For drawing #300, I’ve created this tribute to Black men and Black community everywhere!
I spend this weekend as one of 11 participants in The Art of Living Black Open Studios Exhibition at Mills College. My time there reminded me how much art and creativity relies on having other folks with whom to share work and inspiration.
A big thank you to all of the artists who participated in this weekend’s show, and thanks as well to all who supported this event with their presence and their purchases.
There’s no better time to post this milestone drawing than on Sunday evening, after a weekend filled with good fun, good friends, and great art.
Today’s drawing is a tribute to the dandy. I’ve tried to capture the spirit of masculine refinement as it presented itself for a certain segment of Victorian era fashionistas (fashionistos?), beauty mark included.
There were, in fact, Black dandys in Victorian England, though not many, and this drawing is a tribute to their memory.
I always see the most interesting people at the cafe. As a Harry Potter fanatic, this guy most certainly turned my head. He was both tall and wide and, with his bushy black beard, he looked just like a Black Hagrid. I really wanted approach and ask him to say, “alrigh’ Harry,” but I thought he might not really appreciate the suggestion that he looked like a fictional half-giant.
Happy Valentines Day to all of my readers and friends! I was all set to post this drawing, having completed it last night, when I remembered that today was February 14th. Somehow I had disconnected the card shopping and dinner reservations and all of the other things that were on my agenda for today from my art making process last night.
Why is that a problem? Well, all of the men in this piece were dressed in shades of yellow and greenish yellow. Not very Valentines-y, I know. So, I went back to the drawing board, so to speak, recolored the drawing in shades of pink, and voila! Here it is.
So please do enjoy this portrait of three 1970s-era lovermen, dressed in the style of Superfly and so many of the other Black male style icons of the Pre-Carter seventies.
Hope you’re having a great V-Day, even if you don’t choose to celebrate it at all.
Ah! Berkeley’s Fourth Street Shops business district–an array of specialty retail establishments ranging from high-end home furnishings to charming and quirky food, clothing, makeup and stationary boutiques. Fourth Street draws shoppers from all over Alameda County…but not a lot of Black folks. I always see a few, but it’s not like Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, or even that stretch of College that runs through Rockridge. I’m not necessarily saying that this means anything negative about the Fourth Street area. It’s simply the way things are at the moment…which brings me to the subject of this drawing. Given the relative dearth of Black folks in this stretch of an otherwise significantly Black region of South Berkeley, when I do see a brother in that area, he stays on my mind.
I work near a wedding chapel, and I always enjoying seeing the couples and their wedding parties waiting for or celebrating after their ceremonies. This drawing depicts a recent groom who was waiting next to the limousine while the wedding photographer took pictures of his wife, who was posing on the steps of the chapel. In this moment, he looked a little uncomfortable in his suit, which was adorned with a white flower (probably in the lapel, but I’ve placed it in the breast pocket). His suit was not as ill-fitting as it looks in this drawing, but I rendered it that way in order to accentuate the look of discomfort.
I was thinking a lot about the 19th century today (which is not uncommon for me, since I am an English professor), and so I decided to draw the face of a man I saw on MacArthur Blvd., but with a late 19th century haircut and outfit.
