Father and Son

Lon Haverly · 02-15-2002, 04:02 AM

Here is a recent sketch I did as a demonstration. His boy was asleep in his arms as he walked around my display. I asked him to just quietly sit down with him and let me draw him. The boy woke up just as I started his detail. He bought it right up, after I was able to snap a shot of it.

18" x 24" soft pastel with Conte Paris pencil finish. 25 minutes.

Steven Sweeney · 02-15-2002, 06:34 AM

Lon,

I'm a sucker for dad/kids representations -- I think that there have been millions more opportunities to capture them than actual captures, and I write from two decades' worth of personal experience -- and I'm also so impressed at your ability to produce your work in short order, without a lot of wretching over every excruiating detail -- even though that's the way I work!. I'm in Taiwan right now, and in every city to which I travel here -- and every train station in those cities -- there are street artists working in 10 to 15 minute portrait (pencil and charcoal) media, and doing amazing, sometimes heartbreaking work. The rest of my group is always off hearing lectures on the temples (of which I'm very interested), but when it's time to get on the bus, people know where to find me -- back at the sidewalk artist kiosks. As I'm not at all a pubic person, I'm amazed at anyone's willingness to work from the very first stroke under the gaze of crtiics. I wish you and I were in geographial proximity, so that we could more casually compare notes.

Cheers,
Steven

Lon Haverly · 02-15-2002, 02:55 PM

I guess "street artists" like me need a little validation from the mainstream art world. Even though I lease a very expensive space on a busy mall, I am a street artist. But what we do is a bit unique. I would love to travel like you do and see the many other street artists. I did travel once to the old Soviet Union with a church outreach, and saw some street artists there who were to be pitied for their poverty, but extoled for their fabulous art.

I have made public sketching my life's work because it is so very challenging and satisfying, but not always very profitable. But I am in it for the art of it, not just for the money. If I had to choose between painting in a studio alone and making lots more money, or working as I do in public for perhaps less, it would be a very hard choice, because I really love the human element of working from life. I find working from photos, even good ones, even my own, tedious and tiring. Nothing compares, as far as I am concerned, to working from life. That is perhaps the difference between the old masters and the new ones. They had no cameras.

I respect your excellent views, and your great ability to encourage artists here. Keep it up. We need you!