Cay Denise

A trip to a rural nursery yesterday was such a treat! It boasts wonderful outdoor sculptures installed amidst an array of lush trees, plants and florals.  With the occasional cottontail rabbits scurrying about, I was entranced by unusual shapes, the range of colors, color combinations, and textures walking along the winding pathways where surprise met me at every turn!                              

Today's 5-minute sketch to me suggests gender and potential upper class, but there is no hint of age. Before reading further, imagine the finished piece.  What do you anticipate it will look like? A photo of the finished effort is below.  Does she look like what you imagined she might?   If not, what would have helped you in the 5-minute sketch to imagine her more similarly to this completed image?  What could have been left out in the above sketch -- that would have allowed more time to focus on including the helpful elements? For me, the helpful elements might have been the lips and the lines from the nose to the lips, maybe the eyes, and the hand/arm.  What would I have sacrificed?  I would have left out the lines of the outfit (except for the outline), the darkened nostrils, and the ears.  

The 5-minute sketch below gives a solid hint as to the figure's outline, gender, hairstyle and pose.  As for the finished effort, it lends a much greater sense of realism to the face and its expression.  In addition, the detail of the clothing includes a corset and lace fabric and trims.  I really enjoy making the random marks that become the lace areas!  Plus, the pose is clarified to show she is leaning on one arm.   As you may be able to see, there are a couple of lines that appear off, and they are.  I've left them in to show myself I could do it and still appreciate the work done regardless of the alterations made around them.  

If you'd ever told me I'd be writing sililoquies, I would have chuckled asking you what a sililoquy is. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary (online version), the word means: "a poem, discourse, or utterance of a character in a drama that has the form of a monologue or gives the illusion of being a series of unspoken reflections" Have you ever read the "Alexandria Quartet" by Lawrence Durrell?  It is a tetralogy of novels (4 books).  As Durrell describes it, the first three novels (Justine, Balthazar and Mount Olive) offer the same sequence of events through several points of view showing their individual perspectives.  The fourth novel (Clea) shows change over time.   I read the four books decades ago, and loved the idea of writing about events from different peoples's perspectives.  I don't remember the specifics of the books but found the idea behind their format inspiring. Whether and how that might take shape in my work (in some form) was...

Two more pieces for the day's practice work! In the first one, it is hard to tell what the 'essence' is in the 5-minute sketch.  It could have been a clown.  That said, I like how the squinting of the eyes with the marks along the bridge of the nose emphasize the taste experience in the final version.    In the second one, the 5-minute sketch captures the pose, but not the lighting that provides so much contour and depth to the face, should, arm and hand in the final version.  This one was actually fun to see evolve with the shading.          

After nearly two weeks of computer data back-up work, I've done some sketch work!   Interestingly, you can't tell in the 5-minute sketch what is going on with the head because of its shape.  But in the finished effort, you cal tell the head has been foreshortened and the pose is very different.  This is the part of the sketch I particularly like.  The neck is quite elongated, but it works -- as well as the facial features. 

"Many hands make light work" is a quote by John Heywood, a British writer who lived circa 1497-circa 1580 that I was reminded of looking at the sketch below.   But I wasn't thinking of the quote when doing this effort (with a Muji pen).  Rather, an idea inspired playing with hands (and sometimes forearms) that overlap and disappear within the image and beyond it.  The background lines were tedious in the doing while the exercise as a whole -- was one of curiosity and play.   Is there a specific thought or feeling that comes across to you from this image?