More pocket sketches of people on the Metro

Steel Mill

This is a watercolor study of a steel mill on the Detroit River.  I learned something painting this.  I learned that I don't like watercolors.

Grumpy Dude on Metro

Well, this portrait of myself in a beret was completely unplanned. Some of you know that I like to do quick sketches of people on the metro on the way to work here in DC. This morning, I sat in a seat that had a glass partition in front of me. I was doing a rather uninspired sketch of a passenger, and looking for another subject when a man in a dark coat walked onto the car and leaned against the other side of the glass. To my surprise, there was my reflection! I only had a couple of stations to take a shot at it, and there was no telling when the man might move. This is the result... I would say it took about 10 minutes - Union Station to Farragut North. I'm not sure if people who know me would say that there is a likeness or not because it was done so quickly and it is a mirror image. But, it looks like what I see every morning before I've had my coffee.

Capitoline Venus - Final visit

Some studies of the Capitoline Venus

We're fortunate enough here in DC to have the Capitoline Venus at the National Gallery on loan from the Capitoline Museum in Rome. Here's a few of my studies of her.  http://www.nga.gov/press/2011/venus.shtm

"Why won't he just stay down?"

some figure sketches

These are a few sketches I did recently in my sketchbook in order to blow the cobwebs off of my drawing supplies and also to draw focusing on surface anatomy and underslying form, rather than rendering the light as it falls accross the forms.  Not that there'a anything wrong with fousing on light rather than form - you have to do both - just placing emphasis on one rather than the other.  Each on took about 30 minutes or so.