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Preliminary Pencil Drawing – Exodus

February 4, 2013 § 20 Comments

Exodus (detail), Graphite on Paper, 10.5 x 12″ (26.5 x 30.5 cm), 2013

Ahhhh, we had one day of blissful sunny weather with blue skies and Spring air– followed by another usual overcast day with a sky that looks like a flat florescent light bulb. Damn you, Portland, Oregon. The winter here is the trade for living in such a beautiful and bike friendly city. For anyone who needs a winter lift I recommend this: Brooklyn, NY PS22 children’s chorus singing Lisztomania by Phoenix.

This week I’d like to share a preliminary pencil drawing that I have been working on for a double painting called Exodus. Double painting meaning I plan on painting two works at once back and forth so I can try out different techniques and colors on each canvas. This is a narrative theme, image, and character that I have been making variations of for years.

Exodus, Graphite on Paper, 10.5 x 12″ (26.5 x 30.5 cm), 2013

Above is the full drawing. I used Photohsop along with my actual drawing to reassess the composition. Photoshop is a great way to try out radically different things to get a sense of what will and will not work. Pictured below, you can see me re-designing the clouds before drawing them into the final composition. This also led to me adding a strip of paper to the top of the image to give the figure more breathing room.

Using photoshop to experiment with the composition.

Using Photoshop and a Wacom drawing tablet to experiment with the composition.

Lately I have also been playing around with different chops (a traditional artist stamp/seal that signs a work). Eventually I would love to carve one out of jade or soapstone. Below is the first draft of the chop on my recent work. I liked it, but it was too visually distracting for this particular drawing and so I reduced it to just the hare.