Brett, 16x24 Charcoal Figure Drawing

NFS

Once a month I participate in the Stephen Perkins workshop at the Artists' Guild in Melbourne, Florida. I need to do life drawing at least weekly, but I just can't squeeze it into my schedule. I need to do better, because it is available both at the Guild and at Ralph's Art Supply in Eau Gallie. If you can draw people, you can draw anything. I should spend a year of my life drawing and painting people from life. Yep, that's what I should do. 

The wonderful artist Karin Jurick painted 200 mug shots, an impressive body of work. The colors, the brushwork, the expressions--every time I saw a face I wondered what the person's story was. Karin captured defiance, sadness, hopelessness and other raw emotions on her small canvases in a very dramatic way.

Harry T. and Harriette Moore, 13 x 17 Charcoal Drawing

Harry T. and Harriette Moore were two courageous pioneers of civil rights in the 1950s, championing equal pay for Black teachers, organizing the Black vote, and publicly condemning racist attitudes and actions of local, state and national officials. The Moores were killed when their home was bombed on Christmas Day in 1951 by lowlife culprits who were never brought to justice. 

Hard to believe that I was a child then, lived not all that far away, and was completely unaware of what monsters were loose in Florida. I constantly get those emails full of nostalgia about how great the 50s were, but they were not great for everyone. This is my little homage to two of the first Civil Rights martyrs.