Nude Girl Drawings by a Blue Ridge Parkway Artist and You can't make Brownies with Donuts!

Nude Girl Drawings by a Blue Ridge Parkway Artist

I am still showing my artistic nude drawings and will be for a while.  I am anxious to get back to my other work but I wanted to share these for a while.  I am proud of the craftmanship and expression I achieve in these works.

There are so many mediums to use to make intensely expressive drawings.  Conte crayons are a favorite medium but I think my favorite will always be charcoal.  I especially like the charcoal blocks to get deep blacks and complicated textures. 

Color is the most important part of my work so when I work in black and white or one color I like to have a wide range of values.  Black and white drawings with a wide range of grays are like color to me.

Model Life   Original 18"x24" Charcoal Drawing       $894

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

In this drawing, instead of inanimate objects on a table, there is a beautiful model.  I am especially pleased with the use of space in this one.

Stretch   Original 24"x18" Charcoal Drawing       $894

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

In Stretch I succeeded in getting a strong sense of volume with a minimum amount of lines and marks.  You really feel the figure stretching out in this drawing!

 

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

I have never been good at sleeping.  I have a hard time settling down and I tend to work so hard during the day that I am often sore when I go to bed.  It usually takes me a long time to get to sleep while my husband drops right off.

I have a lot of very strange dreams.  I think I remember so many of them because I don't sleep soundly and wake up a lot.

Last night I had one about brownies.  I dreamed that I didn't have any flour but I did have some sugar coated donuts so I decided to use them!  The dream ended before the taste test so we will never know.  I think I will go make some brownies!

Nude Girl Drawings, Blue Ridge Parkway Artist, and Do you Mind?

Nude Girl Drawings by a Blue Ridge Parkway Artist

  Here are some more of my Beautiful Nudes.  As I have mentioned before, one of my Beautiful Nudes, "Reaching Out", was selected out of over 3 million works of art on Fine Art America to be on The Mindy Project.  

The show has been renewed for a third season!

 Dreaming   Original Mixed Media 24"x18" Drawing    $894

Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

In this one the languid pose says it all.  I took care to apply the charcoal and conte crayon in a flowing manner that echoes the mood of the model. 

I will never forget what my mother said to me when I was a teenager and had just done something stupid.  She yelled that I lived in a dream world. 

Until that moment I had never realized that.  She was right and it is a great place to be!

 Dreaming   Original Mixed Media 24"x18" Drawing    $894

Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

In this one the hat on a nude model is fun and whimsical!  The bars of the chair make it appear as if the model is purposely hiding and in her own world.  

The energetic shadow has a foreboding quality that makes for a great visual accent.

 

 

 Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

I hope this will be the last of the ant chronicles for this summer.  The troops have slowed down.  They aren't marching in formation or sitting around the poison drops in a perfect circle.

Now I mostly see them peeking out from behind objects on the counter.  The other day a bunch of them were criss-crossing on one of the counters.  Since they were moving in a random fashion I decided I could put peanut butter on a cracker with out moving to the other side of the kitchen.

As soon as I got the cracker out one of them made a bee line for it!  I yelled, "Do you mind?"  

This is my cracker!  Move on!  It did and I finished making the crackers.  The nerve of these ants!

The Great Smoky Mountains near The Blue Ridge Parkway and The Mindy Project is on Tonight!

My artwork

The Great Smoky Mountains     Original Painting has been sold

Prints on paper or canvas available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Another great range mountain range in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains is The Great Smoky mountains.  This is another region my husband, Clyde Kessler, researches for birds and butterflies.  

The national park is an extremely popular park.

It was established in 1934 and is the largest national park East of the Rocky Mountains and receives 9-10 million visitors a year.  The park is home to 4000 plant species, 140 tree species and around 1600 black bears.

It is known as the salamander capital of the world with 30 species.

I got this information from 75 facts about the Great Smoky National Park printed in the online publication, Escape to the Smokies.

Shadows on a Ridge Near Rocky Knob           Original Oil Painting     

30"x40"     $2425.00

Prints on paper or canvas available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Life with the Bird and Word Man - Clyde Kessler

Shadow on a Ridge Near Rocky Knob is another favorite painting from the Rock Castle Gorge section of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I have more paintings from this area of the Blue Ridge Parkway than any other location.  This is where my husband does most of his bird and butterfly research.

He is a well-known naturalist in The New River Valley and has led countless nature hikes in his beautiful home region.

The Mindy Project is Back on The Air!

I am so pleased The Mindy Project is back on TV with a new episode tonight at 9:30pm on FoxTV!

