November 4; Life Drawing Class

Life Drawing on canvas

Tonight at the life drawing class I took along two canvases prepared with colour washes and sketched the model with chalk pastel. These will be made into paintings

The Weekly Portrait: our model's dog

Last night at life drawing class Georgia suggested I draw her dog.

In terms of keeping still the wee dog was a terrible model but a real little sweetheart that fitted right in the casual and friendly atmosphere of the class.

Music Mural Assistant

Janice wanted to help finish the music mural so I turned her lose on the country band's clothing. I reckon she cracked it, I love the dress and the blonde hair, there's lots of little delights in painting murals.
Only the jeans are painted, the shirt, dress and blonde curls Janice did with chalk pastels and clear medium and I provided the finishing touches with scraping off the highlights on the shirt with a tungsten scraper and scraping texture into the dress with my fingernails.
Very hands on and spontaneous, working like this I am as happy as a kid playing in mud.

The Weekly Portrait: Dr. Mathieson

Some years ago I was talking with a rough character in the local pub at Warkworth where I lived for 20 years. We got on the subject of Doctors and my companion told me of a rash he had on his hands and forearms which he took to a local Doctor to look at. The Doctor looked at it and without a word began to write out a prescription, probably for antihistamine. My companion told how he got very angry at this and abused the Doctor in no uncertain terms and stormed out vowing not to pay for the visit, big drama because the Doctor could not or would not tell him what the rash was and why the rash was but would without much thought add some kind of drug to the patients system.....
He took his rash to Doctor Mathieson, the other Doctor in town at the time and Doctor Mathieson looked at the rash and asked him if he worked in tomatoes?
Yes picking tomatoes on a local farm and Doctor Mathieson told him that tomatoes exude a substance on their skins that keeps mould at bay and that some people's skin reacted to this natural defense of the fruit and advised my companion to get a different job.
That was when Doctor Mathieson was added to my list of heroes and much later we became friends and would share stories and I would draw...

Ron, a pastel portrait

It's frustrating for me that in relating my life as an artist I cannot tell you much of the people I have met, my family and friends. To be polite, you know, to respect other's privacy.
I don't mind baring my soul on this blog, warts and all, but I can't share with you much of my personal life where other's are concerned. Shame about that eh? but I think you can tell from my portrait of Ron that here is a man that has lived a life, a man with stories to tell. They are not mine to share with you but this man was one of many people who have inspired me. What a guy!