Trying my hand again at sketches with a focus on nudes ; sketching to the tune of jazz.
I called the portrait « Resilience ». It is perhaps one of the traits that I favour most in human beings. Whatever we go through in life, a little bit of music, giving free course to our imagination and the exercise of our hobbies together with this trait allow us to go through many situations that we initially thought insurmountable. So here’s to resilience and to the great all at once soothing and stimulating effect of jazz.
An oil pastel sketch of my daughter when she was little (based on a photograph)
I have not usually favoured the use of pastels as I feel somewhat hindered by the amount of mess they often generate which cannot be somehow « fixed » unlike oils and to an extent acrylic and aquarelle.
My daughter on the other hand was so enamoured with soft pastels that it got me thinking I should perhaps revisit the subject. I had both oil and soft chalk pastels and decided upon the oils to complement the oil painting of flowers in a vase.
Today I am sharing two divergent moods in the sketches. One is of a flamenco dancer having fun and one is a drawing inspired by the cover of the CD of Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
I thought the sombre vis-à-vis light mood was quite interesting to look at and hope you like them.
How do you leave the one you love – Katherine Jenkins
I was listening to this beautiful soul’s songs and had an urge to connect with her in a deeper way so made a sketch of her.
I listened to a number of her songs while I drew and while Autumn leaves was the one I felt she sang with the most fervour, I liked more, for personal reasons, her interpretation of Ain’t no sunshine. The version I had always favoured was Bill Withers but I think she does this as splendidly as he did.
A couple of days ago, I was pondering on my love for tango and decided that I needed to express it somehow as I was not dancing much of late. The result is a series of study sketches based on videos I viewed of tango dances. I am not sure which one to choose to convert into an oil painting or an aquarelle.
Please do suggest and perhaps I will go with the most popular one. Thanks for all your views and comments in advance.
This is my fifth aquarelle which has proven to be very ill-assorted to the alla prima technique as the paper was not behaving in the expected way. Upon testing all possibilities I realised I had painted on the wrong side of the paper. I was, however, too lazy to begin again the aquarelle on the other side so continued as it was.
The result is a very dry looking composition of flower. I hope you will not be too harsh in your judgement.
Meanwhile I also decided to take back sketching as a hobby and have produced this sketch. I find its not so bad considering I am self taught and this is done after several years of not drawing anything. I hope you like it.
Geetha Balvannanathan's Blog - Isis Tratum 
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