It has been a while, and so far I have been trying to keep up with new assignments. I am enjoying the freedom of second year, and have the following work from Head Structure. The first is a master study, during which I learned that mixing color under incandescent lighting can have undesirable effects. I had a terrible time matching, but overall it was good practice.
The next is in-class work, completed from the model, and worked with more paint in the light mass.
Lastly, homework assignment that started out as a self-portrait, but kind of morphed as I worked on it. The photos here aren't terribly good, but I'm still fussing with it at home, trying to see what I can do with lighting and clarity. The same problems cropped up with working in the dark, however, and I'm not sure what to do about that right now.
Suggestions are, of course, welcome.
Also, still alive - Head Structure Assignments
Pastel Studies
Surely, I'm still alive and kicking...
... well, at least kicking. It's been a while since I last posted, and hopefully this will be the last time there will be such a lull from me. Onto the first specimen! A recently completed (sort of) portrait from my Anatomy Class. Technically, I was surprisingly pleased with the outcome, especially because I have a hard time thinking of tone in a formulaic classical way. In terms of likeness, well... I made him slightly more feminine than he really was. Okay, a lot more feminine. Take a gander for yourself:
The following two pieces are from a life drawing class that I'm currently enrolled in. I do have to say, I enjoy Scott Noel's approach very much and I can better relate to what he's teaching than some of my other drawing classes. I think these images speak for themselves:
And this final piece I'm posting is a travesty against every watercolor pencil drawing in the history of art. However, I kinda like it:
Well, that's it for now. I'll try to get another post up within the same month. Can't wait for advising next week!
Random Tidbits
Here I am, posting yet again! Today I have a bunch of random little studies and exercises from last semester which I'd like to talk a little bit about.
The first two are both from my Advanced Still Life class from last semester...now I chiefly worked on a very big project in that class which I will be posting about very soon, but I tried to also do lots of quick little studies in that class as well. I did not end up doing nearly as much of that as I would have liked, but here are two of the quick paintings which I did do. The first was just a little grisaille painting...I had intended to work it in color in a three hour session or so, but I got so carried away by the underdrawing and underpainting that I decided to leave it simply as a value study. I think I probably spent 2 to 3 hours on it in total.
So, since the last one didn't work out quite as planned, I decided to do another study of the same subject, this time focusing on color. My teacher, Jan Baltzel, made a really excellent suggestion for this one; she said in order to avoid getting carried away with an underpainting again, I should begin by identifying and mixing the colors in the set-up...that way, before I even begin drawing or anything, I am thinking about the painting in terms of the colors there. I found that to be incredibly helpful, and for this painting, I spent probably the first 45 minutes just mixing colors and trying to get all the little subtle color variations in the apples. I have to say, this photo really doesn't capture the colors well in this painting at all unfortunately; it came out with a much yellower cast to it than the painting actually has. Anyway, I probably spent a total of 3 to 4 hours on this one.
The next few paintings are all exercises from my Materials and Techniques class with Anthony Ciambella. That class was such a blast, I really really enjoyed it and I think I learned a ton from it. Anthony is a great teacher; he's incredibly knowledgeable and very funny! With any technical issue that you might be having in your paintings you can just go to Anthony and he'll have an answer for you, from a conservator's point of view, so you know whatever he says to do will be "archival".
This first painting was just a quick little exercise in acrylics...I worked in acrylics first before I started painting in oils and I absolutely hated them, so it was kind of fun to go back and try acrylics again. I still didn't really like them at all, but at least now I felt much more comfortable working with them, and I can see how the quick-drying aspect might be useful in some ways.
This next one is the glazed over version of the grisaille underpainting which I posted a little while ago. We were supposed to have at least 3 to 4 layers of glazes on our paintings which I did...in some areas there are probably more. It was really fun just being able to experiment with layering different colors; my goal was to try and achieve some really subtle little color shifts...again unfortunately, the photo really doesn't capture the color all that well.
Again this is another glazed over painting...you can see the original underpainting here. Again there are about 3 or 4 layers of glazes on this...I tried to see how rich and vibrant I could get in some areas...I think it would be fun actually to continue glazing with this one and see how many layers it takes to get really striking reds and blues and greens. I know various people have said that with glazed paintings you are still really only getting started after 40 layers...
This last one was my "mixed media" project for that class...I really had no desire to do some kind of abstract mixed media piece like most other people were doing, so I decided to turn it into something that I was interested in. I became really fascinated by the end of last semester with trompe l'oeil painting, particularly the paintings of John Peto and William Harnett. I am definitely interested in taking my paintings in that direction in the future, and I used this as an opportunity to experiment with that. My idea with this was that half the objects would be painted and half of them would be real, and the goal was that the viewer would not be able to tell the difference. Because of time constraints I was not able to paint in quite as much as I would've liked, but I think it was still fairly successful. Can you guess which are painted and which are real?
