The Gallery

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And you said you didn't have any talent. Well done, yov. Just one question. Is that hair in the background? Maybe a large, very fluffy pony-tail? Your neice is really a hippy, isn't she?

Nice to see you, sam.

[Athrabeth]

Yov........

I can almost feel those soft, pudgy cheeks and I just love the little role of baby fat between neck and shoulder. It really does bring back memories of what my own round and velvety little babes looked like before they started to stretch.

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

And I most definitely second what samwarg said: you have got to keep drawing!

[yovargas]

Thank you, sam. That means a lot coming from you. Honestly I was a tiny bit embarassed to try and follow your drawings with mine. But in the end I think it holds its own. (Though yours are better.)

And you said you didn't have any talent.

I don't think I said I have no talent! Just not much natural talent, ie. this doesn't come naturally to me at all but with hard work and care I guess I can get there.

And yes, my niece is a hippy in training.


Also, no need to push me to keep drawing. By the time I saw the picture was actually going to work, it was frustrating to do anything but drawing. Seeing the final result, I'm hooked!

[Primula Baggins]

The final result is beautiful. You should be proud of yourself.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't think I said I have no talent! Just not much natural talent, ie. this doesn't come naturally to me at all but with hard work and care I guess I can get there.

Well, gee, that sounds a bit familiar, now doesn't it?

[samwarg]

I'm anxious to see your next drawing, yov. Please give me some company and put some drawings in the gallery.

[yovargas]

(Is samwarg still around?)

I finished a new drawing. I'm providing a link since it is a nude (male, from rear):

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/yo ... eeping.jpg
edit - i think that one broke. Try this one.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/yo ... eeping.jpg

(There was a tiny bit cheating as the body outline was mostly traced.)

Hope you like it. I'm pretty happy with it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well done, yov! And while I personally feel that there should be no reason why an artistic nude should be posted here, I appreciate your sensitivity in posting a link instead, since some people might not be as comfortable with it.

I haven't seen sam around much recently, but hopefully he'll back and give his opinion.

[samwarg]

Your drawing is excellent, Yov. Your shading is outstanding and the texture of the couch is great. Don't worry about "cheating a little" because some of the old masters did it too. It is thought that they used mirrors to project an image onto the canvas so they could trace it. I used to have no choice but to draw without any aids at all. I'd have to stand back and look at it and adjust a line here or there. It took a lot longer and was more labor intensive to do it that way, especially if you were doing a portrait. I admit that I now use certain "tools" or tricks to speed things up and reduce the amount of erasing I have to do, but even then I sometimes have drawings that don't turn out well. You just keep drawing, Yov, because you're really good at it.

Hey folks, I haven't gone anywhere. Y'all can talk to me any time. Sam

[yovargas]

I personally feel that there should be no reason why an artistic nude should be posted here

Not even if they're really nice??



Thanks, you two. It's particularly nice to hear thoughts from a fellow artist.
And I'd never heard that about the mirrors! That actually does make me feel a bit better.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I hate it when I leave out a "not" and say exactly the opposite of what I mean to say. It happens an embarrassingly often number of times.

[yovargas]

Just finished this odd, surreal little piece:

[Erunáme]

Playing around with lights:

[samwarg]

That's pretty cool eruname, how'd you do that?

[Primula Baggins]

Eru, those are gorgeous. I love the color and the sense of motion.

They'd be really striking framed as a set.

[Erunáme]

That's pretty cool eruname, how'd you do that?

Thanks sam. I used a longer exposure than what you'd normally shoot with. I used 2 seconds as the exposure time because anything longer than that was too bright. The first one I had the lights unfocused then zoomed out whilst the shutter was open. The second one I focused the lights then shook the camera around. The third one I made the lights extremely unfocused and moved the camera around a bit more slowly and in the fourth one I kept the lights unfocused and rotated my camera counter clockwise.

I was just playing around and seeing what what type of focus and camera movements would produce.

Thanks Prim! It's tempting to get a few printed out and I agree that they would look best as a set.

[yovargas]

(Ooh, I missed those pics before, Eru. Very pretty! I especially like the first one. )

At long last, I've finished this male nude that I've been working on for what feels like an eternity (since last August, off and on, to be exact). This is by far the hardest art piece I've done yet and while it ain't perfect, I hope you'll agree it came out pretty darn good. So here it is (yes, full nudity here so don't go opening it in places you wouldn't want to be seen looking at genitals!)

male nude, sitting


(Though more direct than artful nudes tend to be, I hope the picture nonetheless managed to remain on the "tasteful" side of the nude art spectrum. )

(Oh, and that line at the bottom is cuz my scanner couldn't fit the whole pic so I had to scan it in two pieces and paste it together.)

[cemthinae]

My Chair-itable Project:

Several years ago I participated in an art project fund raiser for our local shelter. They had area artists take chair & design them with their own personal touch. The chairs were then put up for silent auction at the annual art festival.

Even though I wasn't an "established" artist, since I was an employee of the shelter at the time, I was able to talk my way into getting a chair to design. For that year I wood burned tigers on the chair & I'm pleased to say it ended up being a top seller. (Take that, for not being an established artist!) Pictures of that chair: Link, Link, Link.


Last year we happened upon the auction while strolling through the art fair & I told the head of the fund raiser I'd love to participate again. Several months ago she dropped a chair off at our house... and several days ago ( ) I got to work on it.

Here's a time line of the work in progress:



















I work best under pressure so I preferred the procrastination bit. (I'm dropping it off at the art fair tomorrow. The auction starts Saturday!) The finished chair is pyrography (wood burning) with pastel & colored pencil.

[samwarg]

I just saw your male nude drawing, Yov--it's fantastic! You really did an outstanding job on it. The hair, the shadows---all very well defined. I'm sure you know it'll make some people turn away, though. I did almost nothing but nude females during my oil painting years, (1980-1990) because I enjoyed them so much. By far, the best examples of my painting are nudes. Problem is, many of those paintings now sit in boxes and closets, unseen. I don't live in an open-minded place like California or New York--I live in a southern Bible-belt state where nudes aren't accepted very well. I have no problem with nudes, male or female, but a lot of folks do. I guess what I'm getting at is that I wish now that I had devoted more time to non-nudes. I could have an art show if I had. Sam

[yovargas]

Thanks, Sam! I really appreciate it.
I never intended to do nudes. In fact, I'm surprised that I got the impulse to do the two that I've done. It's fun but it isn't usually the sort of thing I'm drawn to in art. But the way I've worked has been very impulsive in a way- an image gets in my head and I gotta get it out - and those two nudes were just images that had to get out. That said, I doubt I'll be doing nudes of any sort again for a long while. I already know the next few things I wanna draw and these won't offend even the prudest prudes.