I like Spring Street Studios. After about 25 years they are getting kicked out of their basement digs. I think I first went there in '94 or so. They have had figure drawing classes there seven days a week for as long as they've existed I guess. It's run by Minerva Durham who seems to have been a part of the SoHo/ Lower Eastside area since the squatters. She's East Village history I guess. But the prices in Manhattan are completely out of whack with the vast majority of what people can afford. It seems like quality and location don't matter anymore in Manhattan. The land owners can open up a port-a-potty and charge an arm and a leg for it. They'll call it a "studio" I guess. Seating for one, and an outlet to charge your phone and computer, what more do you need?

I'll have to go back to finding models and hiring them to model at my studio. Convenient on some level, but my place isn't the best to have a drawing thing, and models are really expensive! There are other studios that host figure drawing, but they aren't always at the best time or in the most convenient location.

These aren't my best drawings, but I was trying a different approach this time. Any models that want to model for me contact me through my site with your contact info and price range. I only use models once in a while but I know people who also use models so at least I can try and help you stay busy if that's your goal.

I was trying out some new markers.

First the East coast. Last Rites opening Oct 10th! goes in to November and West coast group show curated by Travis Louie at Merry Karnowsky Gallery. I'm very happy to be showing with such great artists!

"Target Pathogen 371" gouache on paper. for 13th Hour.

"Wild about Harryhausen "
 A tribute to Ray Harryhausen  will be opening at
 Merry Karnowsky Gallery 170 S. La Brea Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90036  323.933.4408
November 14th the same night as Travis' solo show 

featuring artists:
Chris Seaman ,  John Cebollero,   Stephen Hickman
Brandt Peters,   Kathie Olivas,  Robert McKenzie,
Vincent Di Nguyen,   Carlos Huante,   Fred Harper,
Rick Baker,  Chet Zar , Steven Daily,
Dorian Vallejo, Vince Natale,  Stanley Martucci/Cheryl Griesbach
Stephen Price , Mark Elliott , Tristan Elwell
Steve Ellis,  Lola ,  Bob Dob
Miles Teves,  Mark Garro , Paul Komoda

More figure drawing at Spring Street. My friend Colleen was modeling at Muchmores coffee house again but I just didn't have time to get to Brooklyn again. Colleen is a really cool person that models.

I don't know the name of the model I was drawing at Spring Street, but I had drawn her before and she is really good. The rhythms of her figure are just really fun to discover and draw.

The model for this session had great poses for the one and two minute gesture drawing at Spring Street. I think he was sort of new at it and this is one of the more fun things about drawing from life to me. He was trying really hard to make interesting poses that were very gestural and expressive. I always appreciate when the model tries so hard and then I feel as if now I have this responsibility to depict these difficult poses as accurate as possible!

Of course when it got to the larger poses that is when it got interesting. He could hold the pose all the way through on some of them. Everyone that was drawing seemed to understand and no one looked perplexed by his short poses sometimes.

What I like to do in these cases is try to predict how far a model's arm will droop from the original start, or at what point they give up on the pose. I've seen enough to know when they will have a problem. I don't do it to bust their balls or complain, it's just a mental exercise I have going through my head to see how well I understand the figure and how it behaves.

20 minute