As an artist I believe figure drawing is the foundation for all art. And I regularly draw the figure. It’s exhilarating for me to stand in front of a model with a blank piece of paper. I rub my hand across my paper to feel the texture and own the paper through my caress. The practice of my craft is essential to me as an artist. My passion is the hunger that feeds my practice. The intimate experience I have during studio figurative drawing is the personal exploration of my journey. These drawings become my quest of study; a method of discovery and exploration. It is with this fervor I attended the Dalvero Academy workshop this January.
Walking into the studio amongst a group of passionate, creative, hungry, talented, intelligent, mind blowing artist raises your adrenaline, swirling in this energy you feel empowered. There is no feeling like it in the world . The books start coming out… every artist you can imagine is opened on the floor as each one of us sets up drawing paper, ink, charcoal whatever we are going to use for the day.
The model jumps on the model stand, the music rises, Abba, bee gees, Clapton, Janis Joplin, an array of various music. The paper is burned up with this energy. The conversation weaves in and out. One quote that surfaced many times, “Drawing is unrelated to anatomical fact, but is totally related to organic function” LeBrun.
Drawings are shrewd everywhere as the day ends and the task of cleanup is at hand. What drawing does one keep ? With the new technology I often take quick photos of many drawings and discard most. However with this method I have often gone back to look at drawings and did not keep them or the iphone photos I took were done in such haste I chopped the head off. This post is dedicated to all the discarded chopped up drawings and the ones left behind. The following drawings are drawings I did in the Dalvero workshop and my studio. Here’s to the next drawings on my journey.
