I was a distance runner in high school and did some cross country bicycling after college. I am very aware of the need to find an appropriate pace to attain a long term goal. Working from the live figure has forced me to change my decades long approach to painting. How often one works and at what level of intensity are important. Five, six, sometimes seven days in a row no longer works. In addition to physical and mental hurdles the figure poses logistic and financial obstacles I hadn't encountered doing still life or cityscape paintings.
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| Figure Study, oil pastel, 6 1/2" X 9 1/2", 2013 |
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| Figure Study, oil pastel, 12" X 8 1/2", 2013 |
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| Figure Study, oil pastel, 11" X 8", 2013 |
These drawings are just a fraction of what I did in a recent one week stretch. By the last session I was fried. Mentally and physically my edge was gone. I was aware in real time of overreaching but was incapable or unwilling to put on the brakes. Working from the live figure is providing a more than ample supply of new and complex challenges. That's a big part of what makes it so compelling.
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