The Blue Collection: Part 1

Blue Collection #1: Finding her way home

Scroll through images to see details & image of frame

$900

Graphite and white charcoal on toned paper
Framed
Drawing size: 16″ x 20″
Framed size: 25″ x 21″

—

This first drawing is from my solo show in 2019 and so has been beautifully framed with museum-grade plexiglass (light for shipping, hard to break!) and a classic black frame.

Titling figure drawings feels like such a delicate balance for me – I want to capture the poetry of the person without either overly dictating the meaning or revealing too much of that person’s private hopes, dreams and fears. 

I typically get to know my models quite well and we often have intense conversations about deeply personal topics. This informs the art and adds richness and depth, but also makes it hard to title – I have been trusted with vulnerable parts of this person and I don’t want to turn around and exploit that for a cool title. 

“Finding her way home” I think conveys just enough of a theme, while also leaving space for the viewer’s interpretation.

Read the entire letter here

Blue Collection #2: Fragment I

Scroll through images to see details 

$325

Graphite and white charcoal on toned paper
Unframed
Drawing size: 7.75″ x 9.75″

—

I love studies and sketches. They capture something different than more polished drawings. There’s a movement to them, like a fresh breeze or three quarters of an idea, dancing in the wind.

Their charm is in their brevity, and in how much of the process is still visible. The charcoal marks are rough, hinting at ideas and forms but rarely fully resolving them. The drawing emerges from the paper before dissolving back into the ether.

Read the entire letter about this piece here

Blue Collection #3: Fragment 2

Scroll through images to see details 

$325

Graphite and white charcoal on toned paper
Unframed
Drawing size: 8″ x 10″

—

I made this piece intentionally to resemble a Greek statue fragment. The pose has a slight twist, what we art nerds call “contrapposto”. It’s Italian for “counterpoise” and means that more of the weight is resting on one foot, creating one angle through the hips that tips the opposite direction from the shoulders.

Fading out at the legs and shoulders, I wanted to focus on the way the light rakes across her body, bouncing light from her sacrum into her upper back, creating a subtle play of reflected light across her musculature.

Read the entire letter about this piece here

Blue Collection #4: Gustavo I

Scroll through images to see details 

$325

Graphite and white charcoal on toned paper
Unframed
Drawing size: 12.5″ x 15.75″

—

This is one of my favourite portraits I’ve ever drawn.

Gustavo is a legend and an institution in the life drawing scene in my city and is instantly recognisable to many artists here. To say he’s been drawn thousands of times over the years is likely an understatement.

So I took it as an incredible compliment when he told me that this was one of the best portraits of himself that he’d ever seen.

Maybe he was just being nice, but my ego and I like to think that he was sincere.

I love this portrait because I love a good profile. There’s a nobility to the pose here, like an emperor on a Roman coin.

There’s also a deep satisfaction in finessing the edge of someone’s profile – to stop it from feeling flat, the lines need to be handled with nuance and delicacy. You want to convey the sense that his face carries on out of your sightline, and he isn’t just half a head.

Read the entire letter about this piece here

Blue Collection #5: Gustavo II

Scroll through images to see details 

$325

Graphite and white charcoal on toned paper
Unframed
Drawing size: 11.5″ x 11.5″

—

This is the companion portrait to the previous drawing. Why two portraits of the same person, you ask?

Not all life drawing groups are the same – they cater to different tastes and styles of art. Some groups like costumes.

Confession: I hate costumes.

If I have a choice between studying the texture of someone’s skin, the exact line of their shoulder, the delicacy of the connection between their jaw and their neck and their ear…

…or clothing, I am probably going to choose the human body 95% of the time.

But this was a really, really long pose and I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

And so, we have two portraits of Gustavo, with as little cheap pleather included as possible. 😉

Read the entire letter about this piece here

Blue Collection #6: Lotus

Scroll through images to see details 

$325

—

Models have personalities that run the entire spectrum. Yes, there’s a fair amount of being quiet and staying still involved but do not let that fool you into thinking that models are a quiet, tame bunch.

