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studiodialex

@studiodialex

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Artist & Educator ✍️
Figure Drawing Classes • Mentorships • Commissions
📍 New Delhi 🇮🇳
By @alexlivans

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We woke up early and walked to the nearest breakfast place. We queued for around thirty minutes, and while we waited I found myself staring at the steamed egg pudding displayed in the window. Once inside, the bustling energy of the place completely overtook me. Australia Dairy Company, the sign read. After ordering, I spent a good ten minutes looking up why a café like this existed in Hong Kong. My partner and I ended up discussing the deep and layered history of the city.
We had an egg sandwich and the custard, paired with a strong black coffee and milk tea. I am always cautious when taking pictures in restaurants, careful not to make people uncomfortable. It is for the sake of art, I told myself.

This piece was very difficult to work on, and despite its small size it took me over a month to complete. The challenge was that it demanded complete control of values and contrast in order to capture the atmosphere of the restaurant while still maintaining a clear focus. I had to invent, or rather fine tune, the composition of the three women in the foreground, but I am very happy with the final result.

I deviated slightly from my usual palette of vermilion and ochre, as I felt the blue and citrus yellow of the signage and ideograms were paramount to conveying the industrial direction of the interior design. Creating facial details as well as the traditional ideograms in the background was also challenging. I have been learning Japanese, but my calligraphy practice is usually done with ink rather than oil pastels. Nonetheless, this became one of the most enjoyable parts of the piece.

I feel that urban spaces often carry a kind of mist over them, a certain vibration. As someone who also loves cooking, that restaurant buzz feels truly unique to me, and I believe that is what ultimately drew me to this piece.

#hongkong
#travelart
#foodart
#fineart
#oilpastels taken in Hong Kong by @studiodialex

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8 months ago

Hey people! So, in June I was part of Depot48’s amazing Pride fair. I waited to make a post about it and it turned out for the best because another one is coming up this November for Diwali! Also, a reminder that I am launching my website, where the originals and prints you saw will be available!

I think the most beautiful thing about a Pride fair is getting to meet so many diverse people. Growing up, I never thought I would enjoy showing my work and talking about it, it was my safe space. I was very introverted and shy and I considered drawing or music a very secluded process. But the more I grow, the more I feel like I want to express myself more, and talking about the way I view art helps a lot.

I met some new people, chatted about my workshops, classes and creative process. Sometimes I forget that people may have had similar experiences to me, growing up queer. So it is heartwarming to see so many people gathered together, being themselves and enjoying art, design, and some drinks.

I cherish that I could be part of this and am super excited for the next one! This would not happen without the people at Depot48, and I am so thankful I could be part of it. If you are in Delhi in November, see you on the next one 🫂

#depot48 #artfair #fineart #queerart #pridefair taken in DEPOT 48 by @studiodialex

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13 days ago

We had a new model and a full house on Sunday. I took out some additional chairs and materials. I was worried about the possibility of rain because the monsoons have been pouring down on us lately. Paper and moisture do not like each other very much. But that proved to be only half right this time around, for when it came to ink, they seemed to complement each other very well.

Some of our attendees showed an interest in ink drawing. I had my personal material case out to get people inspired to try something new. My Japanese brush pen seemed to be quite popular. Ink is so dark and dense that it can stain paper and clothes, but on this rough, toned paper it allowed a certain softness that I found quite interesting.

I have been dabbling in ink drawings lately myself, inspired by illustrations of Doré. He illustrated Dante’s Inferno and scenes from the Bible. Illustration and art are a way to visualise stories in a way that no other medium can achieve. Movies allow for a more specific interpretation, but illustrations have a sort of gestural quality to them. The less precise they are, the more of a universal truth they convey. They take on a timeless quality.

