Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov 8x10 oil

In my early twenties, I read voraciously, and Vladimir Nabokov was one of my favorite writers during that period, along with Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and on and on.  I recall being stunned by his command of the language, especially since he was born in Russia and English was a second or third language for him.  He is best known for Lolita, though it branded him as something of a pedophile to the population at large, and the body of his work is quite different from that one novel.  Pnin, King Queen Knave, Pale Fire are other novels among the many he wrote over his 78 years.  If Wikipedia is to believed, he spent some time in Ashland, Oregon in 1953 (my old haunt) finishing Lolita and collecting butterflies in the countryside.  

He taught at a number of prestigious American universities, including Cornell, where Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a student and credited him with the development of her writing style.  He was a noted lepidopterist and was the curator of the Harvard butterfly collection at one time.  

Sketchbook portrait oil 8 x 10

Portrait Work

Recently I have done a few portrait sketches in the notebooks, and some of these have been self portraits, trying to work from life in order to hone the ability to get a likeness.  They weren't meant to be great paintings, and in fact I left them with plenty of defects and avoided the temptation to work them longer than the initial rushed hour.  I want to return to the subject with more careful approach soon, but for now, I am exploring different ways of finding the best way for me to get the proportions down quickly.

This one was done with ink pen and colored markers, and I found it interesting.  I may continue to work with this method on other subjects.

Above is the lay-in with raw umber, and below I continued to add a little color to flesh it out.

And finally, a small landscape sketch in order to prepare for the coming plein air outings that are just around the corner.