Something different yesterday at the IAC open studio. One pose for the entire three hour session. Our model brought his complete Roman Legionnaire outfit? costume? uniform? Anyway, it’s real, as in real metal, leather etc. so we appreciated him wearing the thing for so long.
Scott Story was forthoughtful enough to have brought his camera so we got some reference photos in case we want to work further on this or take it into another piece.
I may take this to a full size oil if the time ever presents itself.
Two Sundays back I took my traveling paint box to the IAC and used a real paintbrush for the first time in nearly two years.
First attempt. These are painted in oils on a shellacked plywood panels.
Second attempt, two 25 minute poses.
I’ll try to be a bit more selective regarding posting these watercolors for fear of overkill.
A very noble 25 minute pose.
This one is from today (Sunday). I filled in as monitor for todays session. Setting up the room, the benches, the light, etc. making sure the model had what she needed and running the timer on the poses. As a result I have an even more profound respect for Vandra, our regular monitor, and the effort she puts into every weeks sessions. Twice a week, not counting her Monday night anatomy drawing class. Anyway, my productivity was less than it should have been but that’s not a fault of playing monitor. I did use the 90 degree rule and did this watercolor caricature of a fellow artist.
This is Scott Story, creator, artist and co-writer of Johnny Saturn, an excellent webcomic that is getting a lot of attention in the comics fan community. The comic is co-written by Scott’s wife Benita Story. And no, Scott doesn’t wear a Captain America tunic to open model sessions. (What he wears in his own studio is his own affair!) I painted him thusly as a reference to a comment made on his blog so don’t expect to understand it!
Still working my way through a stack of watercolor paper I had printed with a client’s logo for a live portrait booking. (What? Did I not explain the rationale behind starting this watercolor run? I’m not just going to throw all that good paper away
2 minute gesture poses.
15 minute pose.
25 minute pose.
25 minute pose.
25 minute pose.
25 minute pose.
These are from today (Friday Sept. 19th)
2 minute poses
25 minute pose
25 minute pose
25 minute pose
The next pose was just a slightly different angle on the one above so I turned my attention to one of the other artists.
25 minute pose.
25 minute pose
I’m starting to feel more comfortable with watercolors. (Scott S. - I think I can no longer state that I hate the medium!)
Sundays efforts:
Pardon the black bar, public access, don’t ya know!
Today’s (Friday’s) efforts: The 2 minute warm-up poses, using some bright monochromatic colors.
With this one I was really feeling as if I was getting it. 25 min. pose.
Then this next one I felt like I was making a personal breakthrough. (He’s posing with a pole, a lance, actually. I’ll add that in later when I have a straight edge to get it correct. Same thing in the above piece.) This is the first time I’ve done something in an open session that I’ve wanted refine in my own studio later.
25 min. pose.
The breakthrough feeling became even more powerful with this one.
I think this was the 50 min. pose.
And again with this last 15 min. pose.
Got a new pallet and some tube watercolors (there was a sale). Previously I was using some pan watercolors.
The model was tickled that I painted her tan lines!
A 25 minute pose, not enough time for me to get some real contrast into the piece.
This one was two 25 minute poses so I got more contrast into it.
A wonderful pose, not done justice by me effort. Also a fifty minute pose in two parts.
This one was about 15 minutes.
50 minutes.
Also about 50 minutes.
I realized I haven’t posted much from any life drawing/painting sessions here lately. One reason is that I’ve been so busy with live and studio caricature work I’ve had to stop going to the Thursday night open studio sessions for awhile. I have been trying to keep going to the Art Center sessions on Sunday afternoons. The last couple of times I’ve taken my watercolor rig. Watercolor is a medium I don’t do a lot with, it’s a delicate medium (or can be, when handled correctly) I tend to be a little rough with it, muscling it around, at times even getting my fingers in it. Anyway, here are some results.
These are two minute gesture poses used to loosen up.
This was a longer pose, 15 minutes.
25 minute poses.
These are the results of last Sundays session.
More 2 minute poses.
A 2 and a 15 minute pose.
25 minute pose.
50 minute pose.
A good friend of mine asked, “How do you work with oil paints in a class room situation, it’s such a slow drying medium so how do you transport the wet canvas intact back and forth from the class?” This is one method, a pair of brass clippy things that attach to the stretcher bars of canvases using screws and pointed teeth to keep the canvases from shifting.
There are other methods, boxes with slots in the sides to accommodate wooden or canvas panels. I have an outdoor paint rig that has storage in the lid like that.
This one took about 90 minutes.
I decided to paint at the IAC open model session Sunday afternoon.
This was a 15 minute pose.
This was a 50 minute pose in two 25 minute sessions.
I was reminded of the need to have both your palette and your canvas either white or a middle value. My palette is a middle value but I hadn’t the time to stain the canvas pad sheets a middle value so whenever I mixed a value on the palette that I saw in the figure, when I placed it on the white canvas it was much darker! That effect calmed down when I laid in that black around the head and shoulders but it was certainly disconcerting!
These are monochromatic umber underpainting exercises. Basically the beginning stage of a portrait or other type of painting but I use them as ways to better develop my realistic rendering to avoid the natural bend to exaggerate as in a caricature. Sometime down the road I may add color to these but for the moment this was the desired end result.
This one took about an hour, three twenty minute sessions, of careful measuring and rendering.
This one about 40 minutes.
The next morning at the Art Center where I usually draw I decided to continue the exercise.
The lighter ones to the left are two minute poses. The right ones started out as two minute poses but when the model took his 15 and then 20 minute poses his head happened to be in the same positions, relative to me, allowing me to further develop them.
A twenty minute pose.
Another twenty minute pose, this time I roughly added the pure colors I saw within his skin tones with no thought to blending them into a more uniform flesh tone.
I didn’t know that the pose last week would carry
over into this week! That’s the trouble with finishing an hour earlier
than the session lasts. So I painted her again. This time on top of an
umber under-painting I did months ago, which I just happened to bring with me because the canvas size matched that of the blank canvas and my wet canvas carrier needs two canvases to work. Of course I finished by nine
so I have no idea what’s happening next week!
About an hours worth of painting, three twenty minutes poses with breaks for the model in between.
Or K.C. or Kaisee, however he spells it, this was another helpful IUPUI student press ganged from the hallways of the Herron Art School. This oil study took about 2 hours.
Another case of collaring a student when the model didn’t show. He was reading hence the downcast eyes.
Another instance of using the sight-size method.
After a very busy summer I was able to get back to the Thursday night open model sessions at Herron. The one the right is one of the other artists. Sometimes the scheduled model fails to show up and there’s no students to dragoon into sitting for us. Then we must feed on our own!
Another Thursday night at the open studio painting session. This time a new model who did an excellent job holding her pose. And she does have those light blue eyes.
Last night I tried using sculpting calipers to transfer the proportions of the model to the 16″ x 20″ canvas. Holding the calipers at arm length, opening them to the total height of the model from top of the head to the tip of the toes and transfering those measurements to the canvas. Then mark the size of the head and move down into the body marking the major intersections and body landmarks.
It worked out and at this size I was able more easily to concentrate on the major masses of tone rather than getting caught up in the details of the face, etc.
We got a late start due to having to wander the halls in search of a model. This is an oil sketch of about 90 minutes. I spent more time on the drawing and less on smoothing the transitions between the shapes of color.