Pelican Intentions; Sea Lion Portraits
Who are the people who love to draw the figure, and how do I get as many of us as possible to become members of Gage Academy?
Saturday, 2.8.25
It feels good to be back in Seattle, splitting my daily energy between three main pursuits, all related: the making of art itself; the making of the art business; working out.
Between those main three daily activities, my life can be kept in a sustainable balance, always advancing, always moving in the direction I guide it.
There has been so much energy invested lately in the aforementioned pursuits that I’ve been neglecting the online outreach and update aspect of what my art consultant terms the “parallel practice”. It’s hard to find the time to make platform posts about the work when so much of each day is already accounted for in the work itself. And yet, here we are.
The first Plein Air Event of the year, Desert Plein Air in Palm Desert, CA, is already complete. The painting in this video won first place. Woop! I’ve just returned from retrieving the unsold work, along with an immensely pleasurable detour on my return journey with the express purpose of drawing or painting the pelicans of La Jolla. I’ve painted and drawn them before.
With only one night in San Diego, and most of the day to explore, draw and paint the birds I love so much, I couldn’t help but feel the pain of wishing I had more time, weeks, months, to invest in the investigation of the Brown pelicans’ winter mating plumage. Its magnificence in my work will have to wait until another time, because working en plein air, outside from life, always comes with surprises.
I was arrested by a large male bull sea lion only about four feet from me on the low-walled path from my car to the pelican cliffs, having never in my life seen one so close… I had to draw it. What’s more, his aspect and attitude was so peaceful, resting in between activity on the noisy wavy beach, using his own gargantuan neck as a kind of fleshy pillow for his near-canine head.
I drew two quick sketches in ballpoint pen, and a third, more involved work in a combination of media: colored pencil; ballpoint pen; markers of various kinds; acrylic paint markers. I always think of Professor Sunny Park at Dartmouth College when I break out the Posca paint markers - they were a gift from her after helping out with her Drawing I class, Summer of 2020. Thank you, Sunny!
At the end of the few hours I spent drawing the sea lion, I was exhausted, and grateful to have met so many wonderful onlookers, many visiting San Diego from elsewhere. I accepted the invitation to lunch and drinks (their treat!) from a Chinese mom and son who had stopped to admire and ask questions about my work. It was a hoot, especially because the last time I ate lunch at that same beachside restaurant (Brockton Villa - definitely recommend it!) in La Jolla, I also didn’t have to pay - someone else anonymously paid my bill! My only guess is that they had enjoyed seeing me painting the pelicans, or they were a well-to-do pelican themselves.
Later that evening, I drove to Long Beach to have dinner and drinks with an old friend, someone very much on my same non-conventional, entrepreneurial wavelength. Although we both have known each other for years and years (feels like always?) It’s comedic that neither of us could remember how we’d first met, or even why we have each others’ contact information. Often the universe gifts us the exact people we are supposed to meet, and we’ll never know how or why. My intention was to paint pelicans, but the universe offered me a sea lion instead.
The drive back north to Seattle was made much longer than anticipated by closures due to snow and ice on I-5, but the coastal route was gorgeous as ever, as I trekked west, then north, then back inland for the final few hours. Thursday it was perfect after a morning of meetings and work to jump back into the long-format figure drawing that has been foundational to my art practice since middle school. Sarah Bixler, incredible artist, teacher, and Gage Academy regular, hosts Thursday afternoon open studios, and this time was a continuous three-hour pose, as opposed to 20 minute or shorter poses.
I am so encouraged to see attendance in open studios going way up, as some weekend sessions are so popular they fill to capacity a month in advance. My not-so-secret agenda is to continue to recruit so many people to come draw the figure in open studios that Gage is forced to offer them seven days a week… then maybe morning and afternoon… because I would go to any and all of them I can. My interest in the figure is infinite, because we are drawing us. I have been trying to go beyond the figure studios as figure drawing practice, and more of an exercise in portraiture, to see as much as I can, while I can, to get into the work some essence of the specific life and visual story of that model.
If you have any interest in learning how to draw the portrait, the figure, I do teach private lessons. If you would like to join me at Gage during their open studios, feel free to call me at (206) 992 - 1230, or email me at david@DavidOSmithArtist.com and I can share with you when I’ll be where. If you are already interested in drawing or painting or sculpting the figure from life - I would highly, highly recommend signing up for Gage Membership at the $125 level, because included in the membership are 15 credits to open studio sessions, redeemable through the rest of the year. If you sign up one at a time for open studios, it’s $20 each, so for $125 you are receiving a $300 value. I swear Gage isn’t sponsoring this message in any way… as I said, my selfish goal is to make open studios so popular it is impossible for Gage to not offer them seven days a week!
If you haven’t already been personally invited to come out for it - consider this your invitation to be my guest at two tours of my current solo show, Tuesday Feb 18, 5-6:30pm, or Tuesday Feb 25, 5-6:30pm, at the University Unitarian Church, 6556 35th Ave NE, 98115. We’ll look at the 14 large-scale plein air watercolor paintings, the meanings, processes, stories behind them.
In other news I’ve been accepted to Telluride Plein Air, right before Plein Air Easton the first week in July. I’ve also had three works accepted into a hilariously-named show called “Nude Nite” in Orlando and St Petersburg in February and March. I plan (as of now anyways) being there for the March 20-22 event in St Pete’s. I’m so curious, who are these people attending this event, centered around depictions and performances concentrating on the human figure? I’m always recruiting to the team of people who either make or value figurative artwork celebrating the human body.
Cheers for now,
David Orrin Smith
Sea Lion and portraits are great and your self portrait is top of the group!