Ok, in case you couldn't, the white string on the upper right, the black and white photograph, the yellow piece of paper, and various nails in the wood are all painted. The rest are real objects tacked on a wood board.
Alright, folks, that's all for now...I think my next post will get me completely caught up to date, and then I'll begin posting about this semester! Till next time!
Life Painting
Hello everyone!
I know, I know, you must be shocked that I'm posting again so soon...however this coming week is my spring break, so I finally have a little extra time! I'm going to try and post a whole lot this week so I can get caught up on blogging about all the work I did last semester, so then I can start writing about the projects that I have going on right now!
The subject of this post is the life painting class which I took last semester with Renee Foulks, a phenomenal artist, wonderful teacher, and very sweet lady. She is definitely up there as one of my absolute favorite teachers at PAFA; she works in a very classical, highly representational manner, and she is probably the teacher that I've been most influenced by so far in terms of both style and subject matter. Anyway her class last semester was really wonderful. We had two poses throughout the whole semester, each one lasting about 6 or 7 weeks long. For our first pose, we were required to do a grisaille painting, which is a value study in grays. Renee gave us the option of just doing a very quick value study and then moving on to color, but I decided to spend the entire 7 weeks of the first pose on one large grisaille painting. This was an absolutely wonderful experience; I really enjoy doing value studies and I think I learned a lot from this one. This was definitely the first time on a figure painting that I felt like I actually had a relatively adequate amount of time to really observe and analyze the figure in depth. Since I knew this was going to be a fairly extended painting, I began by doing a very small simple little "value study" in preperation for the larger grisaille.
This is the finished grisaille painting...I think I calculated that I probably spent nearly 40 hours on this painting in total...and I seriously think I could have spent a good deal longer! But I did feel like I was able to resolve it pretty well in that amount of time. Again, I just can't emphasize enough how helpful it is to me to simply isolate value apart from all the issues of color, and to just analyze a situation from a purely tonal aspect. In light of that, I tried to be as accurate as possible with my values; I did use a value chart which I had made and I mixed up all my paints on the palette in a value scale from 1 to 10. I also began to experiment in this painting with trying to render the figure as representationally as possible; for instance, I remember spending 3 hours just on the model's foot...trying to describe each individual toe and even the veins and tendons which were pretty clearly visible. Rendering is something which I'm still exploring stylistically and I hope to continue to push it as far as my ability allows. 
This second one is the painting that I worked on during the latter half of the semester...in the end I was not nearly as pleased with this one. I think it was a good experience and I learned alot from it, but it certainly was a very frustrating one. I think there were alot of issues here; I had some issues with the support I was working on, as well as the angle from which I was working--I was packed in pretty close with a bunch of other people, and I had trouble really getting back in to the same spot every time. I also think I really fell in to the trap of just over blending and "noodling" away at the painting too much without making definite and conscious decisions. That being said, the painting turned out alright, and again, I learned alot from doing it.
Well, that's all for now! Stay tuned for more posts about the rest of last semester's work!
Large Scale Figurative Sculpture
One of my favorite classes this semester is Large Scale Figurative Sculpture. It took me weeks to complete the armature for my four foot figure. Essentially, the armature consisted of three main parts, a box on wheels, supporting pipes and an internal wire armature to hold the clay itself.
I am currently working on the Bulking Up Stage. In order to mass out the form, I applied 100 lbs of clay over the entire wire armature. It is also during this stage that I am attempting to get accurate proportions.
At this point the sculpture is very rough and unrefined. As time goes by hopefully, the sculpture will look more and more human.
Figure study, Portrait, and Still Life
Here are some recent studies done this week.
This is a One session study of a clothed male model, done in Pyform's Life Painting class.
For the most part I am happy with the end results of this pieces. Mainly due to the fact I only spent about 2 hours tops.
This painting is the second session of a nude female model done within Jill's Basic Color class.
This painting started out as a really nice underpainting, then brutally tortured over the next few poses. Only until the last 20 min pose was I able to save it. Although the Painting lacks a finished quality, I felt it turned out ok for being the first time I have painted an African American using color.
This is my most recent painting which I am currently working on. This is the result of my wipe out within 2 hours of work. This painting, when completed, will be submitted into a gallery.
The Exhibition title is " Art of the Flower", located at the Philadelphia Sketch Club.
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