July 2004 Archives

In previous portrait drawing classes, we've drawn on 18"x24" drawing pads. In this week's class we drew the subject on a much larger scale, we did a quick study sketch, divided it into four quadrants, and then drew each quadrant on an 18"x24" sheet. Here's what the my quadrants looked like:

Top left quadrant.		Top right quadrant.
Bottom left quadrant.		Bottom right quadrant.

And the four quadrants, roughly aligned look like this:

Among the photos I took on Saturday's Big Bug Birthday adventure were a series of four of two dragonflies mating. Here's a collage of those images:

On Saturday I went to my friends' daughter's birthday party outing at Garden in the Woods, a nature area run by the New England Wildflower Society in Framingham, MA. We were there to see the Big Bugs exhibit which comprised a series of twelve large bug sculptures displayed along the trail that runs through this park.

Here's the birthday girl, Ashlyn (second from the left), and her friends standing in front of the giant grasshopper.

Here's the Big Bug Butterfly.

Here's another photo I found in my attic before moving to Spain. This is from my 1988 college photography class. This project was about creating a series of photos that captured the personality of a subject without showing their face.

The subject was my brother, Peter.

This past Saturday afternoon I went down to the Boston Public Garden to join Pete and Rowan for a ride on the famous swan boats. Here's a few photos of our little adventure:

Once again, The Washington Post published its annual contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for various words. And the winners are:

Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.

Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

I knew that I'd be working a lot in June so one of the things I did to try and maintain a balance between work and life was to sign up for a portrait drawing class at Cambridge Center for Adult Education.

This week was the third class and the first one where I made a drawing that I felt really looks like the person. In the first two classes we were all drawing the same model, but in Thursday night's class we set up our easels in a zig-zag pattern and drew our classmates. This is my rendering of Louise. Mercifully her hair kept flopping down over her eyes, so I didn't waste any time obsessing about drawing them. You'll have to take my word for it, she's got lovely eyes.

The image has an odd wave pattern in it because of the humidity's effect on the newsprint I used. Next class we're going to start using better quality paper. Newsprint is fine for sketching, but isn't thick enough to be reworked and is a pretty low archival quality.

After 21 straight days of working, I'm happy to report that my project has shipped today. I'm now going to take a few days off to recoup and recharge.

I don't know what I'll do but that's fine with me. Happy holiday weekend to all.