Paris: Part 2

I returned to this spot on our second to last day in Paris to see if I had improved at all since I had first drawn it back in early August. I wasn't totally pleased but I did notice an improvement in some areas. Besides having an eye-opening, great time traveling Europe for the first time in my life, it felt great to grow, or at least revive my abilities at life drawing.  Plus, whenever I feel a moment of nostalgia creeping in, I'm psyched to have this little sketchbook diary to reference instead of photos.

The raw beauty and wild cats of Greece

Greece, baby!!! The third to last stop on our odyssey and Athens had some gems in store for me. There are so many wild cats roaming the city and some of them aren't afraid to come up to you and be your new best friend. If our trip back was as easy as a few hours in a car, there was one cat in particular we probably would have brought home with us. This guy on the motorcycle was not the one but he definitely knows how to put on a show. He saw me at work and decided to make my drawing of a beat up bike into a great drawing of a beat up bike.

Like I said above, these Greek cats know how to make a picture really shine.

Sketches From Italy

We spent a little over a week traveling through Italy on our european odyssey so I was lucky to get a good bit of sketching done while we were there. The big cities were great but those little towns built on the mountains next to the sea are where it's at.

This sketch of the bar in Florence was the point where I felt like drawing from life was starting to become a little bit more natural for me again. The militaristic work ethic of RISD drawing courses really loosened me up and I haven't felt that sort of comfort and confidence in my life drawing since then. It really took me a good month and a half of drawing almost every day on this trip to start to feel that looseness again.

Denmark-Portugal-Spain-London

Here's another batch of sketches from my recent trip. I really should have drawn more in The Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. I threw in some others from Portugal, Spain and London.

Paris: Part 1

Maybe you've noticed but, I've been absent from posting on the ol' blog these past few months and I'm here to explain why: Euro trip!  I made a solid attempt to do as much as life drawing as I could since I'd be away from my studio for 3 months. It was definitely rusty at first but things started to come around eventually. Here's my first few weeks in Paris.

Got to see Iggy Pop and it was definitely a high point of the trip. Watching him jump out to the front of the stage, with no shirt on, and start off with "I Wanna Be Your Dog" was such a perfect moment. I'm still insanely grateful to Jonathan Toubin for making this happen.