As Promised...Nude Painting

Ten years ago, Jill and I studied with Timothy Clark in California, and decided that it was past time to give it another go. We headed to NYC for 11 days in June to the Art Students League of New York for two life drawing and watercolor classes. Yes, that means live models. No, they do not wear clothes. Yes, it was extremely challenging for the novice (me) and the professional (Jill). But we had a great time!!

You could scroll for hours reading about our trip and looking at pictures, but here are some highlights:

Where we spent the weekdays 8:45 AM - 4:30 PM.
Pretty exhausting when you're doing a new drawing/painting every 10-20 minutes!

We worked in both watercolor and black&white (charcoal pencil). Here are some examples of paintings (Jill) and sketches (Chancey):

A lesson from Tim Clark about how to draw the eyes!

After class, we still had time for great eating and entertainment. A few of our favorite spots: The Standard and Orsay for brunch after church on Sunday, Eatery, guacamole and sangria at Rosa Mexicano, Saturday brunch at Balthazar, and our favorite little spot, Noodies (so new they don't have a website!), pictured below. The Thai food was delicious, it was so close to our apartment, BYOB, and well, the name was just so fitting...

We got standby tickets to the Late Show! Saw Jane Fonda, Boris Johnson (the mayor of London -- hilarious!), and Jimmy Cliff, special musical guest. Groove to his reggae tunes, here. (You can see mom and me in the back, middle, if you look closely around 4:13 :)

On the in-between weekend, my MIL and sister-in-law, Frances and Margaret, joined us for some fun -- we had drinks at the Carlyle Hotel, shopped, saw "Memphis" (not to be missed!!), and had dinner aboard Victoria and Richard Mackenzie Child's ferry boat "Yankee", where mom and I stayed for the weekend. (An entire post to be dedicated to that!!) TUNE IN TONIGHT (7/23) on TLC at 10/9 CT to watch "Four Houses" where Victoria (and Yankee) will be a contestant!