Thursday, December 5, 2013

Little Temple 1972


In this brown ink and wash drawing I was attempting to copy the look of "Old Master" drawings. The "Old Masters" would do scenes or figures in pen and ink and then go over it shading in wash. They did the preliminary sketches for their paintings in this medium. Sometimes they were outdoors on site with their inks, but other times they were in the studio doing evocations of Classical antiquity with forests, temples, nymphs and satyrs. Since I was studying art history as well as Classics, I put the themes together in a pseudo-18th century composition in my sketchbook journal. I even illustrated a paper for Latin class in this style, perhaps one of the first multi-media term papers submitted at my school. I regret doing this, it was a gimmick, but it was 40 years ago and only I remember it.

"Little Temple" is sepia ink and wash on sketchbook page, 7 1/2" x 5 1/4", October 1972.

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