Felix D'Eon

Diary ~ Drawing and Painting with Pete

June, 2006

 

I wanted to draw Pete in an active and strenuous pose, which is very difficult to do. Usually, I have the model hold two poses in quick succession - a difficult, and then an easy one, for 10 minutes each, followed by a five minute break, repeating the same process and the same poses over for two hours or so. This way the model can hold the difficult pose, relax with an easier pose, and not tire himself out to much by the end of the day. In the photo above and the drawing below you can see me working on the easier of the two poses, which I thought of as a steam room or bath house scene.

Below I am working on the second and more difficult of the poses, in which Pete is posed as though ready for a fight.

The finished drawing follows below.

This is Pete on one of his breaks, talking on his cell phone. I love this photo, and may have him hold a similar pose for a painting when he comes back on Tuesday.

After I had finished the two drawings above, which took a little over two hours, I set to work on some paintings, using the same technique of having him hold a difficult pose for ten minutes followed by an easier one. The photo below shows him in the difficult pose, fighting again, this time with a sword. I worked on the figure today, and will paint in a background when it drys. We spent the rest of the day on these two figure studies on oil; when they are dry and the backgrounds are painted in (this will take about a week) they will be ready for posting on this site.

And below, we are having dinner at the end of the day. Both Pete and I have crazy metabolisms, and are always hungry. I'm not sure why we look so dour in the photo, though. We had a great time. He ended up staying and hanging out with us until nine at night or so, and then we all went together to his house for his roomate's birthday party, which was a blast.

He'll be back Tuesday, so I'll write more about him soon.