Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Experimenting with Life Drawings


"A Model Woman"
" x 20" Watercolor

I love painting figures and I keep working at improving my drawing skills by attending sessions with live models. In August I led a drawing workshop where Jane Ferguson was the model. I've painted Jane several times before. Jane is a wonderful artist and a super model. Jane just won an award at our Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society Annual Show.

I decided to be playful with some of the sketches, using these three:

2 minute sketch
2 minute sketch
25 minute sketch

I used acrylics and collage. I have not done a lot of collage, but usually I would prefer to use rice papers I painted myself. However, I wanted some pattern so grabbed papers I had on hand. In fact, the right figure is some wrapping paper that I love and came from my son Jeff's family on my birthday presents one year. I used it once before to make thank you cards to the family. You can see them here. I was channeling Matisse on this piece - lots of color, organic shapes, and a pretty woman.

6 comments:

Christiane Kingsley said...

Mary, what a great, creative idea! The resulting painting is delightful! I love the colors and the composition.

hw (hallie) farber said...

And Matisse jumped right out at me from my sidebar. I love this.

hmuxo said...

Awesome, Mary. So colorful and unique!

Anonymous said...

What a cool piece, Mary! I love how you've used the wrapping paper too!

Barbra Joan said...

Mary, I just love this! It just shows how versatile and artist you are... I never try anything like this , don't know if its in me... but Matisse would be proud! hugs , BJ
ps thanks for your comment...

Mary Paquet said...

Thanks to all my friends for liking this rather "off the wall" piece. It was downright fun.