National Oceans Month Exhibit 2018

In celebration of National Oceans Month an exhibit was held at the Honolulu Hale Courtyard from May 24 - June 15, 2018. The name of this exhibit is Ka 'ike o ka Moana: The Knowledge of the Ocean. Our Sunday figure drawing group at Manoa, was invited to participate with ocean related artworks. Others involved were the Hawaii Watercolor Society, Waikiki Aquarium, NOAA and the Mayor's Office of Culture & the Arts.
I submitted an oil painting of a mahimahi (dolphinfish).

I submitted an oil painting of a mahimahi (dolphinfish).

The opening reception was held on Thursday, May 31, 2018.

Oil Painting - Atlas Holding Up The Heavens

I reworked this painting of Atlas Holding Up The Heavens and I'm very happy with how it turned.

Life Drawing Workshop - 5/7/17

Today's model is one of my favorites to draw. He's not muscular but he's large boned with angular, well defined surface areas. You don't have that smooth roundness that you see in a lot of female models so he has more interesting surface areas to work with.

Below are two, twenty minute drawings in the aux deux crayons (two chalks) style.

Life Drawing Workshop - 3/19/17

Not a cloud in the sky today. After a few weeks of rainy weather and vog we get the perfect sunny weather this weekend. It was also a nice day to do some life drawing from a live model.

Below is a 10 minute charcoal drawing.

Below are two 20 minute aux deux crayons drawings.

Life Drawing Workshop - 2/12/17

Football season is over and now maybe I can start going regularly to the Sunday life drawing workshop.

Today's model was just fine. She was tall, lithe, athletic looking. The attendance was great, too, maybe about 35. The model even came by and took pictures of my drawings during one of the breaks.

Everything was just great, except that drive home when there was almost a massive pile up when everyone suddenly slowed down, some coming to a screeching halt, because some road crew was removing debris by the side of the road and closed off one lane.

So anyway, I was pretty happy with today's results.

Life Drawing Workshop - 10/9/16

Nice sunny day today in Hawaii. Took the long drive to the Sunday life drawing workshop and I'm glad it was a day that I could make it there. We had a beautiful model and she provided some opportunities for me to draw her portrait.

I think I kind of had it going with the three color chalk drawing. Some days I just can't seem to put those three colors (black, white, and red) together but I think I did ok today.

Below are three 20 minute drawings from the Sunday life drawing workshop.

Life Drawing Workshop - 8/14/16

Twenty-minute three color drawing on toned paper from today's life drawing workshop. He was probably modeling for the first time because his poses weren't that dynamic, especially in the warm up poses, but he held them very well in the long poses. He had a very interesting face, though, and I felt I could get a good drawing from him.

New Painting: Plantation Days - The Slaughter

This is a theme I tried to painting several times before in a realistic manner but I was never happy with the results and would destroy or paint over the paintings. I think this style I painted it in gave me the result I wanted.

Below is a preliminary ballpoint pen sketch I did for the painting.

New Painting - My Apocalypse

This was an idea I had for a long time that came from a dream I had. The manner I painted it has a bit of influence from Cubism, although, it's far from it. I recently got interested in Cubism but at the time of the painting I didn't know much about the principles of cubism. I did find a book later called Cubism by Edward F. Fry that gave me a better understanding of whatPicasso, Braque and the other Cubists were trying to achieve.

I'm pretty happy with how this painting turned out and will try a few more paintings in this manner.

Below is one of the early sketches I did for the painting.

New Painting - The Archer

I got into archery about two years ago thanks to my daughter who took it up while she was an exchange student at the University of Tokyo. Thanks to this new interest I was able to come up with a new idea for a painting. It took a lot of preliminary sketches before I came up with the final image. Below is one of the ballpoint pen sketches from my sketchbook.

Originally, I was going to use a mango as the hanging fruit, as you can see from the sketch. Then came up with the golden apple, a symbol of knowledge and immortality, which is what the archer is aiming for.

Life Drawing Workshop - 3/13/16

Very good model today. Did a couple portrait drawings and I thought the profile drawing came out the best.

Below is a 20 minute three-color chalk drawing on tone paper and the warmup ink wash.

20 minute 3-color chalk drawing.

Life Drawing Workshop - 2/28/16

Great model today. Workshop was very crowded, maybe with the addition of some college art students. Overall, it was a good day for drawing.

Below are samples of some of my 2-minute warm-up ink and wash sketch.

Life Drawing Workshop - 2/21/16

I like drawing models with a full head of hair, or at least some hair because I think it plays a big part in the appearance of the person. So when I saw who our model was today I was a little disappointed. But I've drawn him before and I believe I did a pretty good job depicting him then, and I think I did a good job today, too. It always surprises me what I can get out of him.

This was a 20-minute charcoal drawing.

Life Drawing Workshop - November 29, 2015

Today's drawings from the Sunday life drawing workshop.

Life Drawing Workshop - November 15, 2015

I brought two new friends and fellow artists to our Sunday drawing workshop. Although, they've heard about it they've never attended it till today. They thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and it seemed like a good day all around.

Below are 20 minute drawings done in black and white charcoal on toned paper.

LIfe Drawing Workshop - November 1, 2015

The lighting on our model was exceptionally good today. The shadows and highlights were very interesting.

Below are two 20-minute drawings done with black and white charcoal on toned paper.

Life Drawing Workshop - October 25, 2015

I thought I had a pretty good day of drawing. We had a male model who had a kind of distinctive face so it made it easier and interesting to draw. A lot of people showed up so it seems people are returning.

Below are black and white charcoal drawings done on toned paper. The pose time was 20 minutes each

Life Drawing Workshop - August 30, 2015

After missing the last two Sundays of the life drawing workshop I finally had a free day. But I've also been trying to make a point of doing archery at least once a month and I haven't done it yet. So I had to decide between archery or drawing.

Drawing won and I decided to do archery the next weekend. Hopefully, we're clear next weekend of any hurricanes that might impact us folks in Hawaii.

We've had a very busy hurricane season this year. Much more so than I can ever remember. We've had about 2 or 3 scares already. One had just passed our state several days ago and another two are heading our way. The first one is scheduled to arrive around the middle of the week. For now it looks like it might pass to the north of us.

Back to life drawing. Below are 20-minute drawings done in black and white charcoal on tone paper.

New Oil Painting: Metamorphoses

I was sitting at some dark corner table in Starbucks early one morning when I sketched out the idea for this painting. It started off as a few scratchy lines from my ballpoint pen and then the form started to take shape. I gave my little thumbnail sketch the title “The Rise of Man.”

As I kept working on the sketch I remembered that I had a similar idea 15 years ago based on an excerpt from the classic Ovid's Metamorphoses. Here's the part that I was going to use to make a painting.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.
From such rude principles our form began;
And earth was metamorphos'd into Man.

But I never got around to doing it for various reasons and I shelved the idea for future use. Now sitting in Starbucks the idea came up again and I thought now was a good time to create something out of it.

I changed my original theme of “the rise of man” to “the metamorphoses of man.” I had visualized in my mind how I wanted the final image to appear but that's not the way it turned out in my finished painting. I think my concern in rendering the man and making the body look realistic took away some of the expressiveness in the painting.

I believe it should be more raw and powerful. Maybe I just didn't have enough paining experience to be able to pull it off. But I’m still ok with how it eventually turned out. It's still something I could rework into a second version.

Life Drawing Workshop - 7/26/15

Twenty minute black and white charcoal on toned paper.