paint, from today’s life class. Our instructor urged us to mass in shapes and worry less about contour lines and other niceties of precise drawing. My results were somewhat mixed, especially as I never got around to putting in the ear, but it was a good experiment. About 90 minutes.

Geoff Watson, “Unfinished sketch of Moe,” oil on linen panel, 11” x 14,” 2020.

On the train

The holiday rush is finally over, and it’s time to catch up on this blog. I visited my family in New York, and I did a lot of sketching on the trip. I’ll post a few over the next week or so. This one is of a fellow passenger on the train. I used pen, which meant no erasing! This sketch took about half an hour.

Geoff Watson, “On the train,” ink on paper, about 5” x 7,” 2020.

Back to school

My teaching responsibilities resumed a couple weeks ago; hence the slower rate of posting on this blog. But today was another back-to-school day: Life class resumed. I decided to ease into things by drawing rather than painting. These first two sketches were 10-minute poses. Sorry about the ghosted lines in these photos; I was using thin newsprint for practice, and I didn’t realize it would be semi-transparent, heh.

Geoff Watson, “Gesture study,” charcoal on paper, 18” x 24,” 2019.

Geoff Watson, “Gesture study #2,” charcoal on paper, 18” x 24,” 2019.

This longer pose turned out okay, except that I had trouble shading smoothly. Partly this was because my first stick of charcoal broke and I had to switch to a different type of charcoal mid-stream. Partly it was that I’m out of practice with charcoal and tried shading by hatching instead of just using the side of the charcoal. Still, there’s some nice stuff going on in this drawing.

Geoff Watson, “Sketch of Dakota,” charcoal on paper, 18” x 24,” 2019.

Gouache study

I’ve been busy learning to draw on the iPad and experimenting with gouache and watercolor, but while I have produced a lot of stuff, not much is worth sharing yet. This gouache study is sort of borderline, but I do like some things about it. The sky dried darker than I expected, as gouache is wont to do, and I had trouble making it lighter by painting over it, so I gave up and left it as it was. Other than that, there’s a lot to like here.

Geoff Watson, “Pool study,” gouache and ink on paper, about 5” x 8,” 2019.

Yale

We moved our daughter into Yale this past Friday -- almost exactly 40 years to the day after my parents moved me into Yale.  Friday also happened to be my birthday, which was cool too.  We stayed for much of the weekend, and we enjoyed the opening ceremony in Woolsey Hall. 

I found a few spare minutes to draw on Yale's Old Campus.  What a glorious abundance of subject-matter to choose from!  I wish I'd had time to do more.  I hope I will have more time in October, when I return for Family Weekend -- maybe this time with watercolors or even oils.

Geoff Watson, "McClellan Hall, Yale," ink on paper, 5" x 8," 2018.

Geoff Watson, "Harkness Tower, Yale," ink on paper, 5" x 8," 2018.

Secret watermarks!

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.