Old Sketchbook Portrait Drawings

When I was looking for the cityscape sketches in my old sketchbooks prior to painting "Fractured City", I came across loads of sketches of people (family & friends) where I had used a variety of media. Here is a sample:

This is a pencil drawing of one of my sisters from a 1981 sketchbook. Her bed was next to mine, so I have loads of "Sleeping Dee Dee" drawings.

This is another sketch of my sister Dee Dee, this time awake. It is done in bue pencil crayon, perhaps I wanted to be atmospheric - but it is the only time I have ever used blue pencil crayon to sketch! The sketch is dated Aug 6 1981.

This pen sketch of my brother-in-law, Paddy, is dated May 16 1981, and was drawn while in the back seat of the car on the way to Pearson Int'l Airport in Toronto. One of my older sisters, Geni, her husband and baby daughter, Jesse, were returning to Ireland to live (at least Paddy & Geni were!).

Using a regular pen I wanted to show the form of the cat, Yoko, in my friend Sandy's arms. The sketch is dated July 21 1981.

 

This is a watercolour sketch of my friend Jay, June 27 1983.

This sketch of my (now) husband James was done in our first home in Ireland, Darby's Bridge, Co. Kerry in April 1994. Since I abhor "brown" I doubt I was using pencil crayon, more likely conté.

A pencil sketch of my husband from August 2001, reading in bed, at our first home in Bray, Co. Wicklow.

Archive artworks - surprise find!

I was looking for something in the attic studio yesterday, when I decided to look in a large flat box. I found what I was looking for, but also found a number of early artworks that I didn't think survived my two Great Purges of the 1980s! The image below is a drawing I did of my sister, Tallie, with her new guitar and another sister's boyfriend, Ernie, with his guitar. I remember drawing this: it was xmas of 1972 or 1973 and I was using new art supplies (charcoal & large sketch pad) which was a present from one or both of my oldest sisters. I remember at the time being amazed at capturing a good likeness of Ernie. That is still the way I remember him!

When I was in grade 11 (1976/77) I did my first silk screen print in art class. We used the simplest of processes, cardboard stencils, for printing  and only had 4 colours available. I used a picture of my toddler nephew, David, in his xmas sailor suit to create my image.

Still a high school drawing, I know this portrait of my younger sister, Dee Dee (awake!) was from grade 12 (1977/78) because it has the initials of my art teacher from that year and a check mark in the bottom right corner of the pencil drawing.

London - Sir Frederic Leighton at the V & A

I was in London last week, and among loads of things that impressed me, I saw some work by Sir Frederic Leighton at the Victoria & Albert Museum. I've always had a soft spot for the pre-Raphaelite painters of the 19th century (my interest in illustration and romantic bent rearing their heads!) so was pleasantly surprised to see an exquisite tiny flower drawing of Leighton's in an exhibition of British drawing. Even more exciting though, I stumbled across rooms 102-107, a large corridor, where mock-ups, a full size "cartoon", and Leighton frescoes were exhibited. The corridor was somewhat dim, I presume to protect the work.

This is "The Industrial Arts as Applied to Peace" -- difficult to photograph because of lighting and size. For a sense of scale, please note that the figures are life size! The arched room is panelled with more Leighton works.

This is a detail of an arch panel.

There is a smaller painting of the fresco which is a full mock-up.

 But the most exciting piece for me was the full size "cartoon"  for this fresco. I also found out why they are called cartoons - but that is another story!

What magnificent drawing!

I love this lion's head handle on the side of a jug.

I was reminded of what had attracted me to Leighton's work back in art school. I was just starting my journey into dreams, psychology, psychoanalysis, etc. and came across an image of Leighton's painting "Flaming June".

I still lived at home with my parents in 1980, and my younger sister was a great model - when she was asleep! Here is one of my sketches of her from that time:

I later turned this into a small painting (I don't remember what happened to it). From the same sketchbook, here is the working out of some colour -- with a strong Matisse influence:

Dee Dee asleep appears in many sketchbooks, and I did a large painting of her in 1980 or 1981. (At the time, many of my friends would jokingly express surprise if they ever saw her awake!)