Work in progress

Here are a few progress shots of a value study I did for my next painting. The glasses kept throwing me off, so I had to get rid of them to block in the eyes then paint the frame over. I didn't get a photo of the step following the last here, but she doesn't look as freaky now that she has eyebrows and more values in the face. Now that I'm looking at it again... I made her head too small. it's making her right hand look monstrous by comparison.

Oops, her head's a little... deflated.

 Aww she looks so friend...

...ly-AAAH!

"I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!"

Bonus: A dead guy.

El Roommate-o wanted to get into the picture. Kinda wonder if her pose is supposed to be a comment on the lack of proper hands in my drawing...

Tomorrow?

Did a lot of

in the apartment this past week. This is especially true after the dream where I got to hold a couple of kittens while being front row to watch Blind Guardian perform. 

But what was that about "posting open life drawings tomorrow?" Well, it's some day's tomorrow. Here's the past couple of drawings.

As you'll see by the 4 in the top right corner, this is attempt #4. It should have been wiped down to make #5 but there wasn't enough time. I think I'm pretty good at arms since it was the only part that consistently looked ok in each attempt.

I walked in late for this one because it was the club's cram night and I was taking care of other assignments. Near the model was a male musculature mannequin assuming the pose that Death here has. I was going to draw the bony hands in later, hence the note at the top, but I've since changed my mind. 

Oh, one final piece for the road. Since I'm currently enjoying wonderful, wonderful cups of coffee, here's one for you:

Mixed Media: Charcoal drawing with color added digitally.

"Lookie what I found!"

Well, I didn't, but whatever.
The image you're looking at is 4 layers thick. The underlying structural drawing is on regular Strathmore drawing pad paper. The actual value work is on mylar. I had issues getting the darks as dark as I wanted them so I had to go back in and add basic values to the paper. There was a lot of fixative involved and I wound up losing the bright whites on the stairs so I had to once again go through both layers with a white charcoal pencil. next I used black craft acrylic paint to add "Rush" and "2112" to the front cover. The track listing was done digitally. Well, with the amount of fixative that was used, maybe it's technically 5 layers...
This image is attempt # 3. 1 sucked so I brought 2 in or critique. It had issues and I didn't want to bother erasing it all so I just started over. Third times' the charm.

Every time I think of this album the Oracle segment get stuck in my head. I can't complain, it's a good one.

... So yeah. I'll scan an open life drawing in tomorrow.

Not so sneaky.

   I had to keep leaning to my left as she slowly turned her head right.  It was subtle enough that I don't think it screwed anything up.  I did laugh when I caught myself squatting more than sitting on my bench.

   And now, a bonus picture just for giggles.

The Grandfather of my current charcoal drawings.

Back to work!

"Yeah, She's a Sneaky One."

"What did you do in Open Life Drawing?"  I painted.  And not just any painting, but limited palette, rub-out paintings.  Got to the session and realized the only tube of paint I had with me was black.  Yes, black.  Hush, Jon, it's Open Life and I can use black if I want.  Lovely Miss Caitlin was awesome enough to let me use her Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber.
I only have a photo of it right now because it's wet.  I'll get it scanned tomorrow.  Here's the second painting I did simply because I didn't like the first. And look, she's not freaky.

I'd say it's because I like her as a model, but I turned her into a terrible queen of the damned the first time I drew her.

"How does a bear sit?"

"Like a fat kid."

The finals weeks of a semester are always hectic, but I can't remember being so tired by the end like I was yesterday.  Out of the chaos of the last two weeks came a strange little thing I'm currently calling my Finals Mascot. I had planned my final drawing for Head Hands and Feet to be a funny nod to the "Head Hands and Bears" joke our class had early in the semester.  This is what it became:

The face, hands, and feet are all mine, just exaggerated.

After lightly outlining everything to make sure I got what I wanted on the page, I started roughing in the values of the face.  That's when I pretty much lost control of the outcome. I didn't have the eyes or the eyebrows drawn in, so when I sat back to make sure I had the basic values I wanted down, I had that face staring at me. Unnerved, I decided to try to ignore it and work on the rest of the body. The reference photo I'd pieced together wasn't great so I tried to draw my own hands from life while making them look fatter.  About half way through I considered leaving it and starting a new drawing.  I decided to keep working at it mostly because it made me laugh, but partly because I really didn't want to start another drawing.  It was definitely worth that brief moment of silence when I put it up for critique followed by variations of "That's really, really creepy."

So much for "A face only a mother could love."

In-Class Paintings

I still don't have coffee... slacker!
Painted from life in my Alla Prima Class this week.  Got the go-ahead to try the rub-out method so I did a little bit.

Didn't really use it too much on the first day, but I was working with a crappy sheet of paper towel.

It's pretty hard to tell since my paint application is so thin, but many of the lighter values are the subtracted areas.  I remembered to bring a cloth with my this time so it went a lot more smoothly.

I had trouble capturing the likeness of the first model.  I think it's because I haven't drawn his face before.  The second model has always been challenging to me, but I think this is my first successful attempt getting her face fairly similar. Overall it was fun, and I'll be playing around with this method some more.