Charcoal sanding workshop

I have been attending Annie Murphy Robinson's Charcoal Sanding Zoom workshop since last week. Today was the second session. Last week, I couldn't quite understand what this technique was all about although initially I was drawn to the beauty of her drawing and wanted to learn her process. Today, the minute I started sanding the surface I had previously rendered I realized how it worked. The value range and subtle tonal nuance you can create with this technique are quite remarkable. I just started shading for the first time today, but I can kind of previsualize where this drawing is going and what it might look like. I am getting excited!

Drawing demo recording for Bryn Du

Last week, I recorded a drawing demo of me working on a portrait of my friend Lydia. This was for the upcoming Bryn Du Art Center's Annual Group Show. Due to the pandemic, they could not do their usual artist demonstrations at the Art Center, so they came up with the idea of uploading the footage of the artists working in the studios online and share with public. I volunteered to do mine. I spent a little over 2 hours working on this drawing. Later I edited the footage down to about 20 minute length, which I hope is short enough to keep people's attention and interest. After watching the footage over and over while editing, I really realized for the first time that I do draw in charcoal like making a sculpture, starting with rough shapes by blocking in general patterns of light and dark, then slowly moving on to carving the details out. It's interesting I don't work this way for my graphite drawings. My dream is somehow to combine this sculptural approach in charcoal and the more precise rendering in graphite and make them coexist harmoniously in a single drawing.

Nicolai Fechin's drawings

Ever since I learned about Nicolai Fechin and his art, especially his drawings, I was truly inspired and have been trying to change my drawing style. To me, his drawing presents itself as a perfect combination of realism and abstraction, control and chaos. He does this artistic tight rope walking based on his hawk-eye observation and incredible drawing skills. He just nails the shapes with lines so sharp and decisive that they almost cut into the flesh, renders the flesh tones with exquisite subtlety, then, all of a sudden, he lets it go and leaves the rest of the drawing in a controlled chaos filled with expressive lines and tones that are as beautiful as the rest of the work. The way he makes the peripheral information seamlessly blend into the background is so effective, the background of his drawing stops being an empty space and starts to turn into some kind of latent drawing without anything actually drawn in it. I just find myself gawking at his work, speechless, sighing... One day, maybe one day, I might be able to draw like him (wishful thinking)...

 

Drawing portfolio

I uploaded my drawing portfolio to this web site. My main mediums have been photography and sculpture, but I do have strong love for drawing and I have been producing drawings ever since I started studying art back in the early 1990s. Many of them I uploaded were done for the purpose of classroom demonstrations. Some were done on my own to keep my skills up. Recently I decided to go back to do more drawing. I am going to keep adding more whenever I get the ones I like.