Charcoal Still Life

Here is a charcoal still life that I am working on for one of my classes. I just happened upon this scene and hardly altered a thing. I started this drawing using a wipe out technique. I covered the entire canvas using vine charcoal to create one gray tone. I pulled out the light areas with a chamois and added the dark areas with compressed charcoal.

I find this technique very useful. It helps me to stay loose and to section my drawing into large masses of light and dark. I intend to keep working this image by varying my marks and refining some of the detail.

Illustration, Life Painting, and Still Life

Its already 5 weeks into the semester here at PAFA. Time is flying by with so much still to do.
Its a real shame how time seems to pass right by when your enjoying something. Sigh.....but we must not waste the time we still have left. Here are three primary things I am working on at the moment.
Here is the Illustration I have been working on, still once again in progress. The purple background no longer worked for what I am going for, so I decided to remove it. To me this Illustration should have been done by now, but I have been fighting several problems. The first big issue was a poor drawing underneath. I was hoping to take this painting with mostly glazes, but that turned out to be a bad idea due to the amount of time it would take to finish. So with the Advice of Dave Golas, I made my attempt to his it with more opaque paint. In doing so, I lost track of the planes and the painting went to mud. At this stage I changed my background, and took my time evaluating the planes of the Hand. This should be a lot less of a hassle.
This painting SHOULD be done by next week. I am excited to get back to work on it. This needs to be finished for the Boston Comic Convention. I need at least one pieces to show to the other artists there. I will not screw myself over again, this is part of my career.


Here is the Life Painting I have been working on in Renee Foulks Class. This is my Third week into this painting. I feel it as been taking a turn for the better. It is a difficult pose not to mention the lighting in the room is all natural. So this planes of the form do not pop so well. This exercise is all about subtly. Which is something I am striving to learn. Even though this pose is like pulling teeth, I am learning.

Here is another thumbnail for Advanced Still Life. I am pretty sure I like this a lot better than the last one I posted. I intend to go with this for my final Painting. It should be interesting painting on something scaled like this. I am so used to standered sized panels or canvas.

Portrait in oil from life and a master copy in oil

Can anyone name the painting this came from?


These are for Head Structure with Professor Connors

This one was for my class with Alex Kanevsky

Charcoal sketches

Drawings, Figure Paintings, and Illustration

Here is this weeks recent work. I only have a few anatomy sketches, a Life Painting in progress, and the Illustration I am working on for my portfolio. With the addition of my two liberal Arts classes this year, my work has lowered in amount, but quality of quantity I guess.

Here is my illustration in progress. I tried to tighten it up a bit, but in the process I lost to much detail so I went back in and did a bit of drawing with the paint. In the next stage I will be painting a lot more opaque. I have been using the method of several of my favorite illustrators, Donato Giancola, Dan Dos Santos, and David Palumbo. Each of these artists start with a strong drawing beneath their painting, then glaze over it. My drawing was not at the level it needed to be before I started the painting. So to fix my issues, I will be going back in and re establishing my values using opaque paint.

Here is a short study done in Foulks Class.
This is my thumbnail for a still life I will be working on for the next 5 weeks in Advanced Still Life. I threw in a bunch of glass bottles, metal, and cloth for these are weaknesses of mine I want to conquer.
Anatomy Sketch
Anatomy Study

Pretty (Weird) Works

Hey all, just posting some works in progress from my studio. Right now, my main focus has been on producing drawings. A lot of drawings. Granted some are much better than others, but hey, they're ideas on paper. They're going to be valuable assets for my paintings. Speaking of paintings, I even started two. Drawing strictly from my mind is much more forgiving than painting from the gutter that I call a mind, but, hey, I'm learning and having fun. What more could I ask for? Until next time.

Oil sketches, charcoal and chalk sketch