Studies of 9 Masterpieces

Here are some studies I made for a project I’m working on. The project is an educational chart that attempts to organize a broad range of abstract art and to portray abstract art in a way that makes sense to people who may not spend as much time as I do staring at it.

after Jean-Baptiste-Camille Coror after Henri Fantin-Latour after Thomas Gainsborough after Richard Diebenkorn after Max Ernst after Pablo Picasso after Joan Mitchell after Philip Guston after Ellsworth Kelly

My buddy sent me a scan of the pastel sketch I made of him last October in Celina, TX

Jim Public, pastel portrait of Kerry Bill, Celina, TX, October 15, 2011

This drawing is an example of the scores of pastel portrait sketches I made in Celina, TX, during their centennial celebration on October 15, 2011. My idea was to use the Radiohead payment schedule–pay what you want–which worked okay until the swarms of unsupervised kids caught on and started paying me in pennies. Nevertheless, those kids seemed to love the experience, I got a lot of practice at drawing quickly from life, and I made enough money to buy the tank of gas that got my family back home.