The Good Dr.
I did this portrait 2 years ago when I was concentrating on head studies. She's a famous statue in Hollywood Cemetery. I found a nice antique oval frame for it.

My Hand Study
Sometimes when I'm stuck with a problem in a picture, I do a classical exercise to take a break.
I've always liked symbolism in art, and a lot of it is spiritual.
When you see a hand posed like this it means submission to God.

My Father Captures His Dragon
My model is a boy angel with flowers in his left hand. His right arm is raised, but the hand is broken.
I've always liked dragons, so I drew one here to have fun. I sketched his hand holding a sword, and
a dagger. Then I decided he should be roping the dragon and twisting it's ear, while standing on it.

I thought it looked like Dad and made up a story to go with it. You can make up your own story about an
animal lover you know, and change the title if you want to.

The Fairy
This is the same statue I drew in the picture of the goddess. I changed her angel wings to
fairy wings. And gave her a big leaf to hold so you can imagine a close up of a little fairy.

Angel with a Rose
An old drawing trick I learned in art school is to hold your pictures in front of a mirror and look at the reflection. When you’re working on a drawing you can’t see it unless you step back. If you look at the reflection, your mistakes are easy to see.

When I looked at the reflection of this drawing, the hand holding the rose seemed to reach out off the paper. So I knew I had drawn it right.

Angel on the Clouds

Sad Lady in Green

I like drawing this statue because she’s easy to see. Sometimes if I can’t get a drawing of one,
I’ll go back and draw her again. When I got a few portraits that looked like the same girl, I went back to the
ones that are more difficult. When I compare these drawings from a year and a half ago to the new one
of the goddess, I can see an improvement. It’s not instant.

These are also drawings of the same statue above.

She holds a poppy and looks away from it. The flower symbolizes opium and she doesn’t want it.
I draw her a lot. I think she looks sweet in the conte pencil drawing.

I’ve tried to draw her twice so far; I got her on the second try.

This angel is beautiful and famous, but difficult to draw.

Her eyes are cut so deep and hollow instead of rounded. I’ve drawn her a lot of times and I’m not finished. I drew head studies for months then came back and tried again with better results.

The story about Varina is that she died of a broken heart because she loved a Yankee and her father wouldn’t let her marry him.

This is my favorite drawing, because I can see the progress I made in one year.
The statue’s left hand is broken off, and last year I couldn’t draw the whole figure.

Cleopatra
This is my study of the marble sculpture by William Westmore Story at the VMFA.

He was a self taught American artist who went to Italy to learn marble carving. They say this is when Cleopatra was contemplating suicide. After drawing it, I think she's in the act of suicide here. She's looking a little creeped out by the snake on her arm. She's extended her arm and leaned away. Maybe that's not a bracelet. Maybe she picked up the snake thinking it would bite her on the hand, but instead it's crawling up her arm and it might go under her sleeve.

That's my interpretation, I don't know if William Story would agree.

Nature
This is my study of the bust by Mucha at the VMFA.

It was cast in metal. Her skin is silvery and so highly polished that I didn't draw shadows, because of all the reflections. When I worked on this drawing I noticed that her eyes are almost closed. I didn't have to draw ears, because they're under her hair.

I think Mucha was saying that nature's not aware of us. The peice has a remote and dreamy fluid quality. I like the way he made her hair flowing in ribbons around the base in irregular spirals.