Reaching Out    Original charcoal drawing on paper in white mat        $894.00

Prints on paper or canvas available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Be sure to look for my best-selling print, "Reaching Out", which was chosen out of over 3 million works of art on Fine Art America to be on the show!  It is in Mindy's office and there have been many shots of it last season and this season!

More on the Beautiful Peaks of Otter on The Blue Ridge Parkway and It Flies!

Distant View of The Peaks of Otter    12"x 16" original oil painting    

Professionally framed         $484.00

Print on paper or Canvas available at        KENDALL KESSLER ART

My Artwork

As usual I have had a rough start with Wordpress due to the fact that I am somewhat computer challenged.  Oftentimes they don't make sense to me and I get confused over how different sites are set up.  

I started with a post on The Peaks of Otter and thought I had published two but now I see the second one is still a draft so here I go again.

Also, if anyone reading this can tell me how to take my posts out of Peaks of Otter category which is listed on all of them in my posts section, please do!  I'm not sure how that happened but I don't want The Peaks of Otter to be the category selection for all my posts.

Deer at The Peaks of Otter     Original Oil Painting     30'x 40"      $2425.00

Prints on Paper or Canvas available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Farm Pond   Original Oil Painting has been sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Life with the Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

My husband works on a computer all day long and is much better at understanding them than I am .  We have a wireless mouse at home which drives us crazy!  We regret switching from the attached mouse.  

Ours is one rotten little rodent!

Lately it was moving so slow that it took forever to get things done on my website and other sites.  My husband opened it and spent a long time cleaning it.   I thanked him and told him my mouse has wings now!  He said, with a frown, that is a bat.  Oh well.  I will take a bat over that slow rodent any day!

The Mindy Project is Back on The Air!

I am so pleased The Mindy Project is back on TV with a new episode this Tuesday at 9:30pm on FoxTV!

Be sure to look for my best-selling print, "Reaching Out", which was chosen out of over 3 million works of art on Fine Art America to be on the show!  It is in Mindy's office and there have been many shots of it last season and this season!

Reaching Out     Original charcoal drawing      24"x18" on white paper in white mat          $894.00

Prints on paper or canvas available at     KENDALL KESSLER ART

Revising a Nude Drawing and He Works for Potato Chips...

When I was a kid I often heard about how artists often return to work long after it was done.  That seemed so strange to me at the time.  I couldn't imagine working on a painting years later but now I understand why this happens.  Sometimes I figure out what what was wrong with an earlier painting or drawing long after I cried uncle.  Artists continue to learn more about their work as it becomes more complex and then earlier works seem so much easier to deal with.  Right now I am revising a charcoal nude drawing I did many years ago and like the effect I am getting.

When I was dating there was one comment I consistently heard from boys that made me uncomfortable.  They said I didn't talk very much.  One boy said other girls talked his ear off but I was so quiet.  I know I wasn't a big talker but I did think I talked when I had something to say.  I am painfully shy so I have to put on an act when I am around people to keep up my end of the conversation.  The effort grinds my stomach so I am perfectly happy alone in my studio or with my family.  When I started this blog I wasn't sure how I would be able to think of much to say so I decided I would have to be creative which is why I try to include something funny.  Sometimes I come up with something but I rely on the poet I married and the great thing is I don't have to pay him!  He works for potato chips!  As long as I keep potato chips in the house he tries to come up with something for me!  He didn't have anything for me today so I better go and check the supply.

Looking forward to seeing my most popular print, "Reaching Out", on The Mindy Project.  I saw an  advertisement for the show yesterday.  Hope it is a hit!

Technology is Getting me Down and It is not Going to be Pretty

Yesterday morning I spilled coffee all over my off white rug.  I should have gotten back into bed at that point.  The next thing that went wrong was my DVD box remote.  I don't watch much TV but I like to watch small sections of movies for breaks during the day.  The remote wouldn't work and I don't have time to sit down and watch the whole thing so that was the end of that.  Then the real fiasco that matters big time.  I was working on correcting a photograph of a painting on Aperture and a small light came on and the computer froze.  Now I can't import anything or crop anything that I have on there.  This is a big problem for me as I am one of the artists on FAA that occasionally has image problems that need to be corrected before the print can be sold.  I hope someone can help me tomorrow.

TECHNOLOGY IS REALLY GETTING ME DOWN!!!  If they ever computerize closets and bathrooms there will probably be a naked old woman looking for a bush and at my age that won't be pretty.  The image certainly won't be like the girls in my Beautiful Nudes folder.  I just hope the computer geeks lay off the bathroom and the closets.

On a brighter note my paintings are coming along and I think I have achieved more complex surfaces than ever before. The colors are like jewels and the experience of working on them is wonderful.

