The Night Light

I have been crazy for charcoal lately and just finished two drawings in charcoal made from Willow, which is denser and blacker than vine charcoal.
I did the drawing of my dad, yesterday, while he was on the phone with his older brother, my uncle George, and I did the self portrait ( entitled "Night Light") today, 03-26-2011.

Night Light

Night Light: Detail

Dad: Harold Balter

The Shadow Masters: Chiaroscuro

My Instructor, at Lane Community College, Adam Grosowski experienced a personal crisis and consequently wasn't around, this last term, as much as I would have liked.
It was unfortunate because when he was around I learned more, about painting, from him than I have any one else.

I am obviously not the only one who thinks Adam is "the bomb", for instance,
I registered for one of his classes, next term, and even though I registered early the class was full--he had to sign a waiver to squeeze me in.

One thing Adam kept doing is pointing us towards the Masters so that we could learn from them. He especially liked Wyeth, Hopper, and Degas.

Now that I am on Spring break and I am completely without an Instructor I feel like a sheep without a shepherd.
So, I have decided to do my own studies of the Masters. I looked past Hopper and Wyeth to Rembrandt Van Rijn and Caravaggio--Masters of the technique of chiaroscuro.

I work well with deadlines and assignments, so I set a few for myself. I gave myself the assignment to do a self-portrait in the chiaroscuro style of Rembrandt Van Rijn.
Here are the stages of the drawing as I worked on it:

The drawing was done with vine charcoal, white charcoal, and Conte crayon on 17" x 24" archival drawing paper.

Itsy-Bitsy Spider: Artist book, Pop-Up

This was an artist book I made and turned in today as my final project for Artist books: Pop-Up.

The class was a great learning experience and difficult, but rewarding. It was taught by Instructor Susan Lowdermilk. She is an amazing artist who is a print-maker and artist's book maker.

Also, she will be my Instructor next term and will be teaching Intaglio printmaking.
Furthermore, she promised to teach me mezzotint printmaking which makes me so happy I am spinning in circles in my chair as I write this.

For now, here is my artist book, called Itsy-Bitsy Spider. I didn't write it, just illustrated it.

The itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

(The spider comes down the spout by pushing down on the tab in the previous panel.)

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.

And the itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the drain again.

I didn't get photos of the title, ending, and front and back covers, but I can upload them later.

The Lost Art

I found some photos of art I did, now in private collections, so I cannot take new photos of it, but I found some old photos--which I edited in Picnic and now post on my Flickr site and here.

White Shapes Emerging From the Dark Land

These are the drawings I did this week as I, for the first time, experimented with drawing with white on a dark background.
I can't believe that I havent tried this before.
I am looking forward to what will come from this new technique!
Only the Monster Wheel drawing is finished--the other two are works-in-progress.

 

The Art I Did 2010-2011: My Personal Favorites

This is a selection of art I did over the last year and a half, that are some of my favorites.

 

 

Obsessive-Compulsive-Doodle-Craze

I did this doodles while sitting in my Speech 100 Basic Communication class.

 

 

I guess I should thank my Speech Instructor, Cordova, at Lane Community College, for providing the impetus for this doodles. Thanks.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU