Recent work, life drawing

These are some recent works, one in watercolor and the rest in charcoal on paper. The quick sketches were done in 15 minutes and the watercolor and the more finished charcoal done in 25 minutes.

More drawings, January.

Next up, some drawings from the Saturday class. These were all done with charcoal and anything else is watercolor. I once heard that another person was doing this work in oil, but I find that hard to believe --- we only have 25 minutes at the most and it's pretty hard to get anything done any larger than 5 x 7" in that short a time period.

New year, new painting and drawing work

2019 and the drawing group begins again. I'm back doing charcoal and watercolor portraits. Nothing more than 25 minutes, but these show that that's plenty of time to turn out something credible. The watercolors were done with no preliminary drawing, but at 25 minutes who's got the time to do that? They were done on 140 lb. Arches watercolor paper. The drawing of the back of the head was done on newsprint paper with a charcoal pencil.

Drawing in November

More charcoal drawing from the Saturday morning drawing group. Done on newsprint or charcoal paper. Loved every moment of it.

Charcoal portraits, end of October

These two portraits were done with charcoal pencils. Having drawn with vine charcoal during my art school life drawing class, these charcoal pencils are a little different. Still, they are easy to use and not messy. Once after class in art school, the instructor asked one of the students "How are things in the coal mine?" --- that's how messy vine charcoal can be.

Charcoal portraits -- October

Back at it with the Saturday morning drawing group of the Skokie Art Guild. I'm using charcoal pencils and also the charcoal sticks (hard -- Winson Newton) that I used 45 years ago when I was in art school. These were all done either 15 or 25 minutes.

Wabash Avenue Bridge

Painting with the Plein Air Painters Chicago on a Saturday morning about 3 weeks ago, I did this painting along the Chicago River at the Wabash Avenue Bridge. It is about 7" x 9" and I took my time and painted it in two hours.