But to stand out as an artist, you also have to put a little bit of yourself into everything you do. To practise art seems to mean struggling with contradictions along a path other artists have trodden before, with conflicting signs about how to arrive at your destination. But such is also the charm of this profession, as it provides a certain freedom unlike any other. That is why I push people to try as many media as possible, to unlock gestures they did not realise they had before. I think gesture drawing allows for that, with its low risk but high engagement.

To close, I will point out three tips for artists that I wrote down after our session. Prioritise simple shapes, then move on to details. Use negative space as a way to pin down your composition; do not rely only on the silhouette for that. And the most common thing I notice in these workshops is people grasping the pencil as if it were a writing pen. A wider angle, allowing for thicker lines, is optimal.

#ArtWorkshop #LifeDrawing #gesturedrawing taken in New Delhi by @studiodialex

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a month ago

"On Fabric And Form"

Another session went by this Sunday, more focused this time on fabric and how it interacts with the human form. The light was particularly beautiful today and blessed us with some natural values.

I feel like people struggle a lot with fabric and feel intimidated by its complexity, but fabric really is a form adapting to whatever it covers, with tension points pulling and turning around the form. It is malleable like the human character.

I completely emptied the space this time, leaving only the table with supplies and snacks. I focused a lot on feedback drawings and making sure our newcomers felt they could ask any question they wanted. We also tried a long pose of 45 minutes, which lasted a bit longer because I needed to sneak in a drawing for my own sake as well. Still, I felt it wasn’t enough.

I feel blessed that people show up every time, and I hope they feel like they get to learn something, because what I enjoy most is sharing what I’ve learned through my struggles as an artist.

I think life can’t get much better than some gesture drawing, coffee, and cookies. I feel very blessed every time I look at the drawings everyone made. It reminds me that with the right anchor points and tension, we can create beautiful thing, both in art and life.

Looking forward to the next one.

#artist #drawing #figuredrawing #lifedrawing #art taken in New Delhi by @studiodialex

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6 days ago

I first saw this piece in Glyptoteket in Copenhagen, Denmark. My friend Aggelos came from Sweden so we could go and draw live at the National Sculpture Museum. I did a sketch of it back then, but as we continued our tour, I kept thinking about this piece again and again.

A bust of Greco-Roman origins, the waist is twisting and its limbs are missing, just like the sculpture of Nike and the Aphrodite of Milos. I always wonder when I see pieces like this: how did they look originally? Were they reaching above? Were they grabbing something on their side? These questions float in my head. I wonder about their past.

I seem to be obsessed with it, wanting to revisit not only the past of this world but also my own. I made many sketches of this and many studies, and when I moved into colour, I had to include Indian red for the cooler reds. It was impossible to work with vermilion alone. And the whites in this piece are anything but white, and that is the beauty of it and the trick of the eye.

I revisit and I ponder, and the more I do, the more I feel trapped in a past I cannot escape. And I want to move forward, but I feel I am always judging the steps I have taken. The past can be beautiful, but it is also fragmented and distorted, and I will never view it the way I first experienced it. It is an untrustworthy narrator of my life, because it can never truly tell me if I was reaching for the stars or grasping at something at my side.

Original and Limited Edition Prints available on my website: studiodialex.com ✍️

#glyptoteket #grecoromanart #oilpastels #copenhagen #denmark taken in New Delhi by @studiodialex

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12 days ago

Today, the words are not pouring out of me easily. If I were a forest, its earth would be as dry as a handful of sand. Some days I feel like a tropical landscape, where any seed can grow effortlessly, where ideas spread their roots to the center of the earth. Little buds push upwards, reaching into the sky, growing into elegant trees. The shade of their leaves covers the rays of the sun, and in the shadows beside the bark, mushrooms grow and lizards take shelter from the heat.

But on days like today, I prefer to look back on my work and ponder what I find pleasant about it, to see if I can find a seed worth planting in the future. I think being an artist means you have to draw as much as you have to reflect. And maybe it is okay that today is a day dedicated to that.