Sold Another Print of Reaching Out and While I was Still in the Driveway...

Be sure to check out two more additions to my Beautiful Nudes Gallery. I am especially pleased with the linear accents and value contrast of these two works. My charcoal nude drawing, "Reaching Out" is now my best seller for print sales on Fine Art America. One was sold Sunday to a great patron in California. I am so pleased with the public's response to my nude drawings and all the great comments I am getting from my peers!

A few days ago my husband noticed that one of his co-workers looked extremely tired and down. He asked her if she was all right and she said she was so tired she just wished she could go home. My husband said that's nothing, he wanted to go home before he was out of our driveway. I think we need to win that lottery but I don't think we will be struck fourteen times in one day which I am told are the odds of winning it. In the past my husband has made jokes about things that came true- things we didn't want to come true so now he is making jokes about the Lottery. Maybe it only works on things we don't want. Oh well! All anyone really has is a limited amount of time. I try to live it to the fullest. I am so glad I am an artist!

Be sure to check out my Limited Time Specials on Fine Art America.
http://kendall-kessler.fineartamerica.com/

It Can Not Be the Nude Drawings this Time and Just in Case...

A while back I posted a blog regarding my nude drawings. One of the charcoal drawings in my Beautiful Nude Series is selling as well as my mountain and ocean scenes. I put the same blog on Fine Art America as I do on Blogger.com and that day I received an unusually high number of hits on Blogger.com It didn't occur to me until a few days later that the reason for the activity may have been the nude theme. My hits went back to normal until today when I received a large number of hits and this time the blog had nothing to do with nude drawings so I am pleased that I am getting more attention. Blogging doesn't come easy to us painfully shy people but I am working at it.

The other day my husband was working on something with the TV on and thought he heard the name Justin Case. He couldn't believe anyone with the surname Case would give their son the name Justin. That is certainly one name to avoid in this case - pun intended. It turns out the name was Dustin Caseguard. That certainly makes more sense. I will never forget a friend in college whose last name was Swift. He told everyone his middle name was Natu. You have to have a sense of humor to go by Not too Swift. I always tell people that have trouble getting my name right that it is just like the motor oil. My mother swears that Kendall Motor Oil was not around when I was named.

Sold Another Charcoal Nude Print and Staggering Medical Costs...

I am so pleased to sell another large print of "Reaching Out" which is my most popular nude from my Beautiful Nude series. This one went to a great patron in Australia. I have not uploaded all of my nude drawings but will do so as time permits. I am glad they are so well received and I hope to sell many more prints as well as originals. So far I haven't sold any prints of my pastel nudes which have the added exciting element of color. I am very proud of the intense expression in all of my drawings and paintings.

Every once in a while there is a health commercial of some sort that reminds us all of staggering medical costs. My husband said he wishes his medical costs would stagger, roll over and die. Now there's a great thought!

Be sure to check out my Limited Time Promotions on three of my paintings! Large canvas prints at 40% off!

All Those God Fearing People and The Real Challenge...

I am still getting a ridiculous number of scammers on my Craigslist postings. There are so many different addresses but I wonder if they really only come from a few crooks that prey on gullible people. It is sad to think that people fall for the bogus check-I'll send the shipper scam. Some of them want to pay me extra to take the advert off. I guess that way they won't hit the same listing with their scam. Anyway, all I know is there are a lot of God Fearing People on the internet that want to steal my money. They always make that part clear. They are God Fearing People so I should take them seriously.

The most recent commercial on Hover Rounds asks viewers is they have a lot of physical challenges. When they ask if getting to the kitchen is a challenge my husband says getting out of the kitchen is the real challenge. Considering the obesity problem in this country I think he has something there.


Be sure to check out my Limited Time Promotions on Fine Art America.

Sale of Beautiful Nude and NBC?

Yesterday a great patron in North Carolina bought a framed print of one of my beautiful nudes. "Reaching Out" is an intense charcoal study of a model that looks like she is trying to reach beyond the picture plane. The light effect and flowing marks are especially strong in this one. I am so pleased that I am selling prints of these nudes and getting wonderful comments from other artists. As I have said before, the ability to draw the nude so that it looks alive and not just a combination of detail is part of the discipline of a good artist. I hope to sell many more of these drawings that are so important to me.

I am still suffering from piriformis and am wondering how long this will last. I am using a heating pad which helps but I still can't work on my portfolio update. I am too sore to drag my heavy easel out doors to photograph artwork. I am really getting tired of this pain in the butt. I told my husband I need a new butt and where can I get one. He said, "I don't know, maybe NBC - New Butt Club". Not sure how that works as humor but it made me laugh.