Long Pose, Day 1 - "Danae"

"Danae"

pencil on panel

12 x 16 inches

Today was the first of a 5-day pose I have arranged in my studio this week. We have 5 artists participating (including me) and we work each day from 10am-5pm. For artists this is the ultimate working-stay-cation! Today we spent the first hour or so setting up a pose we all liked from many angles (no small feat!), and then chose our spots by lottery (I drew a #5, dead last, but I like my spot). The we all mounted our paper and got to work.

I'm attempting to do a very fast (fast for me!) painting of the our model Danae this week, so today I blocked in this line drawing on mylar paper and then during a model break I transferred the drawing to my 16x20 hand-primed panel. I spent the last part of the day refining the pencil drawing directly on the panel. Then I erased the extra graphite, brushed down the surface with a wide, flat brush to get rid of eraser crumbs, and coated it with thinned Damar varnish (thinned with about 1/5th mineral spirits) to preserve the drawing and seal the porous surface.

Tomorrow I start painting - record speed for me!

ALSO:

Live Webcast Studio Tour and Demo

Saturday August 21

9am -11am Pacific Standard Time

12noon- 2pm Eastern Standard Time
$10 - Click here to sign up

I'll be giving a video tour of my studio, a behind-the-scenes look at my latest Wax Paper painting "The Wave", and also doing a drawing demo. You can even submit your own questions, in advance or in real time.

Hope to see you there!