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Day one, my first timid charcoal. I couldn't find the paintings
I threw in the trash yesterday. I wasn't upset. |
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Today, portrait #2, I'm getting the idea, but I feel the need for something that
gives me a blacker black--pastel. Make a note. |
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| Linda is making a come back. pretty fair. |
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I'm getting the drift with red/green palette. She still looks
like she has a goiter. |
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| The beautiful model I made look like a guy with a bucket on his head. |
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The gloriously beautiful young woman I made look like a transvestite.
This model is the instructor's daughter. She's a knock out. |
I did a lot better today; everybody did. The palette was yellow ocre, white, black and cadmium red. I had an hour to produce the transvestite with the bucket on his head. This I'll attempt again in black and white and the palette suggested. Though Vianna gave a full color mixing demonstration, I didn't have enough time to play with the possibilities myself. It would have been advantageous to have had that opportunity before jumping into the last painting of the day and having to worry about all of it together.
Meanwhile my knees did better. I wore my knee support, found a high stool and sat most of the time. I also found a parking area and entrance on the same level as the studios. Big find. Solves everything. Tomorrow, I'll take advantage. Facial measurements, skin tones and limited palettes were the discussions. Less on the palette the better was the official opinion. Vianna's favorite portrait artists are Sargent, Yan and Rembrandt. I have a few books to order from Amazon. She also was still using Andrew Loomis's figurative dimensions. Those came from my very first art book, Figurative Drawing by Andrew Loomis. My dad gave it to me when I was ten. I drew every diagram in there. Nice to know, I got my first lessons from the best.
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The instructor's daughter is beautiful -- I didn't think you made her into a transvestite but your comment cracked me up regardless.
ReplyDeleteIsn't she gorgeous. Wonderful cheek bones. Tall. Exquisitely long swan like neck. Flawless skin. At nineteen she's smart enough to stay out of the sun and the piecing and tattoo parlors. I didn't do her justice, but my color mixing was okay and my paints didn't run away with me. That's progress.
DeleteYesterday I painted a transvestite with a bucket on his head and made him look like a beautiful woman. You can't win.
ReplyDeleteGood efforts. Tough in that environment with limited time I think. I think you did a fine job on the colors. The third charcoal drawing is magnificent!
If only I had the energy to laugh Dan. That's about the way it's going. If you ever want to torture yourself take one of these. I'm sitting here icing before I go for day three. Can't have too much ice on these knees. The drugstore support worked pretty good too as did the higher stool I found. --I was thrilled to see #3. It meant I still had some skill somewhere in this broken body. What price art?
DeleteA lot. I just ordered three books from Amazon that this woman favors raising my total expenses to just over five hundred. Ellis is going to throw me out, but I'll have the best art book kiosk on the square till the police arrest me for loitering. Look for me, I'll be carry a lot of shopping bags--and wearing a hat. "Hey fella, you wanta buy a book? It's got lots of great pictures that will turn you on."
I'd love to know her book list.
DeletePS - I really like the hair on no. 4.
ReplyDeleteMe too. That painting has promise--even though she does look ill.
DeleteGood for you for getting out there and working hard Linda!
ReplyDelete#4 looks like she is going to be sick, which is funny and awesome at the same time.
#3 is my favorite, but i kind of like #1, it has an innocent quality about it.
Great job!
Yes she does. It's the shadow shapes underside of the nose and below the nose that does it. The nose knows according to authorities. It's the first feature to establish in the face area of the head. That was me establishing with no uncertainty:) I like #3 best. I was grateful to see it. I'd thought I had lost my abilities between my car and studio #2:)
DeleteHey Linda, this looks and sounds a LOT better than yesterday! Happy for you. :)
ReplyDeleteI did get frightened when I thought I'd lost whatever skills I had between my car and studio #2. I was glad to see charcoal #3 and some of that coming back. Then I lost it again when we got out the paints and I was side tracked by having to mix all the colors I saw in this model from just three on the palette. I would have liked to have made a color chart first. So what she looks like in that hat painting doesn't really matter. It was the colors that mattered and I didn't do too badly considering I was missing two out of the three and had to improvise. That painting is more chemistry than anything else. Losing the drawing, the linear aspects of putting an image down on canvas/paper was like tying my hands behind my back and telling me to paint with my nose. I'm making acquaintances and naturally fallen in with the chatty folks. One of the reasons one's skills disappear in this type of situation is that there's too much thinking going on and not enough responding spontaneously, which is how I paint and draw best.
DeleteYour painting has a 1920s look about. Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteGlad you found the good lot and the high stool.
That's why I photographed the girl with no tats in the hat. I want to spend some more time with her under less stressful conditions. The palette was black, yellow ocre, cadmium red medium. With all my careful checking of the list, I had left the red and the yellow home! I whipped up poor substitutes. Then of course it was the newness of leaving drawing out of the picture.
DeleteAm glad you had a better 2nd day, which I thought you would. You seem to have fun, that is important.
ReplyDeleteI'm enjoying the social aspects as much as the learning experience. The instructor , a very accomplished portrait painter and coveted teacher, mention what a great workshop she just attended last summer on figurative drawing. So I guess this is what artists do regularly themselves. They continue their educations regularly to hone their skills. I like it.
DeleteI love your chronicle heartfelt! The essence of certain experiences ...experience has to be!
ReplyDeleteI figure Share the information. It cost me a pretty penny and a knee I definitely have to do something about, maybe some people out here just starting out might like to know what goes on in these intense sessions of twenty six hours straight painting. I was curious, now I know.
DeleteGood to know your second day went much better.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ann and today, day three will be for better or worse. Whatever, I'll be there finally parked in the right lot where I don't have to kill myself shlepping a suitcase over hill and dale. Meanwhile the suitcase idea is a hit and spreading. Works great.
DeleteLooks great, Linda! Glad it went better the second day!
ReplyDeleteMe too. I was really concerned Monday night. My body was just one big ache and pain. The artist's life at my house isn't nearly as difficult. With all my careful planning and going over that supply list, I left some colors home. It was my granddaughter's fault. I was painting her the day before, took some paints out of the satchel and never put them back. I learned quickly how to mix yellow ocre and a decent red with Cadmium red light and Alzarin crimson--though the instructor isn't too fond of that color as it comes out of the tube, a little dab will redden up cadmium red light nicely. What winging will go on today?
DeleteYou're too much, Linda...I knew I can count on you to make me laugh this morning! These sketches are all awesome! Excellent shading on the faces..The model is definitely beautiful...if you measure the eyebrow to the tip of the nose, it should be the same as the nose to the chin...then it would be perfect!!
ReplyDeleteIF one had time to measure this and that, then it would be perfect. Unfortunately, all the poses were ten minutes with the exception of the one with the hat. That was forty minutes. And that one was really not about the measurements; it was about color and values. I could use another one of these workshops, but I don't think I'd live through it. Six and half hours standing on my feet on cement was really taxing--made me think I was wrong about avoiding knee replacement surgery.
DeleteBeing newly back to oils, (after some forty odd years away from them), I think I might have needed a refresher course on handling the medium first. The instructor is "teaching herself watercolors." Art making/learning is an on going occupation.