Why create drawings from life, rather than from photographs? With photographs, we translate an already 2-D picture into another 2-D picture. It's not that there's anything genuinely "wrong" with working that way. Sometimes it's unavoidable, such as when doing a portrait of a young child. They just plain can't sit still!

However, working from life is so much more rewarding. The camera has one eye. We have two. Working from life, we see the whole person. We see dimensionality, volume, shadow, in a way don't in a photograph. In addition, with the model in front of us, we have, as it were, the "raw data," unmediated. A photo may already have been manipulated by the photographer in an editing process. Photoshop has become an art in itself.

Perhaps more importantly, the artist and the model form a connection. Drawing a person is an act of profound intimacy. In normal life, staring intently at someone else is rude, violating that person's sense of personal space, of safety. But when drawing, the artist has that permission. To be an artist's model is to make oneself vulnerable to the artist's interpretation, to truly be seen in a way that even a lover misses. The old joke: a man reports his wife missing. The officer asks what color are her eyes? The man answers, "Uh..... "

Some models inspire the artist to produce drawings of much greater quality than usual. How? Through that mysterious, intimate connection. Only once have I drawn a model with whom I felt no connection at all. Drawing him was like drawing a block of wood. At the first break, a couple of members of our artist group packed up and left. At the next break, three left. At the next, four. By the end, one other artist and I remained. I never asked that man to model again. He presented a total flat affect, a complete poker face. Extremely uncomfortable for us all. So, I offer a small selection of portraits for you, of some of my favorite models.

When I can't figure out what to draw, either a still life or a self-portrait are always available subjects.  Lately, roses have been my thing to draw when "I got nuthin!"

So, today I went to Goodwill and found some very, very convincing fake roses.  Yellow and orange.  I live in Texas, where "The Yellow Rose of Texas" is a very familiar song.

The history of the song is quite fascinating.  It's been sung by everyone from Gene Autry to Elvis.  The lyrics have changed over the years.  "Oh, the yellow rose of Texas is the only gal I love, Her eyes are even bluer than Texas skies above... " (as sung by Elvis) or "her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew..." (as sung earlier by Gene Autry).

The earliest song lyrics date from 1853, found in Christy's Plantation Melodies, No. 2.  The singer is actually African-American (describing himself as a "darky"), and the girl is "yellow", as in mulatto, i.e. biracial. Today the song is "race neutral," altho, of course, in the United States, if no race is specified, we always assume the person is white.  

Perhaps the Yellow Rose in the song refers to the legendary biracial woman Emily West, who, the story goes, was captured by Santa Anna as a "spoil of war" and distracted him from the Battle of San Jacinto.  April 21st, 1836. Which battle the Texicans won, thus gaining independence from Mexico for their nation. Probably never happened, but people do like a good story.

On an entirely different note, here in Austin, Texas, we have a strip club called the Yellow Rose, which advertises itself as "the best strip club in Austin."  So, what began as a love song, a man singing about the sweet girl he misses so much and longs to see -- becomes an unofficial State song (no one, and I mean no one, knows the lyrics to "Texas, Our Texas") and also  becomes the name of a sleazy club where men go to enjoy lap dances with women who despise them.  What a strange world!