The Tiepolo Drawings after the Portrait Bust of Palma Giovane by Alessandro Vittoria Part II

Palma Giovane by Alessandro Vittoria

Giambattista Tiepolo

sketches of  the Giovane Bust

Art Students League Sculpture Atelier

I painted this painting of the sculpture studios at the Art Students League of New York. I was making clay sculptures and learning casting for a time in the mornings there and was always fascinated by the skylit windows that face onto 58th Street. These northlight windows face onto the street and once had unobstructed light when the American Fine Arts building was built in 1892. Since then, Manhattan has grown up all around and I'll always remember the effect of working on my sculptures on a rainy day and seeing the New Yorkers with their umbrellas silhouetted against the dirty milk glass of these windows scurrying by- sort of like some painting that Manet or Degas would paint.

Portrait Sculptures

A few portraits heads on deck

Fragment of a Queen's lips

This is another fav.... this amazing broken fragment has a power that can only be classified as sublime.

Woodstock Artistic Anatomy Class

This is where we build or Ecorches, model the portrait in clay, and draw the model in the artistic anatomy class at the Woodstock School of Art.

Here's the painting I submitted to the Instructors Show currently on exhibit at the Woodstock School of Art.
It's a scene I painted while at the Art Student's League of New York. At the time , my scholarship duties included tending the clay pit- a large wooden box with a lid that contained hundreds of pounds of terra cotta, used by the clay modeling students. It had to be hosed down and turned at least once a day so as to be supple enough to work with. Some evenings however, I'd stay late into the evening at Carneys drinking beer with Nelson Shanks and fellow students in his class or perhaps with George Sotos and his crew and would neglect my clay duties.This meant that I'd have to stumble over to the League very early and turn the clay before the Sydney Simon or Jonathan Shan class would begin at 8:30.. Fortunately I lived only a few blocks away in a huge four story walk up on 55th and Eighth Street that I shared with five other art students In order to give the clay some time to soak I'd arrive early, around 6:30 , and Washington, the caretaker, would open up and let me inside.As I walked through the dark basement to the back studios where the sculpture studios are, I would see the north light streaming down the corridor and then as I emerged into the studio, that full magical glow would envelope me from the high street level skylights.It was pure magic , being all alone in this most holy of artistic spaces.

Portrait in Clay and The Ecorche

Here are a few views of the Friday "Portrait in Clay" Class and the "Ecorche" Class  at the Woodstock School of Art.