Spring Has Arrived, I think

Well according to the calendar Spring has arrived, but weather wise it has been a bit questionable, chilly with some snow. The good news is that the snow is melting, and since last week we have only had a few snow showers that didn't actually stick.

In the meantime I have actually been working on a couple of small works. Above is one of 2 bookmarks that are almost finished. The drawing part is done, just need to apply the clear contact paper and add the tassel.

I think wishful thinking inspired the one above of a fern plant growing out of some leaf litter. Both fern and ground are very stylized, but other than that I am quite pleased with it. Done on Stonehenge paper with ink and colored pencil. Even if the woods I have been checking out don't show any signs of new growth I can imagine how it will look in just a few weeks.

A couple of weeks ago I attended another short pose drawing session. These images are just a sample of what I drew that evening. The image above was done with pen  and was a 2 or 3 minute pose.

The two images below were drawn with pencil and are longer poses, the one on the left was a 10 minute pose and the one on the right a 15 minute pose. It was great to have a male as our model. Though I missed this weeks long pose session where the man in these drawings was sitting for a long pose session, ah well hopefully I won't miss the next male long pose session. The men seem to bring more energy to their poses, certainly they are more challenging (for me) to draw, but still fun.

Above is the drawing from the long pose session I attended last week. For the most part I am happy with how it came out. I really do think the short pose sessions have helped to fine tune my drawings. It is hard to put a finger on exactly how they help, but that is my current story and I am sticking to it.

Last but not least I am posting 2 photographs. The one above was made in my local park about a week ago and shows another of our March snow storms. The one below made yesterday in another local park (Ames Nowell in Abington, MA) shows what a difference a week can make when it comes to snow cover. Since the first of April arrives next week I am crossing fingers that we have finally seen the last of the snow storms.

That is it for today, I want to take a moment to wish those who celebrate a Happy Easter or Passover. Per usual comments are welcome, I love hearing from my visitors so if you have the time leave me a note.

March Blahs

I have been suffering from the blahs, I would say winter blahs though since it is March by the calender it is almost spring. Is there such a thing as the Spring Blahs? We had a very cloudy/snowy February and start of March. I am hoping that the weather will improve and we will start getting more sun so that these longer days of sunlight will chase my blahs away. Switching over to Daylight Savings time as we did this past weekend should help. The end result of my mood is that I haven't been doing a lot of drawing, so not much to post to the blog, hence the lack of blog updates.

Above is a colored pencil drawing that I actually started about a month ago and for many weeks was only working on it a bit here and there. I finally in the past week or so decided that I really needed to get it done and pushed myself to do the work.

This is another of my floral Fantasy pieces. I am calling this one Flagged. It is colored pencil on Stonehenge paper, and sort of goes with the last one I finished, it is approximately the same size 8.5 x 7.5 inches. I used a different flower this time around along with some other different shapes but to me the feel of the two works is similar.

I am also working on a smallish stipple piece but haven't much done on that one so far so will wait to post an image of it.

Even if I am not doing much other drawing I am still getting out to a weekly live model session. As catch up I am posting 2 weeks of drawings. The ones I am posting first are from 3 weeks ago. That week I attended the Tuesday night short pose session and found that we had a couple modeling for us. Because we had 2 figures the poses were longer than usual. These above done with pen were approximately 3 minutes long.

Above are a couple of  pencil drawings of 10 minute poses.

This last pencil drawing was also a 10 minute pose. They did do one 15 minute pose for us, but I was not particularly pleased with that one so am not posting it. The challenge of couple poses is getting all the arms and legs not only drawn but looking like they belong to the right body.

So far this year I seem to alternating the weekly sessions, so last week I attended the Monday night long pose session with the above results. I rather like how this one turned out. Not sure if it is the pose or that attending the short pose sessions is helping my overall drawing skills. I do know that the months of long pose sessions have helped to improve the short pose drawings. I have a feeling that the two techniques feed off of each other, so it has been good for me to mix it up a bit.

One last image, or rather photograph, I know this looks like a photo made in the middle of January. It isn't, I actually made this image last Saturday after our latest snow storm. The snow had been correctly forecast but not the amount. Some how the experts didn't quite get this storm right and we ended up with more snow than expected. The storm actually lasted a couple of days, starting on Thursday morning and not really ending until late Friday night. However after the snow we had several days of warmish weather and then lots of rain so by today most of it is gone, got to love spring snow storms. The photograph was made at Houghton's Pond in the Blue Hills Reservation up in Milton. The couple in the distance was skiing.

That is it for today, no promises when I will managed the next update but in the meantime comments are welcome.