However, this was the first and only time I’ve witnessed a model talk non-stop while modeling, bless him. Despite a pose that might suggest stillness and calm, he gave a whole new meaning to the phrase “live wire”. He practically vibrated with energy. He reminded me of a very lively parakeet, constantly chatting away while looking brightly around the room.

Frankly, I feared for the poor man’s life. Artists are typically a laid back sort, not prone to violence. But if we are trying to make art and you keep interrupting…

I have an extremely fine-tuned sense of the absurd so I spent the entire session trying not to giggle helplessly while he enthusiastically monologued about everything and I watched at least half the artists in the room murder him with their eyes.

And somehow, in between trying not to choke on laughter, I made this drawing.

Read the entire letter about this piece here

Blue Collection #7: Benediction

Scroll through images to see details 

$500

Graphite and white charcoal on toned paper
Unframed
Drawing size: 14.5″ x 17″

—

This is probably the wrong thing to tell you about this drawing, but when I finished it, I hated it. As in, stick-it-in-the-bottom-drawer-and-don’t-look-at-it-for-at-least-3-years hated it.

Do I remember why I hated it? Not really.

I suspect it had to do with the portrait – as lovely as this drawing is, it is not an accurate portrait of the model herself. This model has very subtle and unique features. I’ve drawn her many, many times and have rarely truly captured her in a portrait.

But it took me a while to see what was beautiful about this drawing – her peaceful, almost tender expression, the slightly Madonna-like feeling of the pose and head tilt.

Not all drawings come out as portraits of the model, even if that is something personally important to me. But sometimes other visions and meanings come through, and those are no less valuable.

Read the entire letter about this piece here

Blue Collection #8: The Acrobat

Scroll through images to see details 

$325

Graphite and white charcoal on toned paper
Unframed
Drawing size: 12.5″ x 17.75″

—

This model was an instantaneous muse. The second I saw her, I was immediately struck by how beautiful her bone and muscular structure were (her hobby is acrobatics and it showed!). A hundred paintings and drawings flitted through my head. I have since made multiple pieces of her, some of them infamous, but this was the very first one.

When I moved home from studying in France in 2013,  I struggled to find life drawing groups and a community of like minded artists. A couple months after moving to Ottawa, I finally found a group of artists who shared some of my creative preferences.

It took me a while to get back into the groove of drawing from life regularly again and I wasn’t always happy with my drawings. I felt rusty and awkward. I had to learn to draw a lot faster than I was used to – at school, I might have had 15-30 hours to work on a full figure drawing. Suddenly, I only had 3-4. Womp womp. It was a learning curve.

This drawing felt like a turning point. I was incredibly proud of this drawing when I finished it. I finally felt like I was figuring out how to take all of the things I’d learned at school and start applying them in the real world.

It has remained one of my favorite drawings for that reason since.

Read the entire letter about this piece here

Blue Collection #9:
warrior/the inside doesn’t always match the outside

Scroll through images to see details 

$900 $750 due to minor frame damage

Graphite and white charcoal on toned paper
Framed (minor damage to frame, images in the slideshow)
Drawing size: 12″ x 18″
Framed size: 19.25″ x 26.5″

—

When I first made this drawing, I wrote the following about it in a long ago newsletter to this list:

She sat on my model stand with pride, her chin raised, a slight smile on her lips. She had a zest for life, a curiosity and playfulness. She was proud and noble, shoulders back, reclined against a footstool.

She wore a piece of Icelandic rock around her neck in a small jar, a reminder of her lineage, and had a Viking tattoo of Odin on his 8-legged horse on her shoulder. She was fierce, in her own way, and fiercely proud. A pint-sized spitfire, with the Norse gods on her side.

I didn’t erase her wrinkles, or where the skin sagged a little; places where her age showed through. To erase those signs is to erase something essential about her. It is to deny her the battles and wars she fought and won.

The model in this drawing has since come out as trans, changed their name and I believe uses he/him pronouns. I bring this up because I don’t feel right continuing to treat this drawing simply as a drawing of a woman, despite how it was originally conceived.

When you’re making art of real people, who evolve and reveal previously private aspects of themselves, I think that our understanding of the art should grow and evolve with that. I think that art can gain layers of meaning and that this piece is richer and deeper because of it.

Read the entire letter about this piece here