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Ascension Night was a very difficult drawing. The model posed on the floor, while I stood on top of my heavy-duty studio table with my easel. That worked for the torso, head, and his right arm, but the legs had to be done separately, to give the sense of being in space. It had to have been about 30 hours of modeling live. It was a study for the oil painting below.

I am very happy it is going to one of my best friends and a wonderful collector.

This is final oil painting. It is in a private collection in Athens, Greece.

Eve’s Fingers is going to the same collector. This study was the final reference for the large painting Eve, half of the diptych of Adam and Eve. This drawing reminds me that I need to do a tutorial on my cross hatching technique, which is when the lines criss-cross giving shape to the object. My lines’ directions come about by the directions I would massage the forms also incorporating light and shadow. I love the feeling of her little finger, very sensitive. In my figurative works, I try my hardest to convey the theme down to the toes and fingers—Eve here is young, the fingers gently touch her shoulder in a self-honored way, suggesting a hint of self-care, and they are slightly falling off from the edge, as if ready to let go.

The figure is the hardest most demanding subject in visual art. Due to photography it is easy to take for granted the difficulty. Of all the figure work, foreshortening doubles the complexity—objects coming at you can look like a malformed lump if not spot on. In all my drawing I set up the proportions and composition by invisibly lining up landmarks, finding 3 correlating points, then find another 3rd point, and on until it is something like an astro chart. In this drawing, instead of invisible access lines, I show them—hence it is an excellent insight into my process of setting up the placement of the figure’s forms.

These drawings were packaged and shipped yesterday, priority mail, and should arrive by this Saturday. The Ascension Night drawing was framed with glass, to protect the glass, I had a thin plywood sheet cut to the same size as the frame and simply covered the front.

I included two more drawings as a surprise, so not shown here.

In my studio I have many incredible and special pieces, and that I am 65 I am wondering about their future. I would like is a museum of my works, but that doesn’t have the financial trust that is needed, so unrealistic in the near future. Shows are great, but the ultimate thing is for works to find loving homes, not unlike giving a home to a pet. My archive, https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/michael-newberry/collections has many of my available works, the public pricing is on the high side because it is easier to negotiate down then to have regrets! : ) So if you are a great person, use that as leverage and I will happily work with you.

Michael, Idyllwild, 11/18/2021