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     This past week brought news of the passing of Ned Jacob at the age of 86. He was one of the most gifted artists I've had the good fortune to cross paths with and a legend among his peers. My intention here isn't to summarize his life or present a eulogy but links are posted at the bottom of the page for anyone who wants to learn more about his remarkable life and view his incredible body of work.

     Although I had been familiar with his artwork for a number of years, we first met when I signed up for a figure drawing and painting workshop at the former Branham Ranch near Taos. In this blog I hope to give those who might wonder what that experience was like a glimpse into his philosophy and highlight some of the influence his teaching has had on my own work. As best as I can recall, this workshop would have taken place around 35 years ago so the details are a bit fuzzy now but I feel like much of the substance of what I gained is still present in my artwork to this day.

     In the workshop, half of the day was spent painting figures and half doing quick gesture drawings --- under both indoor and outdoor lighting. This is one of the figure studies I kept and probably represents a few hours of work -- just going for the big spots of color. Due to some degree of color blindness, Ned worked with a tightly controlled palette employing far fewer pigments than I was used to in my still life paintings. The range of colors did serve well for a variety of subject matter, but for someone who enjoys depicting the vivid chroma of flowers it took some getting used to. As I remember, the palette he had us work with was a pretty basic set of primary pigments plus orange --- fairly limited but a great exercise in color mixing. 

     For the oil study above I can still recall this model's sweater was the most vivid turquoise you can imagine -- pretty much Viridian right out of the tube with some white mixed in --- except there was no Viridian on his list of colors and I didn't dare sneak any in. The full chroma Viridian might have pulled attention away from the face and figure though so this more neutral note may very well have worked as well or better in this situation. I don't recall what combination of pigments I ended up using but it looks like mostly Ultramarine Blue with some white, yellow and maybe a touch of orange mixed in. Ned was encouraging about what I did with this study and particularly commented on the model's right hand (to the left in this image), telling me not to go back in and mess with that area.

      As for the drawing part of the workshop that was a pretty intense half day. At least part of the time we were set up outdoors with the model in full sunlight and I don't believe any of the poses were even as long as five minutes. Most of them were 2 or 3 minutes long if my memory serves me right. It was simply practicing catching the gesture over and over, hour after hour. This was what I really got hooked on though and to this day I much prefer trying to capture shorter, more interesting and dynamic poses even though most figure drawing groups consider anything 5 minutes or less to be merely warm-ups. Below are a few examples that probably weren't specifically done in that workshop but in the same spirit of what we were working toward. The idea was that capturing the gesture was everything, and that no amount of detail or tweaking could pull you out if the flow of the model's movement wasn't already there to begin with. Conversely, if the gesture had been captured well, it was surprising how little else was necessary.

    Working on these gesture drawings was so rewarding that a group of fellow artists from Taos who attended the workshop decided we would meet once a week , all day long just to do figure drawings. Somehow that usually ended being in my studio but we managed to keep it going for almost a decade. The influence from this workshop however is timeless -- develop the discipline and instincts to simplify and go for the essence of the subject right away.

    I feel very fortunate to have known a handful of people in the art business who didn't just talk the talk, but walked the walk, and Ned was one of those. His passion for art and love of working from life is both an example and a lesson that I hope will stay with me always.

Marla Brenner put together a terrific online presentation which can be viewed once again through October 2025. If you haven't seen it yet, you should definitely check it out while the opportunity is still available. It's well worth a revisit too!

Ned Jacob, Drawing Inspiration from the World

Sacred Paint -- Ned Jacob  by Sandra Dallas 1979.  ISBN 10: 0913504505 ; ISBN 13: 9780913504505   Publisher: Fenn Galleries, Santa Fe

Obituary -- https://everloved.com/life-of/edmund-jacob/