I Drew a Thing

 Having cleaned my pens, yesterday, I decided it was time to start DRAWING!

(well... technically, I decided it was time to start drawing again BEFORE I cleaned the pens... that is WHY I cleaned the pens!)

It being Thursday, I thought I would start with the Thursday Portrait Challenge by Studio Tea Break on Bluesky. I had participated in these when I used to have a Twitter account. Studio Tea Break eventually moved to Bluesky, so... 

This week's Challenge was ‘The Princess’ (Painting of a Shawi Berber woman from Algeria), painted by Frederick Arthur Bridgman sometime between 1870 to 1878. 

This is my take on it. It's a start... 

I like the Thursday Portrait Challenge. It's like the time-honoured tradition of Painting from the Masters - copying the works of those who've gone before to learn their techniques through the process of DOING them. I guess this isn't exactly the same thing, because I very definitely did not do this with oil paints! 

Here is the original... 

Frederick Arthur Bridgman - The Princess (1870) - borrowed from Wikimedia Commons: 

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederick_Arthur_Bridgman_-_The_Princess_%281870%29.jpg

Studio Tea Break can be found here:

https://bsky.app/profile/studioteabreak.bsky.social

My stuff on Bluesky can be found here:

https://bsky.app/profile/timinsaskatoon.bsky.social

I have previously posted on this blog a number of the Portrait Challenges I did through 2022 here:

Virtual Studio - Thursday Portrait Challenges

June Art Dump

 I've been kind of slacking off here, lately. Art is still happening (though, admittedly, not as much as last year), I've just been forgetting to share it here... 

Here are a few of the things i did in June... 

Waitiing.... 

Keiran had a dance recital - it was a city-wide dance recital for all the high school dance classes. I didn't feel like going because they were going to be performing them at their own school a week or two later... were I wouldn't have to buy a ticket... there would be fewer performances to sit through... and a smaller audience. Also, teh city-wide performance was at Aden Bowman Collegiate - where I went for grades 9-11... and I do not have fond memories of the place... 

They got to the school on their own or with classmates and I had to pick them up, so I rode the Tandem to J. S. Wood Branch Library and waited there for them to wander over and meet me. I drew the above picture in my sketchbook while waiting. 

Added to the Critters on Bicycles Sketchbook. No one had suggested Track Cyclists. so... 

Another added to the Critters on Bicycles Sketchbook. I'd planned to do a BUNCH in June... but these ended up being the only two... 

Jackrabbit Rocks a BMX at the Skatepark - 28cmx35cm (11"x14") -  ink on paper

Another Critter on a Bicycle, but not in the Sketchbook... 

Initially kind of did this one to submit to the group art show done as part of the Nature City Festival... but then... didn't...

The theme this year is Urban Jackrabbits.

The show is currently up at City Perk Cafe in Saskatoon and will be up until August 26th.

Another drawing in the sketchbook for one of Virtual Studio's (on Twitter: @StudioTeaBreak ) Thursday Portrait Challenges. This one is based on ‘Woman Waiting for the Moon to Rise’ painted by Uemura Shōen in 1944

Another drawing in the sketchbook, also for one of Virtual Studio's (on Twitter: @StudioTeaBreak ) Thursday Portrait Challenges. This one was based on ‘Young man tuning a lute’, painted around 1529-1530 in oils on panel by Jacopo Carucci.

Finally, another waiting room drawing of an older fella that was VERY INTERESTED in whatever was on the waiting room TV... 

Virtual Studio - Thursday Portrait Challenges

About a year ago, I joined Twitter again... I decided I would only follow artists and game nerds and turn off all retweets, and just not follow or engage with anyone political. It's been a much better experience. 

Not that I'm apolitical... it's... a long story... involving algorithms and mental health and the polarity and divisiveness of politics on the internet today... I just see no point in it on Twitter, because no one, EVER, read a tweet or a meme and said "huh, you know what, I never thought of it that way... I'm going to change my whole worldview..."

I digress... 

Very soon after rejoining, I discovered Virtual Studion (@studioteabreak - on twitter). They post a number of challenges each week; Mythical Mash-up Mondays, Shape Challenges on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a Portrait Challenge on Thursdays. I've participate in most of them at one point or another, but mostly the Thursday Portrait Challenges. 

Each Thursday they post a portrait and invite anyone make their own version, interpreting it in any way or style and share it on twitter. It has been really fun seeing all the different interpretations and styles and media used for these. 

I did a number of them... then got busy with other things and stopped... and am trying to get back to doing them again. 

Here are a few I've done...

This is the most recent - from TODAY - from the Portrait of a Hamal from Moush, painted by Simon Agopyan (1857 - 1921)

This was last week's - from the portrait of Theodora van Duvenvoorde, originally painted in oils on canvas in 1620 by Michiel van Mierevelt - all of my reproductions have been done in ink and/or watercolour in a watercolour sketchbook. 

The rest are going back to August or earlier... 

Old Woman, painted in oils on canvas by Ludovico Carracci in 1590 

I THINK this is the first thursday Portrait Challenge I participated in, back in March! It is based on the self-portrait, painted by Kohno Michisei in 1917 

14 April 2022 - Here is one where I had a little bit more fun with the interpretation... the painted posted was Portrait of a Young Woman with Puck the Dog, originally painted around 1879 by Thérèse Schwartze. When I first looked at it, THIS image of Lucy and Snoopy from Peanuts just popped into my head and I kind of knew I HAD to do it... 

12 May 2022 - From Two Sisters, orignally painted by Cornelis de Vos of Antwerp sometime between 1610−1615 

19 May 2022 - from "Portrait of a Man" (probably politician Robert de Masmines), originally painted in oils on panel by Robert Campin in the 1430s

31 May 2022 - After 'The Umbrella', originally painted in oils on canvas in 1883 by Marie Bashkirtseff

1 June 2022 - from the portrait of Emperor Maximilian I, originally painted by Bernhard Strigel sometime after 1508 

2 June 2022 - from the portrait of Ivan Morozov, originally painted by Valentin Serov in 1910

11 June 2022 - from the Portrait of a Lady in Red, painted in oils on panel by Jacopo Pontormo sometime between 1532–1535 

17 June 2022 - from the self portrait by María Izquierdo, painted in 1946 

23 June 2022 - From the portrait of Saint Rose of Lima, originally painted in oils on canvas by Carlo Dolci, sometime between 1586-1617

30 June 2022 - After ‘A Sudanese Man’, originally painted in oils on panel around 1886 by Rudolf Swoboda

7 July 2022 - From the portrait of Clara Serena Rubens, painted around 1616 in oils on panel by her father, Peter Paul Rubens

14 July 2022 - From the portrait of Margret Halseber of Basel, originally painted in oils on panel by William Key around 1808

22 July 2022 - From Mitsuuji with Mountain Roses, by Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni Ⅲ), mid-to-late 1830s 

29 July 2022 - From the Portrait of Eugenia Primavesi, originally painted in oil on canvas in 1913 by Gustav Klimt

Wow... there were a LOT of these!? Not sure why I never got around to sharing them, here, on the blog before now. I'll try to post them more regularly... 

To see more of the stuff I post on Twitter you can find me here:

twitter.com/timinsaskatoon