A Look at One of My Teaching Demonstration Sketchbooks

I have been a lecturer teaching in a university art department for more than 21 years, so I have many sketchbooks full of drawings that I've done during classroom demonstrations. Recently I uncovered a stack of these sketchbooks (14" x 11") and thought I should occasionally open one and share some of the contents. These drawings are ones I've done along with my students during in-class exercises. This is a little taste of the activities done in beginning drawing courses.

The Milwaukee Public Museum is one of my favorite field trip destinations for drawing classes. Of course the artifacts displayed are unique and interesting especially when compared to the usual classroom still life objects we draw. The items are carefully arranged and dramatically lit, making an ideal situation.

A Chinese Foo Dog  

sepia and black conte

This drawing of a Chinese Foo Dog, done in sepia and black conte crayon, demonstrated the creation of values using hatching in a consistent diagonal direction.

The quirky characters and unusual proportions of the South American ceramic figurines in the museum are endlessly fascinating. The group shown in the drawing below were done in Ebony pencil to show a contour-hatch modeling technique.

South American Ceramic Figurines
Ebony pencil

Summer sessions provide opportunities to sketch outdoors. It is always fun to take classes to the McKinley Marina to draw. 

Docked Sailboats 
black and blue ballpoint pen

Spatial gesture diagrammatic lines are used to feel the distance between sailboat masts in these ballpoint pen sketches.

McKinley Marina
blue ballpoint

I'm glad that I recorded the old Coast Guard Station on the lakefront which has since been demolished. My father remenisced about diving off of its roof into Lake Michigan as a teenager. A landfill had since been made to extended the park into the lake where he swam. A covered picnic area has replaced this building.

Old Coast Guard Building
blue and black ballpoint pen

When weather allows, my classes will walk a few blocks to the Edith Hefter Center to practice linear perspective.

Edith Hefter Center
pencil and micron pen

Early in the semester, classes will spend a day focusing on negative shape seeing. In this exercise we only draw the holes framed by positive forms.

negative shape drawing of a pile of chairs
Sharpie marker

Cross hatching is done using extra fine Sharpies when the class is learning about making optical grey values. The viewer's eye blends the black ink marks with the white of the paper to create the illusion of grey values.

The students' first experience drawing the model is often pure contour drawing. Outer and inner contours are "felt" using a slow, tactile line.

contour drawing of seated nude female

black conte crayon

Systematic cross contour lines are explored in addition to outer and inner contours.

Dynamic gestural line is used to capture the action and general observations such as proportion, placement, and mass during rapid one-minute long poses.

A very difficult exercise involves students drawing portraits of each other using vertical cross-contour lines to help them concentrate on the continuous surface of a form. This helps students think in a more sculptural way when they cannot use the common symbols for facial features.

Contour-hatch modeling builds value while sculpting form with topographical marks in these figure drawings.

Shape defined by lines functions as planes in both portrait s and full figures in the planar analysis demonstrations seen above and below.

Value is then added to the planar shapes (as seen below).

The "tooth" of the paper grabs particles of the media when side of the drawing tool is dragged across the surface to suggest value, mass, and form in these quick sketches.

A subtractive process was used to erase out the highlights in this figure drawing after the page was covered with a mid-tone grey value in vine charcoal.

This last set of figure drawings were done with a quick gesture using the side of a sanguine conte crayon then a contour in black conte was superimposed.  The late Jerry K., a professional life drawing model for 40+ years, was one of the best I've ever worked with. I have drawings and paintings of him dating back to the mid 1980s. Perhaps one day I will compile a blogpost featuring Jerry through the years. 

Thanks for letting me show you a few selections from one of my sketchbooks from my stack. 

Don't forget to check out my artwork available at my Etsy store, Facebook page, as well as my Instagram feed.

Himalayan Winds, New Work Inspired by Architecture of Bhutan

I am contemplating the idea of new series of paintings inspired by architectural sites I've visited in the Himalayan country of Bhutan.

I rarely do watercolor paintings, but wanted to try a color palette common to architecture of the region. Watercolor seemed an efficient medium for experimentation. The painting below is my first attempt, a preliminary study for a large painting on a patterned fabric.

Himalayan Winds
2018
watercolor
18 x 24 inches

Sites including temples, monasteries, and Dzongs in Bhutan are highly decorated with brightly painted carved patterns. 

All of the elements in these designs have symbolic Buddhist meaning. I am learning about this symbolism while studying these intricate patterns.

