Henry Matisse Study Sketch at the Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kansas
HENRY MATISSE (1869-1954) — contemplating his large reclining nude oil painting in 1935. Based on a woodblock print by Paul B. Arnold born in Shansi Province, China, 1918.
At twenty-one, recovering from appendicitis, Matisse’s mother gave Henry a set of paints to keep him amused — with these he discovered what he later called a “kind of paradise.” He gave up law to study art in Paris becoming one of the most influential painters of the 20th century, as well as a brilliant theatre designer and illustrator.
This master copy sketch is achieved with water-soluble graphite pencil, angle brush and distilled water. Photoshop filters added for effect.
Jiu-Jitsu Sideline Sketches
Jiu-Jitsu practice sketches from sideline to better understand life-drawing poses. Little time is allowed to capture the gesture as the model quickly moves. A pencil scribble is immediately drawn with loose outline and action-line of spine to capture the thrust of the body in motion. Quick glances at the paper to see where you are and back up on the model are ideal. The haphazard gesture sketches are taken to the art table where guessing is done to complete the figure with a .7 mm drawing pen. Brushed india ink with a 1/4” angle brush conveys thick to thin line action. Gouache is added to color the piece separating the people from the background. The key to improved drawing from most how-to books is “draw from life.” This is a study in that mode of thought.
Leonardo Da Vinci meets Ellsworth Kelly
A Leonardo Da Vinci “Pop Car” giclee print mailed to Glasgow, Montana with a technicolor matteboard scrap collage photoshoot.
Vincent Van Gogh
Portrait illustration based on an oil painting by John Peter Russell, 1886. Mixed media — color pencil on legal paper overlaid with black drawing pen, brushed india ink, Prismacolor marker and gouache. Inspired by reading of Pulitzer Prize winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s “Van Gogh The Life.”
Sketches from Bismarck, North Dakota
I drove to Bismarck to deliver the forty illustrations for the Pop Cars art show to the University of Mary Gallery Director, Marek Djos. I spent that night sketching in a pub and the following day at the Capitol Building.
Odysseus Come Home
India ink overlaid with watercolor headstudy based on Giovani Civaldi, author of Drawing Human Anatomy.
ST. JOHN’S IN OMAHA
“Sir, it’s five o’clock” a Josyln Art Museum guard said, “I’m going to have to ask you to please leave.” “Wait” I said, “it’s five?” as I pulled myself from a two-by-three feet hand drawn Creation page from Genesis on treated calfskin in a humidified glass case. “Yes” he said, “we’re closing, sir.” I tailed it out the museum in late November having spent four hours pouring over the closest graphic novel to divinity — the St. John’s Bible — in awe of the fifteen years of craft.
I sped along I-29 South from Omaha to Kansas City as quickly as the dirty silver Colorado inline-four cylinder would carry me to make it in time to my baby brother, Edward’s, thirtieth birthday steak diner in Lenexa. As the sun set along the old lands of the Otoe Indians bordering the Kansa tribes, I prayed “people of the South Wind, carry me home in haste.” My mind swam, saturated in Wales-made illuminated manuscripts, from cave paintings of hunting conquests in Lascaux, France — the oldest art the world knows; to the eternal mystery of feminine wisdom; to Israel’s great prophet who, after miraculously leading his people from slavery and exile, only glimpsed the Promised Land. I made it home just in time for a Kansas City steak among brothers.
Girl on a Train
GIRL ON A TRAIN from Chicago to Seattle taking in the splendors of western Montana from aboard an Amtrak observatory car, on a July afternoon. Returned to me by a big rigger named Wellmaker at Lonnie's Diner seven months later after the sketchbook was left at Well-Read Moose bookstore in Coeur D'Alane.
"Not a day without a line. By writing, reading, working and practicing daily, perseverance will lead me to a good end.” – Vincent Van Gogh