"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.

Less Than Two Weeks to the End of the Semester!

Whole Grain Bagels, Batman! I don't even have coffee!!! (Not that it does anything... I got used to it at an early age... explains several things...)
The earbuds aren't gonna leave my ears for very long periods of time unless switched out for my headphones, Studly McBeefcake.

I'll post again in a couple of days with at least one image. Till then, here's this:

Smelly Piggies

So... Feet... Yeah, not a fan of them. But here's some progress shots of a drawing, hooray! Seems like there's some sort of 007/ Gold Bond foot stuff references waiting to be made. I'll let you do that on your own since I'm not a big enough James Bond fan to know any quotes.

I didn't take a photo of the very first step involving circles, ovals, and wedge/cones (thanks for that, Matt, it helps a ton!) Everything at this point is done in vine charcoal.

Defining stuff because I need a general map to block the values into.

Yes, the right foot is flatter than the photo above. My feet aren't that arched.

No, this isn't exactly the same photo as above, I went through with an Alphacolor stick to add to the shadows.

"I pray, the Lord, my sole to keep."

Cowboys look to the left according to in-class drawings...

 Yesterday, our model came in dressed as a cowboy. I don't care for cowboys.  The last "cowboy" we had to draw I turned into a jawless zombie. Oh, and both are charcoal. Surprise!!!

He was sitting with a guitar, I didn't find it inspiring.

While I was working, it occurred to me that I was sitting in the same spot.  I hope this doesn't become a theme...

He looks more "authentic" I guess?  I'm not really an expert on fashion back in the day...

Now back to work!!!

Charcoal everywhere...

In my backpack, all over my laptop, on my face, clothes, walls, doors, floor...

I'll let you figure out what's going on here...

Rough photo of a finished drawing.

An in-class drawing of Phil.