An ubiquitous orange hue is used as the background color for designs on many structures. This color appears on half of the Bhutan flag to represent spiritual power and the Drukpas monasteries. A saffron yellow signifies the authority of the dynasty.

The concentric circles on the beam above are a stylized "flaming pearl" symbolic of wisdom and spiritual awareness.  Directly below we see the Trinata symbolizing the "triple gems" of Buddhism (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha).The water is symbolic of clarity and calmness.

Abstract wind designs represent the flow of energy, called rLung, most closely connected with air. rLung is a concept that is particularly important in Vajrayana traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Its most important function is to carry the movements of mind, speech and body, the Three Vajras.

Chrysanthemum flowers are used as offerings on alters. They are symbolic of powerful Yang energy, which means they attract good luck into the home.

A stylized Chrysanthemum flower

Here are links to a few of the informative articles I have been reading about Buddhist Symbolism:

Guidelines for Traditional Bhutanese Architecture

National Symbols of Bhutan

Buddhist Symbols

The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbolism



Don't forget to check out my artwork available at my Etsy store, Facebook page, as well as my Instagram feed.

Look Here! Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum: Part II

To conclude my series of posts related to my artwork in the Look Here! exhibition at Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, we continue our tour of the show.  We enter the master bedroom space where Rajasthan Reimagined, my series created for this exhibition currently on view.

It has been two years since I began work on this pilot collaboration project with UWM Libraries Digital Humanities Lab and Special Collections.

The eight artworks in Rajasthan Reimagined are based on my interaction with historical Indian architectural renderings compiled in the Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details (1894). Three volumes of the rare twelve volume portfolio are housed in the UWM Library’s Special Collections. 

Some of the illustrations I referenced are shown in a display case so that visitors can have a better understanding of my research process. 

The highly accurate and detailed original drawings were reproduced in England as large scale photo-lithograph plates with hopes they would be used chiefly as working drawings for the artisan. They are truly exquisite and worth a look!

Additional color plates I utilized are displayed in the Villa's beautiful wooden paneled library.

Color plates from the Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Detail 
are on the top shelf

In recent blog posts, I have featured six of the eight finished pieces in the series and explained my process.

Two works I haven't yet highlighted are Inner Garden I & II which were inspired by a rendering of a low relief wall carving depicting vases of flowers. (below)

Much of my work over recent years have been trompe-l'oei paintings of ancient Asian low relief carvings, so the wall panels depicted in this rendering fascinated me.

In Inner Garden I & II the representational elements from the portfolio are progressively deconstructed. Other elements pulse in and out of focus.

Inner Garden II

36" x  50"

Acrylic on Kalamkari fabric

Inner Garden II
36" x  50"
Acrylic on Kalamkari fabric

Having been assigned the master bedroom space in the Villa Terrace, I was able to plan pieces specifically for this site. 

The character of the patterns painted on the ceiling of the mater bedroom, wall sizes, fireplace, and other features of the room were taken into consideration.

Hand-painted ceiling panels in the master bedroom

Jeypore Dreams Remembered, for example, echos the mantle's size and form.

The artist with Jeypore Dreams Remembered

I felt that architectural elements depicted in the Jeypore Portfolio were visually similar to the Cyril Colnik ironwork collection permanently displayed at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. 

I meant the arches in Mystic Garden to match the character of Colnik's iron garden gates.

Leaving the master bedroom to explore other parts of the museum, we look down on the terrace where people are enjoy the summer evening, formal gardens and lake view.

The ladies dressing room is paneled in feminine paintings of ribbon tied floral garlands, baskets, and birds.

I visited the Villa Terrace frequently as a child. The Rococo style paneling always intrigued the budding artist in me.

Permanent collections of porcelain and paintings are displayed in the dining room and throughout the museum. A few favorites can be seen below.

Pre-Raphialite Painted Glass Window
Originally installed in the Pabst Brewing family home

There is still time to visit the Look Here! exhibition at Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum through September 16, 2018.

Some paintings in the Rajasthan Reimagined series traveled to India with me for my January 2018 solo exhibition Eternal Visions in Kolkata at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark (an exhibition made possible in part by a grant from The Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Mary L. Nohl Fund Suitcase Export Fund for Visual Art).

My next blog post will be about that exhibition in India.

Don't forget to check out my artwork available at my Etsy store, Facebook page, as well as my Instagram feed.