Drink your Nehi and eat your Coney Island! (Round Things, No. 3)

With the Academy Awards being held this weekend, it is only fitting that I found the inspiration for my latest drawing alongside an Oscar-winning performance.

I was in search of  another "classic" object for my "round things" series. A bottle cap seemed to be just the thing as they have such cool graphics—but which one should I draw? Nothing red, as I already have the peppermint in the series. Nothing Pepsi or Coke: too corporate. Then I remembered this little gem of a scene from "Paper Moon" (1973) in which a bottle of soda stars front-and-center (along with Tatum O'Neal, the youngest Oscar winner in history) and practically shouts "middle America":

I went onto eBay and had a blast strolling down Bottle-Cap Memory Lane. I purchased a bag of 20 different vintage, cork-lined, orange soda bottle caps for $6, and I was in business: 

I always like the look of the unfinshed pieces.

So, what do you think? 

So, what's next for my series of "round things"?
I have a peppermint, a button and this bottle cap.

Give me your suggestions in the comments below. 

(One caveat: they should be "flat" round, not spherical round...)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Nudes and Windows

The artist who hosts our weekly life-drawing meet-up moved to a new studio at the beginning of the year. The space has really high ceilings with a north wall that is is home to this fascinating composition of windows—some new, some old. 

I was immediately taken in by this hodgepodge of rectangles—with the blue sky that day, they looked like a group of painted canvasses hung together. I started to wonder how they would change, so I started taking a photo each week. 

The photos gave me a reference that I used to draw a layout and make a bunch of little 6 x 9 "blanks" that I can fill in with color each week. I've just now done this first drawing (from the photo I took); once I figure out my palette (and get a little faster at drawing sky), I'm hoping to skip the photos and just do the sketch during our breaks. 

I am not entirely sure that the white paper works, as I wanted very faint—if any—outlines of each window. Would it work better using a medium grey drawing paper? I might have to try that.

Wouldn't it be fun to hang them all up together at the end of the year—all 50 or so of them!? I must warn you: my track record with long-term series projects is that they usually become very short-term series projects, but I'm really into this one. One down, fifty or so to go!!