29th Annual Kawartha Arts Festival

Today is the first day of the Kawartha Arts Festival, held in Fenelon Falls, Ontario at the Fenelon Fair Grounds.

The Festival Organizer, Maud Skoog, wanted me to exhibit a few of my nudes and this year I decided to finally bring in and display a couple of my sketches of nudes that I did while in the Life drawing classes at the Kawartha Artists' Gallery and Studio.

During the course of the day a number of people remarked on the sketches and were pleased to see something exhibited other than the usual landscapes, floral and abstracts.

With this kind of response, next year I will probably bring in either a couple more sketches, or some of my paintings in watercolour, or my drawings in either  pastel or conte.

The hours for the show are:
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. today and
10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. tomorrow.

The exhibit is well worth the drive out to Fenelon Falls; and I hope to see some of you at the show either today or tomorrow.

Faces and Figures Art Show

This year with last month and this month being very busy with a number of different shows I only entered one painting in the Faces and Figures Show at the Kawartha Artists' Gallery and Studio.

















Opening Reception will be held on 29 Aug 2015 from 1-4pm. I hope you will be able to come out and enjoy the art show before it closes on 27 September 15.

Body Parts II - Jeremy

Today I was at KAGS for the Life Drawing class and we had Jeremy as our model.

I did a couple of sketches of him and for the long pose I liked the way the light, shadows and reflected light played across his shoulder and arm so I did this drawing.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my artwork and I hope you will return often.

Alicia - A Work in Progress

Today I didn't feel like driving into Peterborough for the Life drawing class so I looked through my sketches and decided I liked the position of the model in my drawing of Resting - Alicia 3 (see posting on 06 December 2011) and decided to develop it into a colour painting.

I reworked the original drawing and transferred it onto Strathmore 400 Pastel paper.

I put in the highlights first using white conte and then added some of the darker shadows using sanguine. The darker flesh tones are a mixture of sanguine and white.

Her hair which was a mass of long dreadlocks twisted together and knotted was mainly sepia conte with mid tones in sanguine and highlights in white.

I will post this painting at a later date once I have it completed.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and enjoy the artwork. I hope you will return often.

Alicia 1-3

The first week of December started off with mild temperatures for the season and a light rain falling when I drove down to KAGS for life drawing.

When I came out of the Gallery three hours later I was greeted by a snow storm and had to brush the wet packing snow off my car. I was glad that I took the Blazer with its four wheel drive since this type of snow usually makes the roads icy if the township hasn't gotten out putting down sand and salt.

It was easy to pick out which people hadn't realized that there was ice under the snow. Because it wasn't like driving on dry pavement as they spun their wheels and fish tailed all over the place.

Watching - Alicia 1

Needless to say the drive home was an interesting experience, especially when I watched a car approaching me from the opposite direction that was going down the road sideways.

He continued that way right past me and on down the road as I glanced at his progress in my mirror until I went around a bend in the road and could no longer see him.


Alicia 2

I was happy to finally make it home in one piece and be able to watch the snow through my living room window; instead of being out and playing in traffic with those not prepared to drive during a snow storm.

By evening the storm ended and we had almost two inches (5cm) of heavy packing snow covering the ground.

Hopefully some of it will stay and we will be able to have a white Christmas this year.

The pictures shown here are all 9" x 12” original graphite pencil drawings and are available matted and shrink wrapped for $50.00 each.



Resting -Alicia 3

Katherine 3

Katherine is another model that is often used for the life drawing classes at KAGS (see posting on 05 July 2011).

I like the pose and I may develop this sketch into a full colour painting at a later date.

This is a 9" x 12” original graphite pencil drawing and is available matted and shrink wrapped for $50.00.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and look at the artwork.

Katherine 1 and 2

I enjoy doing the one minute gesture drawings. They force you to look for the movement or tension in a pose and to capture what most appeals to you in a short amount of time.

I find I often only glance at the model once or twice more after I have decided what lines to start with on my sketch.

These are a couple of ten minute poses. With that amount of time you can add more detail in the form of muscle mass, fingers, facial features and capture some of the light and shadow.

I may develop Katherine 1 into a colour painting later. I like the simplicity and the light and shadow.

Katherine 1

For the second sketch I tried to capture the tension in the pose as she was not lying back resting on the pillow but supporting herself with her arms.

The pictures shown here are all 9" x 12” original graphite pencil drawings and are available matted and shrink wrapped for $50.00 each.

Thank you for coming to look at my artwork.

Katherine 2

Julie 1 and 2

This is the first time I have been at KAGS when they had Julie as their model.

I thoroughly enjoyed drawing Julie as she moved through the gesture poses with a wide variety of different and interesting positions.

I have a number of sketches of her that I still have to complete and will post them at a later date.


Julie 1

In the future I will probably develop this drawing of Julie into a larger painting.

I like the pose and think it has a lot of possibilities and could easily end up as a very nice beach scene.

The pictures shown here are all 9" x 12” original graphite pencil drawings and are available matted and shrink wrapped for $50.00 each.

Julie 2

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and look at the artwork.

Jeremy 1 and 2

The one minute gesture drawings are an excellent warm up exercise as they force you to capture the pose as quickly as possible.

It is with the ten minute pose that you have the time to develop more of the details than the gesture drawings. I usually like to block in the basic shape and then develop the muscle structure.


Jeremy 1

These are a couple of ten minute sketches I did during a life drawing class at KAGS.

Sometime I concentrate on a small area and end up with just a part of the body where I liked the way the light and shadow played over it.

In the New Year I am going to have to spend more time in the life drawing class because I certainly can see that I need the practice.

The pictures shown here are all 9" x 12” original graphite pencil drawings and are available matted and shrink wrapped for $50.00 each.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and enjoy the artwork.

Jeremy 2

Heather 1 and 2

Today was the first time I have attended a life drawing class in a long while.

It was good to be back and sketch using a live model, but I need to go more often as I can see I am sadly out of practice. I think I will also need to attend a few of the portrait classes as well.

One of the nice things about the morning class at KAGS is that there are the three minute warm up gesture sketches that lead into the ten minute poses. It is a wonderful exercise.

Heather 1

Then with the long pose you have the choice of either doing a lot of detail work on a single painting or after the break at the halfway point you can change your location and do the pose from a different angle.

The sketches shown here are of a couple of ones I did in the series of ten minute poses of today's session with Heather who has been used as a model for a number of years. I am sure that there will be more images of Heather in the future.

The pictures shown here are all 9" x 12” original graphite pencil drawings and are available matted and shrink wrapped for $50.00 each.

Heather 2

Thank you for looking at my artwork.