Landscape Drawing

I've been hired to do the drawings for an extensive remodel, landscape and building facade, of a country club. This is a fun, but daunting, task. Here are two drawings I did yesterday to help get my head around the project.

The upper one is of the approach to what is a pretty ho-hum building. My favorite part of this drawing is the car.

The second is of some signage I was using for inspiration. I hadn't done a landscape piece on toned paper before.....people and still life only. I think it is just like painting a landscape in that you've got to simplify and then simplify some more to keep the detail from taking over so much that the major shapes get lost. I'm going to do some more of these and see if I can get better.

Landscape Workshop

Today was the first outdoor painting workshop of the season and it was a beautiful day. That's 'D' in the front doing not only his first outdoor painting, but his first painting period. That takes courage. If painting indoors is like keeping ten plates spinning, outside its sixteen.

'V', above, is working on the first one of the day and she was hitting right on. 'T' was just getting in the large shapes of the first of six. A productive day. Even I had fun, but I pretty much bombed on my demos....not bad, but not great. I need to get out and paint more. It's amazing how quickly we can lose that facility of seeing.

'The Drawing Session'

Here is another painting, 18x24, done at our weekly session. It's my friend, Cliff, who is a very talented artist, both fine and graphic. Look closely. Click on the image to enlarge it. Find the hidden image which will show you that this was painted over a different painting.

The photo is not as representative of the painting as I would want, but it still gets the idea across. I like the expression on his face and the slight leaning forward as someone would be doing while drawing.

'Bob'

Bob--16x20
I've been so busy with the book, painting the house, cleaning the studio and whatever that there hasn't been much painting time. Bob was the model at our painting group a few weeks ago. I like models that are animated while they are posing; it gives them life. Bob is a talker, but his stories are terrific. So much so that I think I only spent 2 hours on this painting....the other hour went to breaks and listening to his tales. I hope his spirit comes through in the work.