#sketchbook #fineart #drawing #graphitedrawingً #portraits taken in New Delhi by @studiodialex

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16 days ago

On Drawing Part 2

A stormy and foreboding cloud hid the sun, and against the forest leaves, the sculpture returned to a flat grey value. Like a dryad it became one with the trees surrounding it. Everything changes, he noticed the green patina that bronze develops with age, he'd seen before, on the little mermaid, down by the harbor. At that moment, a small company of people passed by the road. One of them was wearing a blue neon jumper. The ground was even more flattened by the passing joggers. It had also developed a character of its own, it seemed, had become hardened and bleached pale by the sun. Drops of rain started falling down through the settling dust. He cursed, closed the sketchbook, and ran for shelter. He was disappointed he couldn't complete the sculpture, maybe he would never return here again. There were many drawings like these in his travel sketchbooks, portraits of passengers, wooden temples, stir fried noodles, all seemingly unfinished. It seemed these fleeting impressions were destined to remain imperfect. He was convinced there was something to be gained from them. Every time he flipped through the pages, a small glimpse of emotion from the time he made those sketches returned to him. Likewise, in the future, when he would have forgotten this sketch, he would encounter this impression and remember that guy's blue jacket, the rough texture of weathered bronze, and the smell of rain watering the sand and rising to his nostrils. Until then, this memory would completely disappear from his mind and consciousness, like the sun clouded by the coming storm.

#denmark #sketchbook #thelittlemermaid #drawing #fineart taken in New Delhi by @studiodialex

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20 days ago

On Drawing Part A

He drew a line, then put the pencil on his lips. Did he start all wrong? The measurements already seemed off before he began. For a moment, the sunrays escaped the grey Danish spring clouds, shone upon the sculpture in front of him, and floated invisibly into his brown eyes. A newborn rim light caressed the crown of the maiden; he started blocking in the shapes.

He felt quite awkward drawing in the wild. It had a risk, the risk of being judged by strangers. The crime was looking at things that others do not even give a second glance at. A brown paper cup, a rusty door handle, a scrambled receipt, contorted quickly into a jagged shape by the baristas when the customers refuse to take it. To him, these looked the same as the sculpture in front of him. The shoulders now took form. To acknowledge that was to be a great artist, he protested!

It was mostly himself he was always arguing against, an invisible voice, correcting him when he stood with his shoulders crouched or spoke rashly before others. He viewed fabric folds with the same reverence as muscles on a toned back. The sculpture's scapula now was shaded...

#sketchbooks #drawings #livedrawing #fineart #gesturedrawing taken in New Delhi by @studiodialex

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25 days ago

On Portraiture, Part 2

Sometimes I feel time slipping away, and I have the sense that I have forgotten something, and that something is the most important thing in the world, the secret to life itself. I try to express it, but my thoughts are the stuff of undefined grandeur, yet my words are the stuff of dull reality. But when I draw, I feel I don't have to define everything that comes out of my head, mold it with vocabulary and syntax, it can remain an idea. Drawing is where ideas meet language, but it is a language that allows you to peer into the eye of the world. And the world always knows if you are wearing your mask or not.

I draw to become a witness to my own life and a journalist of sorts of the lives of others, for I truly feel we must be connected somehow. I become an outside observer of this play we all participate in. I flip these pages and I remember the episodes of my life, but with everyone else, I cannot be certain of which episode of their life they were in. Maybe I draw because I think we all possess a part of a puzzle that only makes sense when we put it together. Maybe a portrait of the very thing I feel I have forgotten. It comes to me when I dream, but it slithers away in the morning light, like wet sand through my fingers. But I endure, for I am not content with the feeble light those masks allow to enter my eyes.

#portraits #fineart #sketchbook #drawing #atelier taken in New Delhi by @studiodialex

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a month ago

On Portraiture, Part 1.

