Art 570: Figure Drawing

Amy Alwood (The Alwood Sisters)
8.5" x 6"
pen and pencil on paper, 2011
(signed by Amy Alwood)

I took my drawing class out on a field trip to Woodland's Tavern in Columbus last week. Several bands played that night to benefit WCBE, the Columbus' public radio station. Teaching figure drawing has been my favorite pastime at Ohio State University and in my final weeks at the job I decided it was time to let the students see what I do and do what I do too. This quarter I didn't give a whole lot of instruction but tried to make it a fun experience and I did some figure drawing in the class myself. As an experiment I had the model that was assigned to me for the Thursday evening sessions, be fully dressed. The idea was to achieve intimate figure drawings that were about the sitter's personality (her name is Darrilyn) rather than about the formal properties of a nude model. I'm not sure how well my intentions came across or were understood but I believe it was important enough to stick with it all quarter.  My students have made some fine drawings nevertheless. One student made a very nice drawing of the Alwood Sisters that night at Woodland's. I didn't think my own (the one above) was very successful and I spent a few hours the next day touching it up which (as usual) didn't make it any better. I wanted to go to the Alwood Sisters mainly because a friend told me they were good and I really ought to see them before I left Columbus and this was my chance. Besides that I have known Jovan, the drummer for the Alwood Sisters, for a long time so it was good to see him perform again too. He used to play in Gaunt, a band I really liked. I talked to Jovan and Amy for a little while after the concert and they gave me their cd Black Falcon & the Forest Spirit. It was a lovely concert and ditto cd. I've played it many times and therefor the song Summer Winds will become a part of the list of my hundred favorite songs of 2011. I'm not sure if the drawing above will be the illustration for the song or if I will do a painting later on. Their website features gorgeous paintings of all four band members and I'm gonna have to ask Jovan who is responsible for these. It will be hard to make a painting of them that can live up to such high standards. The drawing certainly doesn't but Amy was nice enough to sign it anyway. Now I'm going to have to grade my student's portfolio that may contain more drawings of the Alwood Sisters. I think I might have to give out some A's tonight.

p.s: The performance of Whoa Nellie later that night at Woodland's was awesome too!