I sketch my models all the time, mostly just for the fun of it. I love a good drawing of a nude, male or female, thin or plump, young or old - a good drawing is just a wonder to me. I'll take a good figure drawing or sketch over a photo every time. It's the lines, the smudges, the hand holding the charcoal or pencil shaking with passion and good old know-how that I love finding. Finding a drawing posted on Facebook is my way of starting the day and ending the evening. Nicholas Fechin is the master of the portrait for me and I love Philip Koch landscape sketches. There are a lot of great artists out there that excite me.
Eddy Roos's charcoals are so loaded with passion for the human figure. I love his sculptures, but those drawing of his that line his studio, I could spend the day lost in those drawings.
Sketching Jordan, or Kim, or any of my models I think of all the artists out there creating with just a simple stick of burnt wood. I pause for a moment then push myself forwards with my own drawing. Kim's strong hands and caves, Jordan's rib cage and pelvis demand my hand to follow my eyes every command. Somewhere in my brain I am converting the beauty I am seeing before me into a form of creation only conveyed through drawing. I find, with my own work, I miss what I feel while drawing when I put down the pencil for the brush. I sense a change in my feelings when I pick up the brush.
As of late I have dozed off for a split second while painting. Brush in hand and loaded with paint I wipe out an eye or a finger as I jet myself awake. With a pencil I am so into how I see and what I feel about Jordan. The adrenaline presses on my chest so hard I think my heart might stop. The muscles in my right arm are flexed to the limit. Cramps shoot through my fingers and lock my fingers into a contorted twisted form I both wish to draw and want them gone. I'm told soda water helps with this problem.
Drawings I have done of Kim and Jordan and of Sylvia lead me into paintings, stories I dream up. The gardener resting after a battle of weeding. I search my drawings and photos for just the right pose and then dream up the scene I want to see my friends in. Sylvia, Annie, Adrienne who I've only met once, are the ladies I put into my dreams. They are weeding or reading with a cat on their lap dozing off into their own dream. I think most artists who look beyond the dark seductive eyes and red lips find a deeper more meaningful reason for lifting the brush and pencil. Sometime I find a more meaningful purpose to my art and sometimes it's just those dark eyes and red full lips. I think I going to give Kim a ring.