I think about people a lot, how they move, how they behave, how their expressions change after they turn around to greet you. Their shape, but also that which resides inwardly, their essence. How their emotions crease their skin, the way a hand folds a fabric. The lips move to create words, and the shoulders lift to show surprise or disinterest. Is the face we put on in the morning like a piece of clothing? Like a mask? Is there a closet full of these masks, each for a different occasion? I imagine it should be a wooden mask, sleek and designed on the outside but rough and crude on the inside. So unnatural to the face that it scratches the cheeks until they bleed if you have it on for too long.

I want to draw people before they place it upon their face, before the splinters dig into the skin. Waiting at the bus stop, reading a book, drinking a coffee on the side of the road before work. Why are they looking down, someone asks me when I show them what I am drawing, as if a portrait should only be someone looking at you. It is a dangerous thing to look at another person, to peer into the window of the soul.
#fineart #sketchbook #drawing #portrait by @studiodialex

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a month ago

Sketchbook and Thoughts Dump Again 🏺

I am probably eating what is my tenth bougatsa pastry, at a café next to our hotel in Koukaki. While sketching the tourist sitting in front of me, nostalgia, the pain of longing stings my brain. I am also like that, a tourist, a stranger, exploring these streets as someone whose home is elsewhere. I am longing, not for what life was, but for what life could have been.

I met a lot of old friends these days, some I haven't seen for over a decade. One laughs, “You are just as I remember you, always with a sketchbook in hand.” The other admits, “It doesn't feel like you have been away for so long.” But I have, I whisper to myself. From this place and from my dreams.

Since I was young I wanted to become a comic artist. And now? Who knows. I only know that the more I sketch, the more like myself I feel. There was a comic store down the road, they sold Milo Manara's Gulliveriana. I know all the panels by heart. I kept it hidden in my childhood bedroom's closet. I guess I kept a lot of things there, my video games, my school books, even parts of myself. I want to buy comics in Greek, I can't find them anywhere else.

Later I visit the Acropolis and its museum, with my husband, I never saw it when I lived in Greece. The ruins are waiting for me there still, it is like they never left. Amphorae, kylikes, lekythoi, I am considering their round shapes and handles. We stroll down the area with the korai, along with some painted marble samples, showing colours they were possibly adorned with originally. Now bleached by the sun and weathered by the rain, they appear, a comfortable warm white. I am certain that time, like the elements of nature, has eroded my memories into a cream white mosaic of feelings.

I feel the need to gift myself something, like Athena gifted the olive tree to the Athenians. I want that tree to grow strong, heavy with the gifts of the earth. To honour it, I will build a temple, not of alabaster but decorated, where I can rest my buzzing head in peace. Lately I feel, that for every page I draw, a column to support its roof is built.

#UrbanSketchers
#AthensGreece
#SketchbookJourney
#GreekArt
#TravelSketch taken in Koukaki, Athens by @studiodialex

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3 months ago

Sketchbook and Thoughts Dump. 🗝

Every day, every moment, I think of shapes, ideas, and words I read in greek books years ago. I draw, sketch, and wonder whether a portrait is truly always a portrait of the artist.

I want to write a book about live drawing and maybe painting, but everything inside me seems to go against that. I fear that if I open the cap, everything will come flooding out.

What makes a tree a tree? Its bark, branches, leaves?And what makes a person a person? How do I depict that? Their face, their stature, their limbs?

I am eating dishes with lots of garlic and oreganoI haven't had in many years, and I am tasked with facing misshapen resurfacing emotions I thought I'd buried a long time ago.

I am walking down Fokionos Negri, sweat on my back, there where the backpack touches it, and I remember that crossroads from years ago. I used to cross it every day. I had completely forgotten about it. Where was that memory held, I wonder, in the palace of my mind?

#Sketchbook
#ArtistThoughts
#CreativeProcess
#Drawing
#ContemporaryArt taken in Athens, Greece by @studiodialex

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3 months ago