Long Pose, Day 1 - "Danae"

"Danae"

pencil on panel

12 x 16 inches

Today was the first of a 5-day pose I have arranged in my studio this week. We have 5 artists participating (including me) and we work each day from 10am-5pm. For artists this is the ultimate working-stay-cation! Today we spent the first hour or so setting up a pose we all liked from many angles (no small feat!), and then chose our spots by lottery (I drew a #5, dead last, but I like my spot). The we all mounted our paper and got to work.

I'm attempting to do a very fast (fast for me!) painting of the our model Danae this week, so today I blocked in this line drawing on mylar paper and then during a model break I transferred the drawing to my 16x20 hand-primed panel. I spent the last part of the day refining the pencil drawing directly on the panel. Then I erased the extra graphite, brushed down the surface with a wide, flat brush to get rid of eraser crumbs, and coated it with thinned Damar varnish (thinned with about 1/5th mineral spirits) to preserve the drawing and seal the porous surface.

Tomorrow I start painting - record speed for me!

ALSO:

Live Webcast Studio Tour and Demo

Saturday August 21

9am -11am Pacific Standard Time

12noon- 2pm Eastern Standard Time
$10 - Click here to sign up

I'll be giving a video tour of my studio, a behind-the-scenes look at my latest Wax Paper painting "The Wave", and also doing a drawing demo. You can even submit your own questions, in advance or in real time.

Hope to see you there!

Comments

[Alia El-Bermani]

Sadie, I'm so happy to see you doing more and more figurative pieces! This is sure to be a beauty. I only wish I lived much closer so I could join you.

[Art By Erika]

I RSVP'd I'd be there but weekends get busy. I hope it's ok to send pay at last minute when I'm sure coast is clear lol Thanks for describing your process. The drawing is very clean so I thought you traced a photon on there. And would that necessarily be a bad thing? Hope I can join the fun (I'll try very hard!)

[Natalie Italiano]

Hi Sadie,
Do you always seal panels with Damar varnish so that they are not too porous, or do you only do this if you need to preserve a drawing underneath?

[Sadie J. Valeri]

Nathalie I always do a drawing, but I would also seal the surface if there was not a drawing, because the chalk-primed gesso makes a fairly "thirsty" surface. Some people use an oil primed panel because of this, I think it is less thirsty, but I do not do that.

Erika thanks, hope you were able to join the webcast! If not, you can still download the recording. I don't work from photos, much less trace them. Painting for me is about the process, not the end result, so shortcuts are not very tempting. Plus a drawing that is simply a traced photo always looks a bit mechanical.