Our Tuesday Night Zoom group had a good time rendering these veggies on a white dish towel.
I started this last February in Mexico. I liked the second figure, the umbrellas, and the simple landscape, but I was sitting in the sand below the first figure and forshortened her leg so much that it bothered me. Today, I covered her leg and the shadow with black gesso and then redid her leg, taking several inches off it.
The model sat on the counter, and I painted her directly without drawing her first. She had an awkward sweetness that was visually emphasized by adding flowers alongside her on an imaginary doorstep.
Our Thursday group met at Kate Sessions Park in Mission Beach. The first painter to arrive began painting, and as the rest of us joined the group, many of us put up our easels close to his and painted a similar scene. Usually, we spread out, but this particular view of Mission Bay through the trees seemed unusually special, perhaps because the trees were still bare and the morning light was bouncing around in the breeze as the haze lifted.
I sketched the model at a figure drawing group and later added the background.
The cherry blossoms were fully in bloom at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park this morning. The flowers were so delicate that they were lost against all the spring greenery, so I left the surrounding hillside unpainted to increase the visibility of the blossoms.
Our sketching group had a terrific model, and the lighting emphasized her long limbs. It was a perfect combination for using line and flat color. We were getting started with five-minute poses, and I did a blind contour and filled in the flat tan and beige colors before our time was up. Later, I made adjustments by aligning her features and adding the orange and green. This one ended up being my favorite for the morning because the geometric design and flat color contributed to a feeling of repose.
Deliberate Sketching 