Birds from the Zoo

Hey y'all.  Last Friday I met my friends Kit Seaton, Ryan Secora, and Andy Musser at the Denver Zoo for some animal drawing.  We braved masses of school children in the bird house to record some of the less wild animals among us.  Here are my results:

Plein Air with Musser 3

Friday afternoon Andy met me at my place and we walked down to the Platte River to do a quick plein air painting.  I was especially excited because I'd been yearning a long time to paint some of the awesome scenery around my apartment in the highlands just north of downtown Denver. We got a choice spot on a rock that juts out into the river, giving us an unobstructed view of the pedestrian bridge.  Here is a cell phone photo of our local:

 And my study of the bridge:

That's it for now, thanks for stopping by!

Plein Air with Musser 2

Once again, Andy Musser and I set out to paint the scenery of the Lakewood Heritage Center. The sun was shining and a chilly wind was blowing as we set up our easels and paints. Though we had a few things knocked over and some cold fingers we both came out with some successful studies.
Here was my subject from the artist's view:


Andy contemplates his subject as the light fades:



Once again taped to the palette as it dries is a close-up of my study:

Life Drawings (Part Two)

As promised ages ago, these are the drawings I did of my friends at the life drawing session when the model didn't show. Enjoy!

Riley

Andy

Elisa

Kit

and for the dynamic finish, Ryan

Plein Air with Musser

I was holding out on posting until I heard from the Pernod contest in hopes that I would have good news to share, but it turned out to be in vain. Although I was a finalist, I didn't place in the contest (but congratulations to those who did). My Threadless design also didn't get a very high rating, so I doubt that it will be printed. So, back to the drawing board...or table.
On a more positive note, what better way to ward of those art rejection blues than to do some therapeutic plein air painting? The answer, of course, is that there is no better way. Yesterday, Andy Musser and I went painting at the Lakewood Heritage Center just west of Bel Mar. Below you can see our painting post, our subject, and Andy's fine acrylic painting. We didn't know what that little green shelter was supposed to be used for, but it made for a great impromptu studio.


And here is my study in oil, still taped to the sketchbox easel palette as it dries:

This week I have a few less hours at Sears Westland, so I hope to get some more painting and drawing done and post some more life drawings to get this blog caught up. I've been working on a couple of acrylic on canvas illustrations, so those will show up here soon.

Life Drawings (Part One)

I've been going to free life drawing sessions at Rmcad the past few Thursdays with my fellow Illustrator Andy Musser. Here are a few choice cuts from last week's session:

I hadn't done too much life drawing with pencil since we always had to use vine charcoal in class, but I ended up really enjoying it. I was inspired to try it out by Andrew Wyeth's pencil preliminary studies for his portrait paintings after looking at his autobiography. I'll post some more life drawings soon from this week's session where we had to improvise after our model didn't show.