Drawing Women of the Bible

I organized another Art+Faith Life Drawing session through my church and this time our model was a lovely friend of mine, tall and with waist-length hair; and instead of Madonna and Child poses we decided she could pose as Mary at the time of the Resurrection or other women of the New Testament. Another artist in our group borrowed some beautifully-made costumes from a Nativity pageant, and along with some props, veils and scarves we put together some wonderful depictions of women of the Bible to bring into our art.

We started with warm-up sketches of about 5 minutes in length. I sketched on charcoal paper with chalk and conté crayon.

I didn’t get too far with this one below but I think I have the basic pose, just have to develop it more. This is prisma pencil on charcoal paper. I think this drawing could be Mary waiting to go with the other two women to the tomb on Easter morning.

The last two are twenty minute poses I drew on toned grey sketch paper, with burnt sienna and white prisma pencils. I added some local color with other pencils and chalks. The top woman with the jar could be the ‘woman at the well’ that Jesus met, and the bottom one, since we dressed her with several accessories, could be a wealthy woman – perhaps Pilate’s wife, contemplating her message to Pilate to “have nothing to do with this righteous man.”

Many years have passed since I drew figures daily in art school; until these drawing sessions I had forgotten how personal and cathartic it is to draw from a model in the moment. It inspires exploration, harkens back to stories long remembered, and turns accidental strokes into almost prophetic discoveries. I’m looking forward to our next Biblical model.

Gilbert & Sullivan Coloring Pages

I’ve added a new illustrated item to my Etsy shop: a digitally downloadable pair of coloring sheets, for those who like to color as a hobby and are fans of G&S. That’s a pretty selective niche, you say? That may be, but I’ve had requests for G&S coloring books before, so I’m starting with these two pages to see if there is viable interest out there for a series. I’m a huge fan of Gilbert & Sullivan, having illustrated a number of posters for the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Society, and hope these provide some quiet entertainment for friends who feel the same.

These two drawings are of main characters of the operetta The Pirates of Penzance – Frederic, the young pirate who is freed from his indenture, and Mabel, the lovely lass with whom he falls in love. To see the coloring sheets and all ordering info, just visit my Etsy shop HERE.

With an Etsy Digital Download, the item you are purchasing is the electronic file you need to print off a drawing from your own home printer. There are no physical papers or drawing that are mailed to you, the purchaser. As soon as you pay the small fee on Etsy for downloading the images, you can print them out and start coloring – but I stress, you do need your own home printer to put the drawings onto paper.

To see the art I’ve created for Bucks G&S you can see my post HERE. There are plenty of other G&S characters to draw, and I hope to hear from customers as to which ones to draw next. Etsy has a message feature, so I invite friends to drop me a line for other coloring sheet ideas.

Fashion Drawing of a Friend

My friend Lynne Anne Donchez, who is a master hair and makeup stylist, also has a terrific sense of fashion. She was dressed up for a special occasion last week and I had to capture her with this fashion drawing.

This is a combination of digital drawing and traditional methods – I drew her in pencil, transferred that to my computer, colorized the large shapes in the computer, printed it out and then drew texture & finishing touches on the print.

Fashion illustration project

I like trying fashion illustration pieces once in a while, and the opportunity came up recently for an event I was invited to, to draw a young woman who is quite photogenic and fashionable. She owns a tiny adorable Yorkie who fit beautifully into a scene of her striding along in one of her favorite gowns.

This was a combination of hand-drawn and digital work. The figure drawing was done with a brush pen, and after I scanned that I inserted some flat color on it thru the computer. I printed that image out and added shading with chalk pastels and details with a finer point pen. I wanted a wash background with an indication of some buildings in Washington DC, so I painted a loose wash on watercolor paper, scanned it, and drew a rough silhouette of the Capitol in black ink and used that as a digital stencil over the wash, to create the building outline behind her.

The