Seated chalk sketch

Last nights life drawing

Tom seated - chalk

Quick Acrylic version painted the following day

Life sketches

Compressed charcoal on newsprint

Vine charcoal on newsprint

Two sketches from last nights life drawing

Two chalk sketch

Two chalks on brown paper

Here is an unfinished chalk sketch from our last life drawing session at The Dunamaise theatre with artist Eamon Colman ( Aosdána)

Sketchbook again

Here is a watercolour figure from my sketchbook. Painted using White Night watercolours on Canson Vidalon paper

Seated life - Watercolour - 9 x 12 inches

Chiaroscuro Male torso (unfinished) - oil study on canvas

This post is a large unfinished (and probably shall remain so) chiaroscuro male torso study of Orpheus for a painting of Orpheus & Eurydice returning from the underworld.

Male study - Oil on canvas 22 x 16 inches

Shortly, I intend to start a large oil painting depicting the story of the loss of Eurydice to the underworld. I am still looking for a suitable location that I can use as inspiration to paint as the entrance to Hades.

Orpheus and Eurydice Source: www.greeka.com

Orpheus and Eurydice Source: www.greeka.com

Male back graphite study

Here is a male back figure study in pencil on cartridge paper.

Male study on paper - A4 size

Ink Sketches

These sketches were done as studies of how different types of crosshatching can be used to produce varying shading tones from a single monotone ink.

Reclining - Ink on cartridge paper - A3 size

Back Study- Ink on Cartridge paper - 16 X 10 inches

Getting things started - Sanguine oil pencil study

I have long been a fan of the brilliant figurative work of the American Realist Artist, Robert Liberace. Liberace takes great care with the preparation of his drawing papers using rabbit skin glue, a watercolour wash and once it has dried, giving the toned sheet a coat of a solution of shellac dissolved in denatured alcohol.

A method of paper preparation can be found here http://www.fallcityfineart.org/workshops/materials/preparingpaper.pdf

I usually prepare batches of half a dozen sheets. I find that the process opens the fibres of modern machine milled papers and makes them more receptive to chalk, oil pigment or graphite. The method also gives the paper an interesting aged look.
This life drawing was completed using a Cretacolor Sanguine oil pencil on toned cartridge paper prepared using the Liberace method.

Classic female pose - oil pencil on toned paper 13 X 9 inches