Napping

Eleanor enjoying Thanksgiving Day...from my sketchbook

is one of the most pleasurable of winter pastimes.  We are, after all, animals who respond to temperature and activity changes.  Sketching nappers is just as pleasurable for me.  The unmoving model (for the most part).  The way the weight of the figure melds into the cushion, the blanket, the pillow.  Some of my best sketches have been nappers.  Quiet.  Quiet.  A treat for both the napper and the observer.

The Beauty of Simple Shapes...

Eleanor...a sketch

I'm afraid that I am a newbie when it comes to appreciating the beauty of simple shapes.  Other concerns...many other concerns...have been much more apparent in my artistic studies.  Simple shapes are often masked in the background....more subtle...as we work our forms into visual presence.  It is true, however, that a painting is more successful from the get-go if the 4-5 simple shapes in the composition are also beautiful and stimulating in their interlocking jigsaw-puzzle-like nature.  In fact, in class we have been analyzing these shapes using tracing paper on top of famous paintings, as well as on our own.  I am beginning to appreciate these shapes from the beginning of a sketch rather than as an afterthought.

"Eleanor" is a sketch of my mother-in-law done on the deck of our vacation rental at the end of the day when light was waning.   I don't need any other detail to tell me that it is indeed her.  It is her shape, her posture, her figure.