Life is fragile. This tenuous state is particularly evident in the smaller living creatures around us. When I first decided to use butterflies as my subjects for a painting series, I ordered 12 Painted Lady larvae from a science company. It was November, and I wanted to have a physical reference to work from as well as to study the life cycle of the subject. Of the 12 larvae that arrived, 10 survived to enter the cocoon and 8 survived the cocoon and became butterflies. By the end of the first month, I had around 5 butterflies, 2 of which survived three months. (Which is ...
Below is a 25 minute charcoal drawing followed by a few gesture drawings also in charcoal. In my figure studies, I warm up first with gesture drawings (1, 2 or 5 minutes per piece) and then progress to longer work (15 minutes or longer). A gesture drawing is a quick drawing where I focus on the action of the model. The feeling of what the person is doing is more important than the proportions. The following are from almost a year ago (Spring 2010) from a live model and in one I also used a tint of pastel.