I'm back in my studio again after a summer of painting in a different fashion. The Kitchen is white again as is most of the dinning area, except for the one dark dark blue wall for excitement.

I'm also back in a figure drawing class with the Divine Diane Olivier, http://web.me.com/dianeolivier/site/Welcome.html.

One from my sketch book: A sleeping man by the pool. What else can one do on a rare hot day - sit by the pool with a good buddy and sketch














My great artist friend Catherine Mackey - http://catherinemackey.com - has just finished a project of 50 printings in 50 days, all of which are amazing. So five of my student friends and myself decided to do the same project. Using any paper and medium. Some of us are using 5" x 5" paper and some are doing 6" x 6". All to be finished by the end of October.

That said here is my first of 50. A fun piece to get my head back in an arty space.

"Gasper hanging out outside a Thai spirit house"

This morning was my last intermediate drawing class with Diane Olivier and this is my final drawing: A "Memory" piece. Last year when I did this project (this being the second time I have taken this class) I did an elaborate folding screen of 8 8x10 drawing, taken from photographs in Italy, and presented in a box I made. Good presentation but short on product. This year I decided to work in a larger format. This being an 30x20 piece of binders board which I then prepped with white gesso stained with tea with marble powder added to give the board tooth.
At the beginning of this term after I had drawn my first project (3 of the drawing I posted at the beginning of February) Diane suggested I continue delving into my past by drawing some of the objects in my home. I didn't do that at that time but when this final "Memory/Dream Project" came up as the final project I went back to her idea.
What I wanted to produce was another drawing similar to the drawing I did mid February (2-17 posting) which was a raw self portrait. This time I wanted to bring some of that rawness to a drawing of someone I was once very close to without drawing a portrait of him from a photograph or memory. I wanted to make a drawing of objects he had given me. The intention and hope being of capturing his personality, and my feeling for him, into this drawing.
As most of my friends know for three years, back in the 70', I worked on cruise ships. On one HollandAmerica ship I met Roland who also worked for HollandAmerica. Being a very small ship we developed a close friendship. During our year together on this ship we sailed six months of the year around Indonesia which Roland continued for many years after I gave up my seafaring days. In the years after I returned to live in London Roland would visit as I would him; in The Hague where he lived. Each time we met he always had a gift for me: something he'd picked up in Indonesia.
This portrait is of four of those gifts. A batik cloth from Sulawesi, a hand carved row of peppercorns from Bali, an antique house end from an island in Lake Toba, Sumatra, and a hand craved Buddha he had commissioned from a stone carver on Bali.
Wanting to do an emotional drawing and not a technical drawing I ignored the difference in the dimensions of the objects. I did want to use many drawing mediums to capture the difference in textures. There is the background as I described with a wash of sepia ink with drawing using sepia ink, sepia ink mixed with dark brown and red pastels, charcoaland pastels, even rubbing back in places with dampened qtips. Though not the drawing I had envisioned at the beginning - the gold leaf and inlaid other drawing had to go - I'm really pleased with the end result. The drawing, for me, shows the Roland I knew, the tender, caring thorny person he was yet also the many other shades that made up his personality.
Roland died in 1981. He was in his early 40'.

Roland Van de Leewe
Febuary 1978

On Friday April 16 I saw a film called Exit through the Gift Shop directed by the street artist Banksy. It's a fascinating film about street art and the artist who, illegally, put up their work. Also a ridicules side of the art market.
Not that I have great fondness for the mess that a lot of graffiti artist make on pubic and private walls spaces I enjoy the humour that they occasionally show in their work. Banksy, Shepard Farley and Blek le Rat being a few of my favorites. Therefore, as I was still working on drawing using only shape, I let the idea of street art inspire me for a drawing.
Using a photo taken of me in New York some time ago I reduced the full colour spectrum to two colours.
This is the end result: A 20" x 20" charcoal and pastel drawing.

I then reduced the size and made a stencil to try and spray paint the image on paper not with any intention of going out late at night defacing walls. The stencil was quite successfull but the spray painting was not. I ended up with more black spray paint on my fingers than on the paper.




Using the now black spray painted stencil, for fun, I put it on the exterior back cover of the exhibition catalogue for Picasso's Mosqueteros.Which you might note I am using for my profile on Facebook.

These drawings were done whilst listening mainly to CDs by Maurice Steger, Mr Corelli in London and Sammartini: Sonatas for Recorder and Continuo.
I haven't decided how much the music I listen to while drawing influences my drawing. Which is the reason I mention the music occasionally.

This is the finished drawing of the rough layout from my last blog. As with all drawings of a rather abstract nature it can be read in many ways. My neighbour, without knowing the subject, only saw the face of a woman's agony as she drowned. Her vision was arrived at through only seeing the woman's face and the immense sea of blue. She did not see the mans face until I pointed it out and did not know what the inspiration for the subject was.

The subject is from a photo I took a few years ago at the Loggia dei lanzi, in Florence, of The Rape of the Sabine Women by Jean de Boulogne's, better known as Giambologna , 1583 (Thank you Wikipedia).

All day spent beginning the layout for a drawing using only shape and colour to convey a subject. Inspiration comes from the work of Rupert Garcia. I decide to do a series based on photographs I've taken of classical statues. Using Photoshop to crop, roughly chose colours and shapes then transposing 8x10 image on to 18x22 watercolour paper before finally drawing in pastel. I started the drawing by doing a colour wash, to make sure the white of the paper would not show through in the areas of pure colour. Having not picked the final colours for the finished drawing I used colours in the range of the probable finished work.









Having been listening to a lot of Sibelius most of the week I wanted to draw to music with more substance and therefore chose to draw to Mahlers 5th. I find the music I work to so important as it definitely gets my head into a different space. Motown and classical sculpture didn't seem the right mix this time.

Back in the saddle.

I find it hard to believe I haven't been able to post for so long. Though it does feel longer than in reality it has been. How to pick up where I was? Where to restart?
I thought all the drawings I did through this time were merde and not worth the paper they had been drawn on, that the dark circles of Dante's pergetory, I was in, had halted any developement with my art work. One should never trust one's own judgement but work through the dark times and review the work again when the darkness has passed. And listen to the comments of your peers.
Enough to say I back and ready to work. My brain spins with ideas for new work now all I have to do is get some paper on the easel and work the ideas through.

These few drawing were done in the last month.


This is a class project representing a dream.
As a child a recuring dream was of me being thrown down a well with no means of escape.







Another classroom project: random colour pastel of a black and white photograph.










Lastly yet another class work. The project was to represent a close up of a piece of fruit. No it's not fruit. I found this months old piece of bread in the fridge.

After finding that tulips with their bulbs still attached do not droop and bend like cut tulips do: The petals fall but the stems, like the leaves, do not change their position. The leaves withered and went brown but the stems didn't move. Had I been working in colour I might have pulled the drawing off but as I was working in ink the drawing looked static like a row of erect soldiers. I was also being ambitious thinking I could pull off my grand idea.
After Diane's advice I decided to go back to the original idea of juxtapositioning objects that related to the original drawings. Not being very happy with the result I did an abstract image of myself. Giving myself the freedom to just draw without restraint resulted in a drawing was a lot more content with.
Diane and Catherine invited me to join their Thursday night drawing group, 10 days ago, where I did one of my best drawing, also I'm pleased with the 2 minute gestural drawing I did that night.