The Deaf Woman

The Deaf Woman, pastel, 9 x 11

This hour drawing showed me how much I have to learn about reading values.

Two new books added to my
library. The first books on
portraiture.

The subject was not a play of dark and light, but of cool and warm and that threw me. The woman, my victim, was seated back lighted by a brilliantly lit wall and front lighted by harsh, cool white daylight. I couldn't find enough grayed down warms in the box or enough cool tinted grays. My black had been reduced over the years to a piece no bigger than 3/4 of an inch. Hard to hold. My whites had been reduced to a couple of pieces no bigger than that. It took a lot of try this, try that, overlaying, tapping off the excess dust only to discover I had misread. Having over mixed in white (typical amateur), I finally gave up. My tools are lacking after thirty years; my "ish" colors have been severely decreased. An hour was way too long. I had too much time and went way past impressions deep into the details of her ear.  Poking around that long, I made the poor woman go stone deaf and disfigured.

And one old reference that
will never go to the resale shop.

I came up from the studio and  laid my money down for Vianna's pastel painting course in October. (Just in time too. There were only two slots open). I will walk in to that workshop armed with new tools;sandpaper,alcohol and a ratty old brush I read. I'm way ahead; I've already got the Savignon Blanc.

I intend to walk into a couple of open studios too over the fall/winter season: Saturday morning there's an open studio on figurative drawing and Friday mornings, there's an open studio on figurative oil painting. Both cost thirteen dollars a session, payable on the spot. Both feed my major interest in portraiture. I'm not really interested in drawing nudes, but unclothed or clothed, the models all have heads and hands and feet and ears.

Yesterday two books  worthy of study arrived: Sargent and Sargent Portrait Drawings. An interesting fact was that after Sargent made it as the supreme, go-to, artist for high society portraiture, he began drawing mostly in charcoal and pencil with only two hour sittings and produced very few paintings after switching mediums It is his drawings that told me I had to buck up on the contour approach. It is his drawings that make me work on the deaf woman longer than I should have.

To reread and practice: Light and dark studies;
Johannes Itten, The Art of Color.

Also: Warm and Cool; Johannes Itten, The Art of Color.

Light and Dark and contour line; Sargent Portrait Drawings

My favorite light and dark Sargent drawing. Look at the range of grays . Spectacular. An
old time portrait with a modern abstract flare.  Sargent Portrait Drawings.

 In my Amazon cart, I still have Rembrandt and Henry Yan's Figure Drawings. Next month's disposable income expenditure.