Departed

Yesterday the sculpture from the previous post was completed and critiqued in my Sculpture 1 class.  

Behold:

I think I'm naming it Departed.

It's wood, about 20" x 30" x 12," painted with mixtures of gesso, ground charcoal and acrylic gloss medium. 

So...no posts for September, but I don't feel too bad about it because I've been so busy with school and work, and I really pleased with my sculpture.  I've also started going to Denver West Prep middle school for my field experiences for teaching certification.  I also have some small works from my Jewelry and Metalsmithing class that I will share when I get them back from gradings.  I might try to make several posts in the near future to catch up on what I neglected to share through September, including my sketch book stuff and the completed beetle painting.  We shall see. 

Back to School

This past week I started class at Metropolitan State College of Denver for K-12 teaching licensure.  I'm taking two art studio classes, Sculpture I and Jewelry Design and Metalsmithing.  In Sculpture I our first project (as well as the other two for the semester) is primarily in wood, specifically 2x4's for project one.  Here is a page of studies for my idea, a large relief type sculpture about 2' tall by 3' wide. 

Frank Auerbach

This is another Lucian Freud sketchbook study, this time from his 1975/76 painting Frank Auerbach.  Dori got me a Taschen book on Freud for my birthday so there might be quite a few more posts like this.

A minor

August has been rushing by with a cruel gusto!  Displayed are some items from my sketchbook, some I've been meaning to share for quite some time.  I've also been working on my beetle painting, which is almost finished so I hope to share that soon.  The day job at DIA is tiring and time consuming, but I'm still trying to enrich my bus rides and breaks with drawing and reading, as well as food and sleep when necessary. Time is just stretched thin and is about to get thinner as I start school for teaching certification next week.  These are trying but exciting times.  I'm ready for my favorite season of autumn, which will be upon us soon.

and so it goes.

This past Sunday night, Dori and I lost our dear little rat, Gustav.  Things are very sad around our place as we try to adjust to life without our handsome little friend.
Here is one of the last sketches I made of him, as he cuddled with his brother, Bernard.

And one of our favorite pictures of him on a play day at the park.

Goodbye, Gustav, and thanks for enriching our lives for the past two years.  We love you, little guy!

Beetle

Hello!  Here is a preliminary graphite study for a painting I started this morning:

42 posts!  Hooray!

Yellow Trolley

I went out this morning to enjoy some summer weather and to paint this trolley car down by the Platte River.  It actually still runs on a route by the Aquarium, the Children's Museum, and REI.    

Here's a cell phone shot of a smaller sketch with the car in the background:

The large one was actually done on watercolor paper taped to a board.  I just sat and worked until it pulled away to take folks up and down the river.

First Tries

 Howdy, howdy, howdy!

Above are my first attempts at watercolor painting on location. I recently acquired what I like to refer to as my "Musser Kit."  This consists of a few portable water brush pens (though I only bought one to begin with) and a small plastic water color palette with a few choice pigments, plastic bags for secure backpacking, a few well used paper towels, and of course, my current sketchbook.  I've also seen a lot of similar equipment used on the Urban Sketchers blog I've been visiting quite frequently lately, so I've been itching to have a go at it.
Proud of my in and out attack at Meininger's art supplies, I sprung for only the essentials to begin with.  The PreRaphealite palette of Indian Yellow, Alizirin Crimson and Ultramarine in small tubes of Grumbacher were the only pigments I allowed to start.  It presented some challenges in mixing a bright green so prominent in the summer grass and leaves, but otherwise I love the richness and warmth these three colors make in addition to being beautifully vibrant and transparent.  I might make things easier by adding a bit of green gouache for the desired color and a nice bit of opacity.  It'll just be nice to have more color on this blog and in my sketchbook, not to mention painting more often and on the go.  More soon, cheers!

DIA III, II, I

More, more, more!     (remember you can click one to see it bigger)

I really liked how the portrait of the woman in the middle picture turned out.  I've also been experimenting working over ball point pen in Sharpie for some bold brush like strokes.  Soon:  Colors!

Blarque

 Blarque rremp jermph nraggle.

Addendum July 8th:

Colored him with some watercolors I got today for color sketching:

A Slew from DIA

Hello!  Here's a whole buncha sketchbook drawings of people I see between my labors at DIA:

Break Birds

Howdy y'all.  Over the span of a couple of breaks at work I rendered these two little friends from a picture in a magazine.  They're pretty charming if you ask me.

Little Man

I live not too far from Little Man Ice Cream, so I took a stroll down there to do some sketchbook studies of their famous building.  The patio was hopping with customers (it is the first day of summer, after all). 

From across the street...

...and from the lower patio.  Happy Summer!

Studio Shot

I have a busy day today, but I am committed to posting at least once a week.  Thus, here is studio shot featuring a painting I started yesterday.  On the wall you can see it's counterpart painting of my blue shoes.  I'll post a nice picture of that soon.  Thank you, come again.

Apples!

Hello!  Similar to the story of the bananas and tulips, I was affronted by the beauty of two apples sitting on the same plate on the table by the kitchen window:

Excuse the glares, please.  It's wet oil! 

24 faces

Once again, here are some faces from my everyday adventures.  Most of them are from around the airport, but some of them are done from Lucian Freud paintings.  Enjoy, friends, enjoy.

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:

Dude-uls

Wow!  Has it been a week already?  Here are some face doodles I did in my sketchbook recently.   I've been trying to work on creating characters from my head.

Creature Feature

I present to you fine folks two creatures from my sketchbook: