Brazilian Natives Series

I'm tying up some loose ends and part of that is posting about things I have been meaning to for some time. This is the first of a few posts on my work from the drawing class I took in the summer.

Because of the level of the class, I had pretty much free reign to create what I wanted. One thing that was important to me was creating work using photographs I have taken over the years. When I travel I tend to live through my camera lense and the emotions from those trips say with the images long after.


One of my favorite trips was the two weeks I spent in Brazil. I feel hard for the country and even seven years later, I can remember the sights, smells, sounds, and even what I was feeling as I took each photograph that I have. The trip was eye opening as it was the first time I have truely seen poverty. Poor people in the United States live richly compared to Brazil and it is something I will never forgot. Brazil was also the first place I had to mostly navigate without knowing the language. I learned a little Portuguese and know very little Spanish even (French is the second language I speak and it is completely useless there).


I could go on and on about my experiences there but that's not what this post is really about. It's really about the art.


Part of stretching myself is drawing things that I tend to shy away from. People are at the top of that list and the only way I am going to improve is to jump in.


This series of mixed media drawings started with a basic ink outline. I didn't work in graphite at all because I didn't want to overthink anything. This was about embracing mistakes and letting go. Are they perfect? Nope, but I am very pleased with how they turned out.


I will be sharing more of the work I created during this class over the next few weeks. Then I can move on to sharing more of my current projects.