Mother and Child Drawings

Last night at Studio b we had a special treat.  First, I must tell again about a few months ago when we had the rare pleasure of drawing from a pregnant model.  Last night Edna, the very same model, brought her new baby daughter, not even 3 months old yet, to model with her.  It was amazing drawing the baby before and after birth.  And she made such a good model!  She was already experienced.

The other amazing aspect was how much each student captured the mood and atmosphere.  With all the different styles the artists interpreted the scene, there remained a constant: the bond between mother and child.  In each drawing I saw as I looked around the room, everyone had captured that bond.  Here are my drawings:

Prints of these, as well as any of my art, are available.  Please contact me if you are interested!

Saying Goodbye to Art

When you make a piece of art, it's a piece of you.  It's a sum of your experiences, your practices, your training, your creativity, your thoughts and emotions.  And then some.  So it's always a little difficult to sell a piece.  Don't get me wrong, selling art is what helps me have the ability to make even more art.  I need to sell art, but it isn't like selling anything else.  And sometimes it's more difficult than others.  I am happy to say that I have sold two of my original "Ecocide" drawings.

"Ecocide II" *SOLD

"Ecocide II" (detail 1)

"Ecocide II" (detail 2)

"Ecocide I" *SOLD

"Ecocide I" (detail)

"Ecocide I" is one of those pieces that is especially hard to let go of.  It was the first of my Ecocide series, which I am still working on.  This is the first series of art in which I am tackling larger, global issues.  On the other hand, I am so glad to find a buyer, a new owner and a new home for the art.  Making a sale isn't only a much needed financial contribution to life as a self-employed artist, it's an emotional contribution as well.  It's warming to know that someone likes the art so much that they are willing to pay to have it hang in their home.  And also, let's face it, if I never sold art, I would have to get a "normal" job that I would probably hate and I would hardly have any time to make art.  Yuck.  It's still a struggle, though.  You never know when art will sell.  I'm barely scraping by, but that's enough to keep me happy and keep me working as an artist.

Long story - short, help support my happy art-making lifestyle by purchasing my art!  I have some for sale on etsy.  Check out more at www.heatherclementsart.com.

The working artist thing has been slow the past couple of weeks because of a sprained wrist. :o(  BUT I think it's just about ready to get back to art-making!  I hope!


Oh, and here is a papier mache bird I made in preparation for kids art classes!

Silkscreen Shirts And The End Of A Sketchbook

Just when I thought I was about to have a handle on screen-printing on paper, we had to print on shirts.  Perhaps my design was too ambitious.  It required printing over or close to seems, fine registration, and a large print area.  I printed on many shirts and not a single one came out very well.  It was a four run print (4 colors) so even if one or two colors printed well on a shirt, there was never a shirt where all four printed well.  Oh well, it was fun and now I have a ton of octopus shirts!

These were two of the better ones.  Clearly, still quite flawed.  Next in the class we will be working in the photo emulsion process and I am determined to get better at this silk-screening stuff.  I am going to give it my all to get this medium down.  If by the end of the semester I still can't screen print, ooooh well.  If I finally become good at it, then I'll set up a printmaking station for myself at home to make many more!

Last night I finished another sketchbook.  This one was dedicated just to figure drawing.  I've started to keep two sketchbooks, one for figure drawing, and one for everything else.  The 'everything else' sketchbook hasn't seen much action lately, but at least I'm keeping my eyes and hand keen by drawing every week at figure drawing.  Here's the final spread:

Exaggerated Angles

For last night's Figure Drawing Class at Studio B I set up the room so that the students would be much lower than the model.  The model was on a high table and the students were so close that they were forced to deal with foreshortening even with a standing model.  Of course, there is almost always some foreshortening even if it is just one arm or elbow coming towards you.  But this exercise created a dramatic vantage point and unique challenges.  Here are my sketches: (click any image to enlarge)

1 and 2 minutes

4 and 6 minutes

6 minutes

8 minutes

25 minutes

Almost every time I teach figure drawing, I go back and forth between teaching, giving individual critiques, and drawing.  I feel it is important for me to draw during classes for several reasons.  One reason is that it keeps me well-practiced and therefore better fit to teach.  If my drawing is rusty that means my vision is rusty, and therefore my critiques of students' drawings would be lacking.  Sometimes I'll be drawing and considering something specific and then realize I should share that with the class so that they may consider it as well.  It also allows me to show specific examples of what I am actually teaching.  In addition to all of that, the students learn largely from practice, so it's important for me to shut up and let them draw.  I think it makes them more comfortable for me to be drawing as well, lost in the moment, rather than standing in the corner watching them.  And of course the final reason why I draw during my classes - I love drawing the figure!  I feel that passion is a little contagious.  Catch some.