Last Summer, I spent the day at the Palette & Chisel and did quite a few artistic studies of the lovely model, Minita. She posed for the morning long pose session for 4.5 hours, and for this sitting I worked in soft pastels on Hahnemühle Ingres paper. It portrays her in a blue silk shawl draped over her head. Other that the shawl she is nude with her hand in her lap and her eyes are closed in a deep meditation. Her dark Indian skin was very interesting to paint and offered the opportunity to use some interesting hues in the midtowns. I brought in some colors from her shawl into the shadows on her face. With the background, I complemented color the colors in her skintones, and I faded the bottom half into colors that resonate with the shawl.
During the afternoon, I stuck around the Palette & Chisel and attended the short pose drawing session. We started with 30 second and 1 minute poses and then ramped up to 15, 20, and 25 minute poses. There are 3 drawings from the 10 minute plus poses that are shown here. The first drawing was done in vine charcoal and shows Minita in a meditative pose with her legs crosses and her hands in her lap. This drawing has a very spiritual feeling to it as she sits before the viewer in a deep trance.
The second drawing has Minita laying on her stomach and shows her right should and arm with her head resting on her left hand while she peacefully rests her eyes. This one was a 15 minute pose, and I prepared the surface with the dust from my earlier pastel painting and erased the highlights with an eraser. The third drawing was prepared and rendered similarly to the second, and it shows Minita facing the viewer looking down at the ground in humble and solemn way. Her heart and chest is bare, and her fly aways frame her face and cheeks like a halo.
Minita with Her Eyes Closed, 18¾×24¾, Pastel on Paper, June 2011
Innocence, 18×24, Charcoal on Paper, June 2011
Emotion, 18×24, Charcoal on Paper, June 2011
Soul, 18×24, Charcoal on Paper, June 2011