Percolating

So, here's the newest painting that I'm working on. It's based on a still life that I setup in my living room. I was thinking that it was finished, but decided to let it percolate over night.

Glad that I did. It's amazing how, when you let a painting sit (or anything for that matter) for a little bit, ignore it, then when you come back to it, you see it with fresh new eyes.

In this case, I realized that there are two minor mistakes that I need to fix. The first one is that the center of the bottle isn't rounded. With that dark spot in the middle, it actually looks a bit dippled. The other part that I noticed is that the dark edge of the bottle is too sharp. This is due to not havening enough reflected light on it. Therefore, the bottle portion becomes flattened.

These are easily fixed problems.

A developing appreciation of art

As I increase my skills as a painter and artist, it's a curious notion that I begin to study more of the traditional oil painting master's works and see how they approached problems.

In reality, I start to appreciate more of the classical style artwork as I get older. I don't know if this is due to age or due to my painting studies. Lately, I've become interested in the works of some fantastic artists (George Innes, Frank Mason, Frank Frazetta, and Anders Zorn).

Why do I like them? Let me count the ways. ;-)

First up: George Innes. The main reason that I love this painting is the treatment of the colors and the sunrise/sun set. In his paintings, you definitely get a sense of volume for the trees. The detail shows beautifully for the closer trees and the lost edges of the farther trees gives the painting a sense of distance.

In addition, there is enough detail in the landscape and trees to give you a sense of the area without giving away the entire picture. He does a great job letting your eyes/mind fill in a lot of what is actually there.

The second artist, Frank Mason, was the instructor of my instructor (Karen and Jack Winslow). In this seascape painting from Frank Mason, there is definitely "motion" that is present. Massing the water, rocks and clouds with additional highlights lets you concentrate on the way that the water moves, rather than any particular feature in the painting.

Even the clouds are rounded similar to the rocks. This provides a nice even flow to the painting.

The third artist is one that I've been following for years, Frank Frazetta. Ever since I saw his paintings on the cover of the Conan books and Molly Hatchet (yes, I DO like their music) album covers, I've been a fan of his.

For me, this is one of my favorite paintings. Besides the imagery, I love the way that he handles the lost edges of the warrior. Even though this scene doesn't exist, he does a fantastic job in making it believable. The contrasting colors of the background give a sense of distance without actually implying that there is a landscape there (possibly clouds, etc).

The final artist, Anders Zorn, was found while performing a random search of landscape painters. I love this painting. He does a fantastic job of creating a realistic scene that looks photographic, but is not. The subtleties of the distance peninsula, water and clouds creates fantastic distance. In addition, the contrast between the white of the woman's dress against the water immediately draws your eyes to the foreground.

Floundering

Floundering. We all know what it means and we all do it. I'm floundering.

Last night, I had every intention of working on a new painting. I toned my canvas and, while it was drying a bit (I added a bit of liquin to the tone so that it would dry quicker), I read one of my books on my iPad. After about an hour, rather than getting up and starting to work, I decided that I needed to work on some drawings. That wasn't going well, so, I started working on some compositions. That didn't work well, so I decided to watch some TV.

Floundering. Without a plan of attack, I just waste time and, eventually, always gets derailed when it gets difficult.

Time to get back to work. For my latest painting, I realized that, I had already done a smaller version of it and there was NOTHING wrong with that version. There's no reason to not do a finished piece of the painting. So, that's what I'm going to do.

As I thought more about "floundering", I've thought about this blog and my Facebook posts. I just post random things and pictures. There's no direction. There's no audience goal, etc. Floundering. What I need to ask myself: Why do I do it? What's the purpose?

I was talking to a friend and we were talking about her new website (that I'm helping her design). She told me what she wanted. I asked a basic question that I ask of myself when I'm working on a User-Interface at work: What is the primary goal of the interaction? What is her goal of the website. From there, we worked out possible designs (Yes, Denise... I'm still working out those ideas).

So, same with this Blog and Facebook. What is the goal? What do I hope to accomplish? Why do it?

More to come.

Portrait Studies: February 15, 2011

Last night's class was all about portrait studies. It was quite a bit of fun and working strictly with the conte pencils on pastel paper was a good way to practice.

I'll go more into the detail of the structure later, but there are some basic steps that we used to just evaluate the head. We first drew a basic oval to represent the overall structure of the head. From there, drawing the center line to get the angle and then marking off tick-marks to determine the location of the eyes, base of the nose and then the mouth (The next post will contain more detailed look at this structure). From there, we determined where the large planes were for the face and which parts were in light and which parts were in shadow. Then it's a matter of massing the shapes based on our underlying structure.

The nice part about using the basic structure technique is that you think more about how the face fits into the basic structure, than trying to measure each minute angle. This leads to a more realistic and rounded portrait.

