Portland Maine 1990-1

In these years I ran a weekly 3-hour life drawing group in my India St. studio on Sunday evenings, attended by up to a dozen others, mostly students from PSA. We usually started with 5 & 10 minute poses when I drew in compressed charcoal (see separate gallery). We then went on to 20 minute poses when I drew in carbon pencil and painted monochrome (usually Payne’s Grey) watercolour, often on grey or cream tinted Imperial size paper (mostly Stonehenge or Somerset), sometimes with dabs of white gouache for the highlights (this gallery). We finished the session with an hour pose when I painted a chromatic watercolour, Imperial size on D’Arches, Fabriano or Whatman watercolour paper or D’Arches or Rives Verlin Cream paper (separate gallery). I learned to work more quickly with this regime. I also went to open life classes at Portland School of Art, the University of Southern Maine, Bowdoin College and Carlo Pittore’s Academy of Fine Arts when I could. In addition, I continued to paint portraits of my friends.