New project start

Hello all. The mini's for the Portside show are all framed and packed up to be delivered, and it's time to embark on a figure project again.

The mini's are fun, and good practice for the larger projects, but I do get bored with them rather quickly. As many of you know most of them are studies or "practice pieces" for a much larger undertaking that I have been gathering references and doing studies for for over a year now.

The new work I'm introducing today is another study... of a different sort. This is the preliminary sketch, it is 16x20 on news print, so far it's taken me about 2 1/2hours to get it to this point.

The lily in her hair symbolizes innocence, and purity. If you enlarge the photo (click on it) you'll see where I've started to map out the values, (light and dark). You'll also notice the grid on the back board. I didn't use it this time, just free sketched, I use the grid more for portraits and for complicated references ie wildlife. Once I'm happy with the sketch I'll transfer it to a canvas primed in a warm mid-tone, and that's probably where I'll be when I check in with you next week.

Last night I attended a meeting for the St Thomas Artist's Guild. What a jumping group! am I ever glad I was invited to attend. They have all kinds of plans for shows etc. so stay tuned for lots of exciting info.

One thing that they/we all agree on is that most Artists are not good at promoting them selves, which could be why the average Canadian Artist earns less than $10,000.00 per year from their art. Talk about starving Artists! No wonder most of us have to have an outside income. Luckily this group has a couple of gallery owners, the administrator for the regional gallery and some other arts minded business people in it, this is the only guild I've been in that doesn't restrict their membership to artists, which is why I think , it's so successful, even though it's very young. Until next week (or sooner if something exciting happens) Robin