Here are some sketches

Everyone has been asking to see some of my sketches.  Well, maybe not everyone, but I have had a few requests.  The problem is that I am not been self confident enough to show them.

I have lots of empty time, time that I need to get away from the research and allow my brain to rest.  I spend a lot of time sitting in my apartment, so I decided to try pencil drawings.  I have always loved the drawings I would see on the streets of Paris or Rome where people are capturing the feeling of a place.  Photographs usually capture the physical but not the emotional feel of a place. 

I am amazed at the amount of time and concentration it takes to create a drawing. I can spend a couple hours just creating the outline of the scene, buildings, but not any of the details.  Maybe as I do it more often I can speed up the process. After spending all that time, I must still go back and fill in the details, someday.  I am good at starting them, not so good at finishing. I usually pick a scene with too much going on.  I have taken photographs of places without any people to use for practice drawings.

It is hard to let others see, and therefore judge, something coming from my emotional side.  No problem with letting people see my computer code because it comes from the logical side of my brain.  That side is well versed in critical analysis of problems and solutions, even when they are mine.  But the emotional side is still unprotected and has not developed any protection from the harsh words and subjective analysis.  I still feel that all my work is very juvenile and lacks any real talent, but it represents where I am in my progression as an artist.

My ability and technique is all self taught.  I have never really spent time with art, so there is a lot of experimentation with different pencil hardness, how to capture my vision, perspective, shading, foreshortening … everything.  I guess I should have taken an art class when I was in school.  Well, before grad school.

Okay.  Now that I have couched my ability and told you all to be nice, below are some sketches. You should be able to click on them to get bigger images. The building is St Georges, a small church below the massive Fourviere and down the street from the large St Jean's. The image to the right is a practice sketch with attempts to capture the depth and 3D feel of fabric draped on the ground. The hands are my hands, they kept getting in the way.  The girls are all from photographs of life models I found online.