Hi friends, this week I’ll be archiving The Society. I'm simplifying my life and fully focusing on my Coaching Program community. Right now they are thriving and deserve my full attention. My vision for this group was always bigger than image sharing. I wanted to build a collaborative community with me, other Pros, and members who wanted to break out of the social media paradigm of vanity, likes and follows. I wanted to create a community built on conversations and relationships, online and offline. To keep that vision alive would require many hours of teaching, support, and collaboration, and right now, I simply don’t have the time (or resources) to sustain it. I plan to have an oil painting focused community soon. That is the next stage in my evolution so I will dedicate my hours and labor to this new chapter in my life. If you are interested in that, please follow me on my new website (I will start writing beautiful articles there again) and join my free email list. That is where I will do my teaching and guiding for now. Thank you for being part of this. Skool is still in it's infancy, but I know it will become as mainstream as Facebook. As censorship of nude figurative art and beautiful realism as a whole continues to rise, the mass of artists like me will eventually migrate here. So thank you for being a pioneer with me. To those who resonate with me and align with my mission to build a sanctuary for beauty online I hope to meet you again. Much love and peace be with you until we meet again.❤️🤝

I can't post this on instagram even with black dots on the nipples. I will still get a ban. So there you go a sexually offensive sketch for you. You have to be 40+ to look at it. I believe it is 1.5 years old or so. This is highly textured paper which makes detail VERY tough at a small size. I just wanted to let the grey shine through and be subtle with my whites. I also wanted to capture the stretch in her arms and neck. It is amazing how I have to change my drawing process depending on the paper I use. I am very much a material dude so I try it all. I will give this paper another try for sure. Just bigger.

I'm really hoping some of you will have time to click on the link below - a 12 minute YouTube video I stumbled across today... Beautifully delivered ideas about what it means to be an artist. I think I'm finally starting to believe that I belong in an artistic world... And for an ex- engineer that is actually quite a big step ❤️ Happy days! https://youtu.be/MhjkZ-ABz08?si=mF7M_OL8cKSN4Dn8

Loads to take in but it is a brilliant 1.5hour lesson from @Chris Legaspi . I have plans to watch it again- watched it twice in this week. The main take away so far is no matter how much render I do, I cannot cover up bad foundations of the figure. It re-emphasises to me the importance of getting the foundations right before shading and rendering the figure. Awesome references too.

So I made it into the Royal Portrait Academy Exhibition at Hull Gallery. And getting the drawing over there was a real struggle. My museum glass was damaged. So i tried to get a new one. The gallery was closed because of illness and i had to do many phonecalls. And I am on the country so there was no alternative. So I got one on Amazon which took forever to arrive and it did just in time. Then the passepartout they send me was too small. Another one would have taken too long. So I had to cut one myself. Only had strathmore bristol for that. Then the DHL service here was full with schoolkids because they where buying all their new books there. I waited forever. Then their computer would not take the adress in UK. Until we gave up and I drove to another DHL Packing station. The Computer also did not take it. Then it turned out that express costs more than a hundred bucks and the computer HAS to take the adress for that. So i chose normal delivery. It said in 3-5 days it will be there. Yesterday was the last day for the gallery and my DHL said it has arrived. Today the gallery wrote me it is still not here. They give it another day or so.... And it is close. In York. Wish me luck. The struggle is real. My nerves cant take this guys 🥹 I aged 10 years. The hair I don't have turned grey. I can feel it. Edit : It arrived !