Esther, the beauty pageant winner

Actually this is just a picture of a young beauty combing her hair. But as it happens the model's name is Esther, named after the winner of the first ever recorded beauty pageant (according to the Old Testament, although it is possible that Helen has priority).

The historical Esther had the good fortune to live a happy and carefree life with the pharaoh in his big house with many servants. As is often the case, her old family unit weighed heavy on her conscience and strained her relationship with her husband. From his point of view it was a classic case of "not-the-inlaws-again". As I said, this has nothing to do with my picture.

Making friends on the bus to Toronto...

...is what Tarragon called the picture, and what he did.

He drew it on an iPad using a stylus.

Saint Nicolas in Compton

The ancient parish church of St. Nicolas, in Compton, Surrey. I drew this on a fine day in May, my back to the old stone wall encircling the church yard.

The oldest parts of the church, the square base of the tower and parts of the walls, have been there for over a thousand years, and are sunk deep past the level of the turf. That pointed steeple is a mere six hundred years old in comparison.

It is really an interesting building, which is gratifying, since there's no guarantee one's local church will contain anything of interest. It has a cell built into the north wall, where an anchorite might have permanently immured him or herself in penitence for sins, or simply to escape this loathsome, fallen world. There's also a leper's niche, through which a leper, for whom mingling with the parish folk was taboo, might take communion from outside the church.

Worth mentioning, too, that it lies close by the Pilgrim's Way to Canterbury, and was regularly visited by people seeking the shrine.

lovely creature

Bamboo at Kew Gardens

This picture reminds me of an Ito Shinsui print of a sexy woman trying to eat a firefly. Her fan doubles as a big moon on the horizon and triples as a light reflector placed conveniently for the photographer who is tired of young idols who just want to eat insects.
Most photographers aspire to something more respectable, jobs for National Geographic and the like. This is why painters are sensitive about photographers.

Andrew

una capanna in Firenze

I once lived in the east end of Florence, almost at the verge of the city. It was a gritty district at the time, although you wouldn't know it by day. You could walk out of the city, and if you took the right route, find yourself in above the valley in Settignano, where Michelangelo imbibed marble dust with his mother's milk.

Or you could walk left out of the city, through the new suburbs and the power lines, and turn up in places where neither Michelangelo, the Medici, or any of the gilded apparatus of the capital of the Renaissance should ever trouble your head.

the nude model

Our model, David, striking a very model-like pose. Naked and muscular men are probably the most traditional things in visual art. Michaelangelo (and to be fair, Signorelli) thought it was a good idea, and here we are 500 years later, still sketching naked men.

It was drawn with a brush pen, various crayons, and some charcoal.

Young Beauty Waits To Be Unzipped

Dave

Hannah

Drawn from life with a Copic brush pen in around one minute.

Colour

The insects all ran off.

Take a break

Slumber On

If Tissot had the convenience of the Eurostar at the turn of the century he probably would be too preoccupied sketching women of uninvolved virtue stepping between sliding doors to notice this barn ensconced in snow, but it would be there. Is this something Tissot should regret? I doubt it. And if one hundred years ago the snow fell for even a day longer per year than it does now, he would be stuck in London anyway.

St Mary's Vacated By All But The Quiet

In London the Cherry trees are all in blossom. Every February it happens and by March everyone is surprised that it isn't warm out and hasn't it been a dreadful winter. But there is a reason that blossom viewing parties generally happen in the snow. Speaking of which, I like blossom viewing parties. Every time I get invited to one, I think how nice to see again all the people I saw at the snow viewing party yesterday.

In this particular picture these is no snow because it was 14 degrees above today. But never mind that, it will be cold again tomorrow.

courtney

Two similar beauties with differing thoughts

Maddy and little Kate are sisters. Maddy is the smaller of the two and she is a morning person. Kate is not, and I doubt that she was consulted when we agreed on a early morning modelling session.

Emily

Many successful drawings are more about what is left out than what is put in. This is a good thing: representation can never be perfect, so the absences are in some senses the most perfect part of the picture.

Which suggests the road towards the flat black square of Malevich, but in fact the thing about negative space is that it's generated by its reciprocal, the positive space of representation. A picture that is nothing but a white square, or a black one, is not a picture of negative space - it's a picture of white, or black. For what's left out to matter, something has to be put in.

Drawn from life at the Arts Project in London, Ontario, in ten minutes.

Your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions.

Is it you?

Flowers in Grey

I didn't think of the drunk woman even once whilst doing this. Drawn from life and for once the vase appears to be included.

Angela

I met Angela in Siena, Italy. She always had the best shoes. A pity they're not really visible in the picture.

Essex Rd, Islington, London.

This is why picture making is such a pleasure. There is nothing in this scene that can't be seen from the flat on Essex Road. The trees were drawn from life looking out the window, and yet it doesn't quite look like this. Perhaps this is not the picture that will remind you of John Atkinson Grimshaw but I like to think he smiled inwardly when he composed his pictures. It was the smile of truth that artists are known for.

