Landscape Studies in Ink and Acrylic
Although I ended up having to drop it because of time constraints, I took Landscape Painting for a few weeks. I was excited to learn this better, because I want to eventually do paintings based on the photos I took during all the traveling I did in my 20s. All I got to was studies, but they’ve been kind of fun because I’ve been working in ink (just using a single 0.5 Topic Multiliner SP pen). Most weeks, we have field studies to do, and we’ve had to do several in ink and then one 8 x 10 inch value study in grayscale acrylic paint. We’ve also had to do some “master studies,” where we recreate famous paintings in ink or grayscale paint. Here are a handful of my ink field studies (these are from the first week): These are all views around the downtown Renton library. Here are a…
A Master Copy
I had an assignment in my life painting class (which is still killing me) to copy a Master painting from the 17th century. I picked a Rubens: (Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Isabella of Bourbon, c. 1630) I thought there was a good range of values and colors, although I knew the collar would be tough. Her face is weirdly pale, though it was probably accurate. The first step was to do the drawing and then outline it in black paint. The second step was to tint the background (first layer only), and I had started that when I remembered to take a picture: I did this on 18 x 24 inch Gessobord, although I taped off the bottom 3 inches because there was enough of her dress/coat/whatever showing. I had to sort of make up what was going on to the right because I shifted her over to the…
A Multi-Step Painting
I just finished a three week life painting project, done in acrylics. I actually showed one of the early stages in my last post, but I’m going to walk through the steps for this one. We had to choose a pose and first do a version heightened with white over a black outline. Here is that part (sorry for the yellow light): I had some trouble laying down the background, which was done after I did the outline in black paint, so it looks a little wonky to the left of where her eyes are. I also only rendered part of the fabric she was lying on (totally out of laziness—also, painting fabric is hard). This ended up being kind of funny. The next step was to do a full grisaille painting, basically just using black and white, but with glazes (so basically black glazes layered on). It isn’t as…
More Grayscale Painting Techniques
I’m taking a life painting class this term, and they’re still trying to teach us how to paint in general, so we’re going back to the basics with classic techniques. We’re supposed to be using oils for this class, but I talked to the instructor and got permission to use acrylics throughout. I seriously hate oils and will never use them voluntarily. But also it makes more sense to me to continue developing in one medium, especially one I’m more likely to use some day. The first assignment we had was just to paint a plaster cast. I found one of a “young British woman” on Amazon and did that one. We had to paint a wash of ivory black for the background. Here’s the final result I came up with for that one: I think it’s decent, but the instructor pointed out that my brush strokes could be smoother,…
Realistic and Exaggerated Portraits
It really has been a long time since I’ve posted. It’s definitely hard to keep up with everything. But I thought I’d post my last project for one of my classes last term, which was fun and turned out kind of cool. I had to do a realistic portrait of somebody and then another version with exaggerated features, and I chose to do my niece. These were both done in acrylic. Here’s the realistic one: Now, this has some problems (her eyes and mouth are too small, for instance), but it’s overall a little better than I expected it to be. For the second one, I decided to exaggerate her eyes. I’m not a big fan of this style, as I prefer sticking closely to realism for people. (I say that, but I also do like stylized art. So maybe it’s just I feel more comfortable with realism for myself,…
New Term
I haven’t posted in a bit because I’ve taken a bit of a break. I had a week off from classes. Then the new term got started and it was all the beginning of the term stuff. I’m taking Life Drawing 3 and Still Life Painting. So life drawing is more of the same. The still life class painting is more new—we’re supposed to really learn acrylic painting here. The first week I had to do a grayscale painting of geometric forms. Here’s what I came up with: It actually turned out better than I expected. Which isn’t to say it’s good—it isn’t—but it’s not atrocious. I am starting to get a better feel for acrylics, which is a good thing. This week I’m starting a project painting a couple bell peppers—one green and one red. We have to do a grayscale painting first, and then next week we’ll be…
Bastet Does TNR Project
For one of my classes, I had three weeks to develop another project that had to depict some kind of guardian figure. To get the mental juices flowing, the suggested things like an angel, a gargoyle overlooking a city, medieval castle guard, and Native American deities. This one came to me quickly. I decided to do something with Bastet, the ancient Egyptian goddess of cats, fertility, and more. She has a human body but the head of a cat. In the early days of her mythology, it was usually a lion head, but later it was a domestic cat. I found a good image to work from that I loved: (Found at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bastet_dame_katzenkopf.jpg) Her ears are tall here but she looks so sleek. The next step in the project was to figure what she’d be doing in the painting. I brainstormed a few things, but right away an idea I…