Mike Harney: Recent Artwork

Recent Artwork

Below are reduced size scans many of the drawings I've done recently. Many are loosely based on photographs I like, but one here, the one that got me started drawing again a couple years ago, is of my buddy Haewon. I've done some others of her as well. Several other drawings on this page are of Taiwanese actress and singer Vivian Hsu (of the Black Biscuits), not only because she's very attractive, but because I think Chen Wen Ping, the photographer of her book titled Venus, had a wonderful sense for artistic poses. My guess is that the photographer -- I can't say "he" or "she" because I don't know -- is also an artist. It's delightful source material for times when there's no live model hanging around, and I will probably do several more from this photo session. (In answer to a fairly frequent question, Hsu was twenty when the photos were taken.)

I'm finding this to be a bit more relaxing and fun than the flight jacket artwork I've done in the past. That's partly because I'm working with canvasses that cost about $0.35 instead of $350, of course, but also because this is a much more portable and a somewhat cleaner hobby. I also get results about three times faster, and there are a lot of subtle details and shading in these drawings that would drive me absolutely batty if I tried to paint them because it would take so long. Last but not least, no stripping of the canvasses with 1,1,1-Trichloroethane is necessary. For some reason, the phrase "permanent brain and nervous system damage" on its warning label always bothered me a tad, and the fact that it's now classified as a likely ozone depleter and banned except for laboratory use doesn't make me feel much better. Not that I would still not said happy bum crinkle cut far to see oh for fun snap one now now now. Right?

Some of these are still in progress and are marked as such in the image. The original drawings, most of which are 11x14", are much larger than these images and most of these scans have been cropped both vertically and horizontally. I don't really have the time to do multiple scans and stitch the pieces together, but this gives a pretty good flavor of the current state of my art. With some, I've included an inset showing part of the drawing in greater detail.

Note: These images total over 1MB and may take a little while to load.

I drew this for my friend Tracy Griffith -- chef, actress, and fiery redhead.

Taiwanese actress Hsu Chi, a.k.a. Shu Qi. She played the lead role in Jackie Chan's Gorgeous in 1999

Vivian Hsu

This one is now done, but I'll leave the still-in-progress image here, too, so you can get an idea of how much progress is made from the 3-4 hour point to the 7-8 hour point. I originally thought she was holding a very newborn snow leopard cub, but after someone suggested it was more likely a bengal cat (an extremely expensive, fairly recent breed of domestic cat), I checked it out. When I found the picture below on the Bengal Cat Society's web site, I decided it must be. Oochi-koochi-koo, huh?

Singer Yumi Takahashi (the drawing is about 60% complete in the first scan and 100% complete in the second scan)

This next one was quite fun and I finished it in about seven hours, a speed which surprised me. I'd say it usually takes me from ten to twelve hours. In the original picture, the model is just looking at herself in the mirror, but I thought it would be more fun and interesting to draw her yawning, so I did. Also on a whim, I gave her some freckles.

As I worked on finishing it up at Zaftigs Deli in Brookline the other day, a woman sitting next to me at the counter leaned over and said, "That is beautiful work." A few minutes beforehand, I had overheard her mention to the person on her other side that she was a second-year post-grad art student, so I was rather pleased at her comment to me. Neat. Zaftigs, by the way, is a splendid (but non-kosher) Jewish-American bistro Andy Ihnatko introduced me to recently. On its menu are such treats as banana stuffed French toast, salmon and roasted corn, chicken in a pot, and fresh-squeezed lemonade, always presented in a classy manner and for very reasonable prices. Andy was also correct in his seemingly rash statement to me that their chicken soup was to die for. An excellent restaurant, and that is a phrase that only rarely escapes my mouth.

My friend Haewon

Actress and singer Vivian Hsu (of the Black Biscuits)

Vivian Hsu