8 lines at noon

Twilight

Drawn at the life drawing sessions held at Bijan's in London, Ontario. Our model brought along a hardback to keep herself occupied. Which was awkward, because the head moves more than you think when you read. Also, it was Twilight.

Drawn with a Copic brush pen, in around fifteen minutes.

Behind St Mary's, Upper Street

I was berated by a drunk woman for painting in black in white. She took it as a personal insult against the charms of spring. My opinion on the charms of good society was not sought.
I like it. It makes me think of Frank Auerbach. Every morning he gets up at six in the morning, before the models show up, and draws picture around and about Mornington Crescent. You might think it was another neighbourhood if you didn't know.

Chris

view from a hill

Looking down the slope from the fortified burgh of San Gimignano in Tuscany. This is an old one, from my first trip to Italy. I took the bus instead of cycling on that trip, but views like this one helped convince me to change my approach.

Another view of Lily

A fifteen minute pose, drawn - as usual - with marker and a red crayon.

9 heads of Lily

Each drawn with a china marker, in about thirty seconds. Some more successfully than others.

You again...

Drawn from life on some paper with two rather nice watermarks.

Time for Harry Potter

The cherry with a rolling stone

A little more love

Two thirty second warm-up sketches, done with a china marker.

Perseus Medusam occidet

A drawing from last year's classically themed Keyhole Session in Toronto. It was a diverting evening of life drawing, in which fetish models played Athena, Medusa, and Perseus. Just because.

So here's Perseus putting the sword to Medusa's neck. The drawing was done from life and took about 30 minutes.

We managed to fit in most of the Medusa story, including a rather unterrifying scene of Athena cursing Medusa, a more convincing Medusa transformed, and the Goddess of Wisdom sitting around looking wise. Or faintly regal, anyway.

Pussy Willows

They were a more difficult subject than I thought.
I once saw a woman lean into a bunch of pussy willows not dissimilar to these and breath, with finger gently caressing one of the soft buds, "Oh Pussy, I love you". That was it.
Very Rinpa.

The road oft taken

Talk is cheap

Not your typical Surrey scene

But nonetheless this is one of the trees in my aunt's neighbour's backyard. Painted out of doors as it was a balmy 10 degrees today. Perhaps curious to some, I only had to dip my brush twice, over the period of an hour and a bit, to get the whole thing done.

food for thought

Steve found a giant stuffed heart in the apartment and decided to pose:

Naples

A quick pencil sketch of a piazza in Naples, at once the most grimy and most tantalizing of cities I have visited. I did this standing, in less than 5 minutes - there were places to be!

Amidst the chaos of Italian cities the orchards of television antennae strike a particularly charming note. It will be a sad day for landscape artists when they are all replaced by satellite dishes.

Reinisa

A very quick sketch done with Copic brush markers.

One of my perennials

The paper is thin. You can see the words from a plastic bag through it. The ink cannot go on to heavily, or slowly. I fancy that my plant drawings would make nice prints, lithographs perhaps, but Romney says there are too many plant prints around as it is. He generally knows best, don't ask me how.

in the audience

After John Ward

Back in the day art instruction depended on imitation. Students were set in front of the old masters to learn their techniques by osmosis. And repetition, of course. It was like Dafen village is now.

Doing it on an iPad may defeat the point of the exercise, as they conceived it a hundred years ago. Nor is John Ward (RA) exactly an old master. But whatever composition he put in his painting, Tarragon has here captured it.

kara

Drawn from life at the Arts Project in London, Ontario.

Venice by night

Mikhail Vrubel found Venice boring. It was of interest "only for his palette." That was not my experience. Even at night, when your palette shrinks to greys and only a muddy simulacra of the daylight colours are visible, the city remains beautiful and ominous. It's a place to feel lonely in.

And to paint. Watercolour at night is not easy. I was alone, and wandering the sestiero di San Marco, but I had my paints and I had plenty of time.

How Vrubel, a painter at once romantic and nihilistic, could have rejected Venice, the most romantic and abnegatory of cities, is a mystery. Perhaps they were too much alike. Sometimes you have to be a little bit dull in order to appreciate the magical. Tolkien retired to the most tedious suburb imaginable. Perhaps magicians read only non-fiction.

a model

Our brains do strange things. For as long as I was drawing this man, I thought of him as a Polish cavalry officer, dismounted and lost in the heart of the Białowieża forest. A man with a melancholy spirit and a sword in his hand. In fact, he's a yoga instructor. So it goes.

Katherine disdains her phone.

She questioned the accuracy of the likeness. When Matisse's models expressed doubts that he had being paying any attention at all he told them if they wanted to be appreciated they should go to the Spaniard. This anecdote dates from the mid to late teens which makes it doubly funny.

Willy at rest

A drawing done from life with a brush pen, in about ten minutes. Our model had just returned from a long day of hunting, and was dead tired.