Fall Figures

As the weather turns cold and drizzly, my attention has turned from painting plein air to the human figure. I'm drawing and painting from various sources to study different aspects of figures: movement, line, expression, form. I went to a show of bellydancers and sketched the dancers as they moved, silky costumes flowing to exotic music. At the Art Canvas Cafe, I painted a quick study of a clothed model before settling in for a more detailed painting, then decided I liked the expressive fluid lines of the sketch better. From a book on Gustav Klimt, I copied as faithfully as possible a portrait of Sonja Knips, soft and romantic. At the Hipbone Studio, spent several hours doing pencil studies of a nude model, and several paintings done in thirty minutes each. Finally, a "doodle" made from random brushstrokes to test paint colors turned into an abstract painting, then became an imaginary profile.