Painting Class 8/11

Today was fun as hell. We had a still-life at my painting class and I got to paint my first skull! The thing I didn't realize is that the still-life was for today only! I was preparing my painting for the next class when Charles said we would do something different next week. I quickly threw on as much color as I could since I only had 30 minutes left and it turned out great for a 2.5 hour painting! Fastest painting i've done so far :-)

Painting Class 8/4

Here is a bad picture of my latest painting progress. Sorry for the glare. I'll try to retake the picture when I can get some sunlight. I'm getting better! I think this is my best one so far. Amazing what Charles can teach. Great guy. Next week I may try to extend the light a bit and work on putting some color in those grapes. Hell, may hit it before next week!

Apaché 8/3

My line quality is getting better. Tired. Painting class tomorrow. Off to bed!

My First Plein Air Painting!

Went to Athens to help my sister move. Got a painting in while I was there :-)

Painting Progress

Here is my painting so far. One more class to finish it!

Last Painting Class for this Session

Here is my final painting from Charles Wells' first painting session.

Apaché 6/28

Fifth Painting Class

More added to my white pot. Getting better. Things to remember:

1.) Stand back while painting to see the entire composition. Allows me to keep values and colors in check.
2.) When returning to a painting, don't start with the most important object. Allow yourself to warm up first by painting the foreground or background.
3. Just because a color isn't there does not mean that it can't be added. Adding blue to the pot adds some cooler tones and makes the image less monochromatic.

I think I'm getting a better hang of this. One more class :-( I'll probably take it again next month. I'm learning way too much not to.

Apaché Café

Went to Apaché Café to get some figure drawing in. Tired. Have painting tomorrow!

Studies from Book

Here are some more studies I did from The Nude Figure.

Self-Portrait 2!

Here is a painting I was working on a few days ago.

Fourth Painting Class

Had my fourth painting class today. Things to remember:

1. Just because it looks like that in real life does not mean it needs to look like that on the canvas. Do what's right for the painting.
2. The darkest shadows should be the closest shadows. Creates depth. Brings Attention to the 'foreground' of the object.
3. You don't have to make the background darker to make something brighter.
4. Make the darkest darks and the lightest lights BEFORE you start adding midtones. Prepares you for what values to put down.
5. Make reflected light darker than it appears. A little goes a long way. You want the shadow to show more than the reflection.

Honestly, I think I learned the most doing this painting even if it isn't very complete looking. Digital has killed my composition skills. I can make something, stretch it, move it and crop it, but I can't do that in a painting or on paper! Composition is going to be something I need to tackle. Charles tells me that shadow I did isn't too dark. I think I'm finally starting to see that. Hopefully I can show more of this painting in a week. Good class.

Oh, does anyone know how to take a picture of a painting without getting the glare? When I do it without the flash it is always too dark and I lose a lot of color.

Self-Portrait

Whoo, oils are fun but tiring! I actually kinda know what i'm doing from using Corel Painter, but man I miss the eye-dropper tool! But seriously, this is great! I'm lovin it! Here is about 3 hours in:

Painting Class!

Well, I started a painting class last week! Real oil painting taught by Charles Walls! Never done an oil painting before. Last week we mostly talked about how mediums, paint and turpenoid worked. This week we actually painted! I have to say I am a little embarrassed by my first piece. It's incomplete right now, so I'll add an updated one next week, but the perspective is majorly off! I feel like a novice showing this, but it's my first oil painting, so I guess I can't complain too much. It was fun though.

It's so nice being able to use actual paints after a long day in front of the computer. It kind of frees you a little. I'm exhausted from a full day of painting, but in a good way. I'm also learning about color theory and how pigments mix. Corel has given me kind of an edge in that area, but the eye dropper tool is gone! I have to mix paints over and over, so I'm learning to not worry about making it perfect. Even the simple things, like walking away from your work every once in a while to see the big picture is alot like zooming out on the computer. When you stand away, the waves of color blend more before they reach your eyes. What once was red and yellow blends to orange when standing at a distance.

It's great having a teacher again. I missed it more than I thought. I'm full of questions the entire class and hope i'm not annoying Charles too much, but I want to learn as much as I can in the next four weeks before he's gone. Anyway, i'm done blabbing. Thank you Marc Holmes for inspiring me to get back to traditional painting. I have a reason to create when I get home again!

Comic Book Artist Interviews

To anyone who is interested, I just discovered an amazing site called SiDEBAR that does comic book artist interviews! It's amazing and strongly recommended!

As for me, sorry for the lack of posts lately. I am currently buying oil painting supplies for a Binders Workshop that I enrolled in. Expensive as hell! My hopes are to get some good work done over the next few months. I'm reassessing how I spend my time and making some changes in my life for the better. No time like the present to get some work done. I have some sketches that I have been working on. I'll try to post them later.

Hole in my Head

Did some good drawing today. My sister needed some illustrations for a site promoting one of her stories. Instead of posting the art, I'll just link you to her site. She did a much better job presenting the work than I did :-) Just go to 'The Players' link once you get to the site.

Hole in my Head

My Sister Loves Me!

My baby sister loves me so much! Getting better at these ink pens. No pencils! Woot!

Sketchy

I'm trying this new thing where I focus on the overall image instead of individual body parts. Duh, Eric. I'm also trying to improve my weakness…faces. Hands are next. I'm comin for you hands! This image is from The Nude Figure: A Visual Reference for the Artist by Mark Smith. Great book. Highly recommended. More to come soon!

Quick Update

Yeah, so haven't updated for a while. Sorry. I'm so lazy when it comes to scanning in my work and then posting it. Need to do it more often. Anyways, here is a quick doodle I did. Been trying to come up with some concepts for a game I am working on and this is one of my favorite sketches of the night. Need to give her a name. She shoots black holes out of her gun (hence the sun and crossbones :-D)

Life Studies

Went to the Bodies Exhibit here in the ATL with one of my coworkers. It was pretty cool and I got about three hours of drawing in. I also got some muscle studies in beforehand. Here are some of my better muscle sketches. I also did some studies from some of my art books. I'm not extremely happy with any of them. I need to focus more on letting shading become part of my drawing instead of an afterthought. I also need to work on my line quality. Hair should be more refined too, but I need to learn the best way to do that with pen and still have it darker than most of the shading. So much to do and so little time.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to draw when doing studies. My drawings never have as much of the flair as a sketch from my imagination, but imagination sketches are never accurate enough. I guess studies should remain studies though, even if the flair isn't really there. I need to do drawings that slowly add what I have learned from my studies, one thing at a time so it becomes embedded in my memory. I have noticed that my studies are alot more accurate scale-wise. Need to work on my faces. I'll try working some of what i've learned into my imagination sketches this week.

All sketches were done with ballpoint pen.