Get Your Friends To Sit For You

And I don’t mean babysitting!

“Connie Seated” – charcoal on Strathmore paper. ©Katie Kath 2022. Do not use without permission.

Many people erroneously think they would make terrible models.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” they say, and list off a myriad of excuses, “I’m not attractive enough. I’m too tall/short/old/petite, I don’t like my face/arms/flab/wrinkles/scars”…you name it.

But I’m convinced something magical happens when a person is drawn.

One of my college professors once told me about a figure drawing session in which the model, after taking a look at all of the artist’s studies of her, said, “Wow, is that me? I didn’t know I looked that good!” To which, everyone responded emphatically, “UM, YES! You do look that good!”

And guess what? The model was a regular person. not a swimsuit model, not a runway model, not a Maybelline model, not super young, not super fit, just….an average person with an average life.

We artists see the beautiful in the average. So go ahead, artists: talk your friends into sitting for you in a drawing session. They may be pleasantly surprised.

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A Monday Monotype With Food For Thought

“Yia-Yia’s Cat” – Dark field monotype print. © Katie Kath. Do not reproduce without permission.

I know I do a lot of pieces in black-and-white.

Sometimes I even say to myself, “Seriously? Another black-and-white drawing?”

“Yes. Got a problem?”

There is something I really love about black-and-white. No matter how many color pieces I do, black-and-white is like that one boyfriend who you just keep going back to, not because he’s a sleazy hunk and a cheap date, but rather because he’s a romantic. He’s the boy next door who maybe everyone else failed to notice but you–and every time you come back, golly he just gets cuter.

In fact, a former professor was once singing the praises about the virtues of black-and-white art-making, saying that, “It’s really all you need. All of the visual information you ever need is there.”

I remembered this phrase, interestingly, on the heels of browsing one of my favorite textbooks by Martin Salisbury, where he states (and I paraphrase): “The important thing (about drawing) is whether or not the approach serves the drawing’s purpose.”

So. Let a drawing serve it’s purpose. i.e.: Show only what needs to be shown. Get rid of the weeds. Don’t overly complicate a piece if it shouldn’t be complicated, WHICH INCLUDES not adding color if it isn’t necessary.

I love black-and-white. So there!

Neocolor Nite

“Bather – neocolor crayons and charcoal

I love using Neocolor crayons because 1. I have an absolutely MASSIVE amount of them, thanks to a gift from a dear friend, and, 2. because they are considerably less messy than soft pastels.

I don’t really mind a messy art evening, but after a long day the prospect of cleaning up large amounts of paint-dust and little finger-printy bits that have been accidentally stamped everywhere by yours truly isn’t a very enticing one. Maybe one of these evenings I’ll be feeling some soft pastel love, but not tonight, I’m afraid.

Although this one did turn out much tighter than I’d really have liked, what I wanted to focus on most was playing around with color. So: I had my fun, mission accomplished. Consider this blog entry posted.

Friday Nite is Selfie Nite

Some days are just devoid of inspiration. You want nothing more in the evening than to just hit the sack. And there’s merit in this–I am in full support of sack-hitting: sleep is the Great Restorer.

But sometimes, like exercise, it’s when you don’t want to do a thing that you should do that very thing. Starting a visual journal blog is fun. Keeping it up regularly is a different story. It’s when you are about a week into a new workout that it begins to hurt and you can either give up because of it or push through in spite of it, and end up being glad you did in the end.

Needless to say, tonight was one of those nights, but I wanted to draw something. I said in a previous post that self portraits are generally my go-to when all else fails, so for lack of something better and more creative and certainly more exciting than my face, I stuck with the fall-back plan.

Hey, at least my face is always there and always free. You gotta pay a model.