Thursday, October 23, 2008

Thursday Night Lisa


Here is the first nights work on a 3 week pose in our Thursday night open figure modeling at school. The model this time is one of my favorite models, Lisa, I love drawing her. This is pastel on Rives BFK. Next week I plan on digging back in on this drawing, I felt better about this than the one I did yesterday.

10 comments:

Sam Roe said...

Mike, I saw your work hanging in DCAD a few weeks ago. Your life study paintings of nude models were really incredible. It's a new side of your art that I never saw. Beautiful stuff.

Frank said...

great blog! did you know you have the #1 image on google for "figure drawing"?


rock on!

f.

Alan said...

Beautiful. Better than the last post. In terms of pose, colour, light.

Mike Manley said...

Thanks Sam! Hey, how are you? Yes, I guess this is a side you might not have seen so much in school at that time, though it was something I was always into, and life drawing and painting really empower any drawing from invention.

Mike Manley said...

Frank, thanks for the nice comment. Wow! The number one image? All the hard work and bribery is paying off :-)

Mike Manley said...

Thanks Alan, I am hungry to get back to this drawing this upcoming Thursday...

Anonymous said...

This is beautiful Mike. I wish we could've used this as an example of what you can accomplish if you don't waste all your time whining and complaining.

I love the analysis of the lighting situation. This is very accomplished.

Mike Manley said...

Thanks Dave. "If you whine--you loose drawing time!"

So many people get exasperated way too easy. So often the lighting sucks in all of my classes, but I have to muster on.

I never heard Scott Noel complain about lighting or angle...:-)

tinacita said...

your work in pastel is magnificent. I know you have your mentors in school, but I was wondering if you might be able to recommend an article or book on real pastel drawing. Sometimess it is so bad and all about the tiny details. Thank you, Tina

Mike Manley said...

Tina, everything I've learned about working in pastel I learned in class with Scott Noel. What I can tell you is the few things that I learned the most from Scott are: Work in layers, draw in lightly first, then mass in shapes. I recommend working on Rives BFK. It allows you to work very densly and then spray-fix that layer, or stump it down and add another.

Noel uses a mix of clear shilac and denatured alcohol, approx 2 to 1, and sprays the drawings many times while working using an atomizer. You can use spary fix/workable fixative as well.

Scott also 'thumps" down on the areas he wants to blend with his thumb, merging down colors, etc.

there are good books and demos out now by Danile Greene, Harley Brown, Harvey Dinnerstein and of course Degas, who was the master.

Hope this helps.