Eyes & Arms

After recently seeing William-Adolphe Bouguereau's 'The Birth of Venus' and lots of other neo-classicist and realist wonders in person, I really wanted to try drawing and painting some more traditionalist stuff myself. At school I remember doing lots of still life redraws and Van Gogh analysis and so many things to do with form and technique, and I miss it so much.

College was still somewhat experimental in terms of using techniques and different mediums, but after that there was no real push towards that sort of learning. My favourite thing to see in art museums is people sketching from the paintings.

I decided to start keeping an art journal again, like I did at school and college, with annotations and sketches and pictures taped in. I'm more of a pen person than a pencil one, but maybe I should draw with pencils more. Exploring shading is fun. There's something therapeutic in the concentration of it.

I want to draw endless parts of the body. Eyes and mouths and hands.

Bouguereau is my favourite. His colours and gestures. His flesh tones and taut muscles and clouds and foliage and fabric. I'll gather them up and stuff them in my book.