Figure Drawing

I went to the Open Model Session at the Art Alliance for the first time last night. My main goal was to have fun and work on remembering that there can be beauty in the imperfections of a piece. I felt that my goal was accomplished! There is definitely not any perfection in the proportion in any of these and I had such a great time!

(Each of these images had a progressively longer drawing time. The last one is my favorite. Sorry about the photos... I was to impatient to wait for my camera battery to charge. These are from my phone.)

Most Recent...

Newest Drawings

Daddy's Girl

11"x14"

Pencil on Bristol

A Mother's Day Gift...

Little Cutie...

 Here is my most recent drawing and the original photograph that was used to create it.

Had to hold off on sharing this one, because it was given as a 20th Anniversary gift over the weekend. This drawing actually came from 2 separate photographs... the two people on either end were added into the group. It was a lot of work AND a lot of fun too! :) Hope everyone had a great Easter!!

My most recently finished drawing started its journey to its new home last night. Shhh... it is a secret though. I will share a photo of it in a couple of weeks.


This painting went to its new home today too! :)

Recently Finished

My most recently finished portrait job! Getting ready to start another and I would love to add some jobs to my waiting list!!

Latest Progress

Yay!  I was able to make a good bit of time to paint today!  I am pleased with how this piece is progressing... maybe it is just because I have an image in my head of what it should look like when it is finished.  I am not sure if others are able to see where it is headed or if it just looks like a mess to everyone else at this point.

Thought I would throw in this picture of another small abstract piece that I have started. It is also nowhere near finished, but has some of the main elements to it that should be there in the end. It should have richer, more substantial color when it is finished!!

A Work in Progress...

I decided to go ahead and use a grid for a pencil sketch right on the canvas (just like when I used to do portraits with my middle school students).... that way I could be pretty sure of getting somewhat correct proportion.  As I have been doing the sketch I keep thinking that I would love to also do this same picture as a charcoal drawing or just in pencil, but I have it started on canvas and I am excited to start putting paint on it so that I can work toward the image that I have of it in my head.  I could go ahead and also do the same piece in pencil or charcoal when I am done, but I am sure I will be ready to move on to something different at that point. If you know me very well, I am sure you already realize that if I am painting this I will not be going for complete realism... that is just not the type of painter I am!  Please remember this is the under sketch for a painting and not meant to be a perfect representation of the photograph I am working from :)

Introduction

I used to be an art teacher, but now I stay at home to my kids... did I mention that I have 4?! Or that the oldest is 5 and the youngest is 8 months?!  Knowing that may make what I am about to write seem crazy, but... since my youngest is getting to the old age of 8 months and because I know she is my last (well, that is the plan) I have decided to make an attempt at becoming more serious about my artwork again. So as a part of my attempts to get my artwork out into the world I decided to start this blog.  I would start an actual webpage, but I don't have the time or energy to put into figuring that out right now and since I have had some experience with blogger this just seems easiest.  Because I do have 4 young children I don't know how often I will be updating, but I am thinking I will at least be posting some images of my work as I am working on them. To see more of my completed work or for further information please visit Drawings and Paintings by Liza Johnson on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DrawingsandPaintingsbyLizaJohnson.