Fifty Faces & Open studios, Sunday, June 28, 1 - 4

    You will get clear directions to our home/studios/gallery at my website: www.ezshwan.com

"Look at that. She draws!"

Yes, I can draw. I can't remember a time when I didn't draw. It took me until I was in my twenties to understand that some people didn't see the way I do. When people would ask me how I did it, I would reply, "just look at it"

Then, as I got older, artists who either didn't choose to draw or thought they couldn't, would condescendingly look at my work and say, "She draws - it looks just like the model" - as if that were a really bad thing.

I really believe that anyone who wants to draw well, can learn. I used to teach drawing - even to children. Drawing is seeing. It is hand and eye coordination. It teaches one to see space in and around an object or a person. Through drawing, negative space can be understood. When I was in my first year of art school, the classical drawing training I had, helped me to creative my first abstract still life. At 18 years old I suddenly realized what the talk about space relationships was all about.

casein on illustration board, 1953

In the first semester we learned to draw every bone in the body. The second semester it was studying the muscles of the human body; what they did and then draw them without a model for the final exam.

I still sense condemnation about my figurative paintings from some artists. A gallery director told me scornfully, that he didn't like anything figurative. He is an artist who can't draw. My answer was,"Well, I can do both - paint abstractly and non-objectively as well as figuratively"

I spent a month in Italy with a group of artists several years back and received the same scorn. Most of these artists were from New York and anything that wasn't non-objective and black was not respected.

I still practice drawing. Here are some recent sketches:

60 second sketch

Being able to draw, doesn't diminish my ability to make non-objective paintings. It only helps.

Life drawings

I have been drawing from live models once a week for about a year now. I love drawing and am now am accumulating piles of nude sketches. I don't like keeping extra stuff, so I photographed some of them and put the images in a flip book. Now I can get rid of some of them: http://www.flipsnack.com/my-flipping-books/details/?flip=fti21wg2

Back to the drawing board - litteraly

Well, it seems that I need to look at something else, than the challenging abstract encaustics that have me working in circles.

I am going to take some time out to concentrate on improving my drawing skills. I can draw, but I want to make lively, beautiful drawings. Here are some recent life drawings. There are O.K., but I know I can do better. Time to practice.

15 minute pose, charcoal pencil

15 minutes - charcoal pencil

15 minutes charcoal pencil.

I started drawing in ink. That way I couldn't get too picky with the quick sketches

I went to a life drawing session yesterday. I was a little rusty since I haven't worked from a live model in about 5 years. I warmed up with some quick sketches and we ended with a few 15 minute sketches. I'm definitely going to make this a regular practice.