Not bad for some first attempts.

Still Life Study: Vase, apple, grapes

I've been working a lot with figure painting lately, so, I needed to get back to my still life studies. These studies are designed to help me with particular problems with my painting style.

So, last night, worked for about 2 hours on this small study (6 x 10). The main areas that I was focusing on were: 1) Roundness of vase and drawing accuracy of the vase, 2) simulation of the grapes without having to paint each grape individually (massing of grapes), and 3) continue working on the roundness of the apple.

Overall, I really like this piece. I like how the background turned out. The vase definitely has a 3D volume shape to it. The neck could use a little more work, but the edges of the vase blend nicely with the background.

Life Drawing: February 12, 2011

Today was a tough day. The model was fantastic with some absolutely gorgeous muscle-tone. In addition, the poses that she held were interesting and she didn't move at all. Absolutely amazing.

However, wish that I could say that I did justice to any of the drawings for her. A lot of my proportions were off today.

Did come up with one drawing that I did like. So, that's not bad.

Life Drawing: 2/12/2011

Today was a tough day. The model was fantastic with some absolutely gorgeous muscle-tone. In addition, the poses that she held were interesting and she didn't move at all. Absolutely amazing.

However, wish that I could say that I did justice to any of the drawings for her. A lot of my proportions were off today.

Did come up with one drawing that I did like. So, that's not bad.

Life Drawing: February 9, 2011

For last night's session at Karen Winslow's Studio, I decided to fore-go my watercolors for a new medium. It's good to keep trying different techniques so that you can incorporate them into your traditional methods.

So, pulled out the pastel paper and worked with Conte pencils. The thing that I like most about those pencils is that you can 1) erase and 2) define the light areas AFTER you get the basic shapes in.

So, for my drawings, I used my traditional technique of drawing boxes/circles to get the general shape proportions down. From there, I was able to erase my size markers (lines that help define where certain body parts are located and their angle). After I got the basic shapes in, I could then use the white Conte pencil to separate the light area versus the dark area.

Still more work to do with this medium, but I can definitely see some promise in it.

Life Drawing: February 7, 2011

More figure studies from my figure drawing session, last night. These were 15 minute studies.

One of the really nice parts about returning back to my Monday night figure drawing session, after a 3 year hiatus, is that the models remember me. It's nice to be remembered. As I walked into the session (this week and last), the models immediately started chatting it up. Mentioning how it's been such a long time since I've been there.

In addition to the models remembering me, it was also good to meet new people and see their techniques. There's nothing like working with a group of artists and seeing their interpretation on a familiar subject.

More figure studies from my figure drawing session, last night. These were 15 minute studies.

One of the really nice parts about returning back to my Monday night figure drawing session, after a 3 year hiatus, is that the models remember me. It's nice to be remembered. As I walked into the session (this week and last), the models immediately started chatting it up. Mentioning how it's been such a long time since I've been there.

In addition to the models remembering me, it was also good to meet new people and see their techniques. There's nothing like working with a group of artists and seeing their interpretation on a familiar subject.

Critiquing latest painting

Here's my latest concept painting. It's the same landscape split into two parts: bright/sunny winter and dark/cloudy summer. There's still some work left to do on it.

Whenever I finish with a painting, I can tell if I like it or not, immediately. If the concept works, I keep looking at the painting because I find it interesting. However, the fact that I keep looking at it, also points out areas of the painting that need to be fixed.

A) The distant land is too bright. There is not enough value change to part E. The distances should be a bit more blue-er and a bit more gray, since we have a lot of atmosphere between us and the distance. This is especially true around the right edge.

B) The treeline is too blue/grey. A greenish gray with a bit more definition in the trees would be needed.

C) The angle of the shadow of the tree corresponds with the angle of the land. Need to change this up a bit and put more bushes/grasses around the tree.

D) Too varied in terms of dark/light. In reality, need to paint a consistent dark area with a bit more of a grey-dark as it gets closer to the tree.

E) The front edge should have more brights and less blues. This is closer to the viewer, so the colors tend to be stronger and more pure.

Evaluating your artwork is always a good idea. Even when you think that the painting is done, put it aside for a couple of days and see what stands out.

Figure Study

Last night was my return to my Figure Drawing session at the Burlington City Arts. Every Monday night, they have a figure drawing drop-in that costs $8 and runs from 6:30 - 8:30. I haven't been there for about 3 years. However, since I've got a lot of figure work to do in the next 4 months, have to get the practice in.

It was good to be back at the old haunts. The only person that remembered me was the model. Nice to be remembered. There were about 10 artists there working on different mediums. So, went back to work with my water color pencils. I'm really getting to like this medium for studies.

The hardest part about the pencils is that, when you add too much water, the lines become blurred. I need to figure out a way to get the edges to be more distinct.