A new year of life drawing

Had a day of life drawing on Saturday and our Tuesday evening sessions started up again this week so drawing for 2018 is off to a good start. A friend has decided to set me a weekly drawing challenge too so news of that coming soon.

Tuesday life drawing

Influences part 1 - Paula Rego

Paul Rego ~ Three Blind MiceCopyright Victoria and Albert Museum

  

Lately, I've been thinking about artists who influence my work. This is a tricky one. I found I could name many artists I like but had to think hard about whether they influence me in making my images. Do I like them because I see similarities between their work and mine, or are those similarities there because I have been influenced on a subconscious level? Probably a bit of both. 

Anyway, to get some clarity on this issue, I think I shall throw in more posts about artists I appreciate - because they probably do influence the way I work to some extent, even if I don't realise it. 

Top of the list has to be Paula Rego, painter and etcher extraordinaire. I'm not going to give you a bio because you can look that up for yourself if you're interested, but here are some images I like (hard to pick just a few!). Figurative, narrative, a darkness... these are things that immediately grab me. She's a story teller.

Paula Rego ~ Celestina's House

Paula Rego ~ The Flood

Paula Rego ~ 'Crivelli’s Garden (The Visitation)', 1990

Spoils...

Not finished yet but here are the fruits of my labours at the workshop on Friday. The first four states of the villain from The Red Scar series of etchings. Not sure quite where I’m going with this one.

I’ve all but abandoned the cockle commission for the moment, partly due to a broken fine spitsticker (less than two months old and NO, suppliers, I had not been misusing it) and partly to my defection back to etching. The cockle is very different from my usual style of work; I tend to go for figurative images and dark narratives. It will get done though.