A Tough 5th-Grader
For my last project in my digital painting class, we had to do a character design, choosing a prompt from a long list of sometimes incongruent ideas: space cowboy, alien violinist, octopus teacher, and so on. I picked “the world’s toughest 5th-grader,” because I need to learn to draw kids better since I want to do picture books. The obvious mental image that comes along with that phrase is a boy bully with a wide neck and fists. I thought I’d turn it on its head and make it a girl who is a math genius and is impossible to beat in math competitions. My image searches to find a cool-looking kid yielded a bunch of ideas, and then I decided that she could be something other than white. I actually found a picture of a really cool Navajo kid with a few different angles. She looked like a humble…
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…
Sweeping a Cat Shelter Project
For the final project in my Life Drawing 2 class, we had to put at least one figure in an interesting setting. We had to look at a database of images of models in a variety of poses and work from that, picking three to play with. I worked on several ideas: I ended up going with the third one, with this model: At first I thought we could draw the figure clothed, and I liked her clothing, but it turns out they had to be nude (we were allowed to add transparent clothes, but the anatomy has to be visible). I developed my idea into a line drawing here: I got some feedback on the proportions of the figure, so I had to fix that in the final drawing. The piece had to be done on large paper and in color, but any medium was acceptable, so I decided…
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…
Drawing Naked People in New Media
I’m taking Life Drawing II this half-semester term, with III coming in late August (and one more to go after that). This has been interesting, this drawing naked people thing. My instructor at Squak Art Studio in Issaquah, WA tells me that after a while, it stops feeling weird and you just see shapes. I think I’m almost there when drawing women, but not quite with men. Part of what stops me is fascination with how they could just stand there naked in front of all these people. I’m not actually sure if these models are, because I’m obviously watching videos of them and I don’t know if there are students in there when they’re recording (though they actually run the length of time we’re supposed to work, so we have to deal with a naturally-moving model). Anyway, to liven things up, the weekly exercises are sometimes a little different.…