Busy week and the typepad app will only let me load 5 pics. Boo!

I’ve
started to work through the Drawing Tutorials Online figure drawing
from memory instruction series. You can get it by signing up for his
newsletter here.

I
took figure drawing in college and then took a continuing education
credit at the School of the Museum years later. I haven't done figure
drawing in years. I’m trying to work with some friends to get another
friend to pose for us. Since I don’t want to be too rusty when I go into
the session I decided I’d brush up on my skills with the DTO lessons.

As
with my college classes the first DTO lesson is about gesture drawings
and working with a simple skeletal figure. I’m very familiar with this
lesson. It was what we spent the first week of our figure drawing
classes doing. Short 30 second poses. It is a great way to warm up.

I
decided to work with my yellow brush pen and a blue brush pen. In
college I used to do my figure drawing with yellow, orange, red, and
dark blue colored pencils working in layers. This method works well for
me. When I took the class after college the professor complained that I
chose difficult materials since I brought watercolors and a long liner
brush. 🙂

Anyway,
since I don’t have anyone to pose for me I went online and found a few
websites with free images to draw from. The best was this one. Caution
it is NSFW EVER. I mean never ever. Lots and lots of n@ked people. I did
20 quick gesture skeleton drawings. And by quick I mean quick, spending
no more than a minute or 2 each. I also worked in a dirt cheap
sketchbook.

It
was a good challenge and by the end of the 30 minutes I spent sketching
I really wanted to flesh out the images and create a finished drawing.
Alas that was not the goal for tonight, tonight was about looking and
recording quickly and with simple methods. It was about getting the
eye’s and hands attuned to the figure. It was learning to see.

I'm venturing out from my usual walk into work images. Trying to find beauty in another way.

Quentin Blake is one of my favorite authors. You know his work if you've ever read any of Roald Dahl's books.

Love him.

I've not done this in a few weeks. I've been feeling a little off my photo game. I've been looking for new inspiration. So here you go.

There is a certain amount of beauty locked into decay, trapped with it is always a large amount of sadness. As I travel around the area where I grew up I’m able to see the struggles of keeping things standing. One of these days i’m going to need to travel with my camera or a pochade.

Last year the Beehive Collective raised $10,000 to repair and renovate the park overlooking the Bad Little Falls in Machias, Maine. The Bad Little Falls park is one of my favorite spots in Machias and sadly the kickstarter campaign ended before I could give. They repaired the guard rails, a dancefloor and installed 2 gazebos where bands can play. One day a year the park is lit up and is lively. I’m happy to see that the Beehive was able to save one of my favorite places in DownEast Maine.

I’ve been fascinated with buildings that are crumbling. Sad to see them start to cave in and be destroyed. Nature takes her toll on the construction of man. The barn I grew up with, my father had a concrete floor poured in before I was aware of such things. Growing up we swung on ropes from one side to the other, lifted ourselves far too high above the cement floor with block and tackle attached to our belts, and built forts in bales of hay.  

It’s been close to 20 years since the barn has been used for anything useful. A thick mat of wild grapes grows before the door, which was last accessed 5 years or so ago. It remains locked both with a chain and padlock but through mother nature’s frost cement is heaved in such a way that the doors will no longer open more than a few inches.

My happy memories of this place beg me to see it repaired but my brain tells me that this barn will eventually return to the earth as so many other buildings in the area have gone before.

I bought my ukelele back in  1999. I purchased the cheapest uke I could find at the local music shop, Ted Coles in Salem, MA. Ted Coles is no longer in business and there is no wonder why. I had the worst customer service I’ve ever encountered in there, and never went back. The ukelele cost about $35, with no case and no instructions. I managed to find a VERY beat up case on eBay for about $5 and a bunch of instructional books at Borders. I love how beat up the case is, but I think it’s time I paint it and make it 100% mine.

The uke has served my horrible playing skills well. It sounds about as good as I play, which is to say, pretty horrible. I have no rhythm and I’m tone deaf but I enjoy plucking away at its strings and generally enjoying the sounds the uke makes.

I’ve had it stored at my parent’s place for the last 5 years or so, why I don’t know. It always seemed to miss being packed with me as I came home. Now it’s here with me and I hope to draw it a few times, and play it a lot.