Value Studies

One area of color that I really struggle with is value (relative lightness or darkness of a color). Over the past summer, I worked on a series of simple value studies to improve my skills. Since color is so complex, I started by working only in black and white.

I used basic shapes in my set ups, like eggs, light bulbs, and wooden spheres painted white etc. I premixed a value scale on my palette (series of steps from pure white to pure black) and began painting.

To some people this may seem boring or tedious. However, I highly recommend black and white studies to anyone having trouble with values.

Portrait Study

Hey everyone. I dont know how many of you are going to keep working over the winter break but I am determined not to let myself become rusty.
This is a alla prima portrait done within 90 minuets during a session of the Dirty Palette Club. I found myself struggling off and on most of the time. The two biggest issue I found myself doing were over blending the paint, making everything muddy, and worrying about smaller shapes to early. My lack of patience lead me down the wrong path yet again. Bigger shapes first, then smaller ones, not vice versa.
I also need to think before i apply or mix my paint. This is the reason for my muddy colors and over blendeding.

Clay, Clay, Clay

Hello everyone,
This is my first post on the blog and hopefully not my last. This post contains pictures of
a clay figure done in Rob Roesch's figure modeling class. I went into this class expecting to hate it, due to the previous stories i have heard, but actually this class brought a lot to the table. Rob gave his students the freedom to just go at the figure and let our personality's soak into the clay, creating individitual creativity. My goal during this sculpture was to add something that sparked the viewers interest while holding as true to the anatomy as best I could. For my second sculpture, I feel that it turned out ok. The anatomy is not strong, but I will fix that in the future.

The Fog Clears...

Well, just one day after the end of the semester, and I think I'm ready to go back. Anyway, I figured I'd share my exploration into over-sized painting. The following images are a documentation of a seven by four foot still life I took on during my Advanced Still Life Class. While it's not quite finished, a bit was accomplished. I will most definitely return to this painting in the near future. I'll apologize off the bat for the poor quality of the images taken with my cell phone.

For the record.

Here is the only record of my efforts in Figure Modeling with Rob Roesch. I took these pics because I had to destroy this :( Not everything we make is worth keeping.Despite the fact that my friends warned me that I would not like this class, I had alot of fun. I learned quite a bit from Rob. Sometimes it is a really good thing to confront yourself with views you do not necessarily agree with.I cam out of that class very much aware that some criticisms of the academy are accurate. We do tend to produce work that looks very much alike because of the rigorous, academic nature of the program. However, I also came out of that class very much aware that creative exploration, without a foundation of academic training or skill building, can produce work that is contrived, unfocused and naiive. It was a very timely reminder for me in both ways. Anyway, here is my last effort which probably suffers from a bit of each of those failings.











THese pics should be better quality. I hope to be capable of editing again soon....sorry that they're sideways.I am still working on pictures of the semester overview and my biggest "success".

Study...

Lately I've been playing around with pastel. Though usually I only use a grey scale just to get a handle on the material itself as well as a feel for the value, recently I've been trying to work out color. I'm not quite sure how the layering is done so I've been trying it out on my own.

Here is a leg/color study:

Hi Everybody!

Hi everybody! Just wanted to make my first post a quick one. The image to the left is a recent image from the Studio Anatomy class that I'm enrolled in. Not much to look at, but at least I'm learning something. :-P Oh, and thanks Dave for inviting me! Later everybody.