Zwick Studio 05/04/13 - Kat

It was already a hectic day that Saturday morning.

This was to be the last week with Betsy as the model and I had a mandatory work meeting to attend from 10-2 which eclipses the studio session. I was in a bind. I need more time with the pose to finish the painting but real life was colliding making it impossible.

I was resolved to complete the painting. I talked to work and agreed to go to another meeting all day next week Saturday in exchange for being able to go to the painting class that morning. I knew I had to do a lot to the background of the painting so I was up late prepping the painting of Betsy for the morning session.

I come into the studio and learn Betsy called in sick.

Not only had Betsy called in sick, but because these multi-week model session requires some major planning, there is already another model planned for next week to start a new session.  So there can be no make up session. So I will be unable to complete the painting of her I started.

As an added nail, I still have to go to an all day meeting next week.

Kat was modeling that day; she is always fun to draw. I haven't used my fountain pens in a while, so I decided to draw with them that morning.

Above is my favorite drawing of the morning. It is actually a pretty good likeness of Kat. I also love how I rendered the planes of her stomach and torso.

HMoA Figure Drawing - 04/29/13 - Blithe

Monday was figure Drawing at the Honolulu Art Academy. I had a really good night. I am really happy with the results of the evening.

I have been making a pointed effort to reuse page I am unhappy with. I really like the layered effect it gives the final pieces. I am also struck by how durable the mixed media paper is; I have taken a plastic paint scraper to it without damaging the paper.

Above is my favorite of the night. It was over a page of Kat I did last year. I used bright colors in the initial drawings and I really like how they bleed through on this page. I also love the frantic mark making-- it creates a movement to the page that is really dynamic.

The figure in the middle is a 5-minute pose and I love how it came out.

The chalky white color is doing a great job create a rhythm to the page. I find it makes my eye pounce from figure to figure, while drawing attention to highlighted areas. 

Above is the first 20 minute pose of the night. I do love this drawing as well. It was really a toss up between this and the first one for my favorite.

This page is simpler, but I love how I rendered some of the details. The portrait is really nice.

This was the last pose of the night I am unsure if I like it or not.

"Great is the human who has not lost his childlike heart." 

~ Mencius (Meng-Tse)

Zwick Studio - 04/27/12 - Betsy Day 4

Day 4 on this painting; it is progressing nicely. I am very happy with the figure and there are minor tweaks I need to do to the figure.

The surface irregularities of the page are making the painting hard to photograph.

The green background is making the figure look very nice.

"There's a way to do it better—find it."

~ Thomas Edison

HMoA Drawing Class 04/22/13 - Adele

Monday was drawing at the Honolulu Art Academy Figure drawing class. Adele was the model,  she is a painter as well.

Above is my favorite of the night. I am unsure if it is the best of the night or this is just a great compilation of a good series of drawings. I will re-work this page to play with the shapes and forms on the page.  I look forward to playing with this page.

I am really liking the repeated shape of the fingers, they are creating a nice rhythm for the drawing. 

I drew this pose from the floor so the size of her face is a little off in the drawing. I made her head a little too big.

I really like the painterly way I drew her extended hand. It is reading rather well...

This was the first pose of the night. I am really distracted by this drawing. The proportions are really off on the main figure. The purple cloth is looking nice on the green though.

"Creativity is not the finding of a thing, 

but the making something out of it after it is found."

 ~ James Russell Lowell

Zwick Studios 04/20/13 - Betsy - Day 3

I had a really rough time painting on Saturday. It was the normal Zwick Painting sessions I just was having a bad morning.

I am slowly cleaning my house clearing clutter. Maybe the dust got to me this morning.

I forgot my fine paintbrushes at home so I was unable to work on details this session. I did not get as much accomplished this session as I would have liked. 

Let's focus on the positives. There are some things I did accomplish that morning.  I got through my main goal of defining her legs this session. I also love how I rendered the left knee. The proportions are looking a little more accurate. I slimmed her torso Though I need to fix her arms a whole bunch. I like the green for the background. It's really going to set off her flesh tones.

It's only a failure if I give up. 

WCC Figure Drawing - 04/19/13 - Katie

I took Friday off and was able to go to WCC's figure drawing class. The model was Katie.

I opened a new pack of oil pastels this morning and used the entire stick of Burnt Sienna in this session.  So you may notice a color trend. Sometimes the color just takes over.

Above is my favorite of the morning. It is over an old sheet, that was honestly getting rather worn from reuse. With my latest attempt, the page is looking pretty great now. There is vibrant movement on the page, despite the rather simple pose. I think I have created a rather dynamic page.

The central figure is both unstable and monolithic. It stands as such a contrast from both the green wash and the black turpentine cloud of previous drawings, while being made up of a chaotic mess of frantic marks. The spontaneity created by the way I applied the oil pastel is really captivating to me.

It's almost as if from the chaotic mess this very powerful figure appeared.

"I believe in deeply ordered chaos." 

~ Francis Bacon

This is the second pose of the morning. I am on the fence about this drawing. I keep looking at it and seeing minor flaws that are distracting my attention. However, when I look at the piece overall, it actually looks pretty good. I will probably add another pose to this page.

It was a surprisingly difficult pose because of the foreshortened legs. I do really like how I rendered the hands, particularly the one on the left.    

This is the third pose of the morning and I drew it over another pose of Kat. I am starting to really like this page. I like the repeated shapes the fingers are making in that row. I do not think the pose is completed, however. I think there needs to be another pose on the right side of the page. It may be as simple as drawing another hand in the top right corner. I have to think more what to do on this page. 

This was the last pose of the morning. I do like some elements of this drawing. Although it looks a little off to me. Maybe I should sleep on it before doing anything rash and turpentine-y

This figure drawing class is held on Fridays at Windward Community College's Hale Palanikila at 9:30 AM. There is a $5 class fee.

"Art is the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos." 

~ Saul Bellow

Lilly Oncology on Canvas - Tripler Hospital

I went to an Awesome event at Tripler Hospital this weekend called the Lilly Oncology on Canvas.

From their site...

This biennial competition, presented by Lilly Oncology and the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS), invites people from the United States and Puerto Rico diagnosed with any type of cancer - as well as their families, friends, caregivers and healthcare providers - to express, through art and narrative, the life-affirming changes that give their cancer journeys meaning.

I met a whole bunch of powerfully strong people and it is really hard for me not to go into details here. I spent the evening doing portraits of people there. I did four drawings that afternoon. Above is my favorite. I think I will redo the piece in a more controlled circumstances. It has a neat feel to it and  is called "The Three Musketeers."

My mother is a cancer survivor and worked for a few years at the local branch of the American Cancer Society. I can empathize with many of the people there at the event. I was very moved by the feelings of appreciation and gratitude that I received from every one there.  They filled my heart with love and light.

This is such a great event.  

"We are survivors from the moment of diagnosis." 

~ Peter Jennings

"That is the beauty of cancer, it tells you that your days are limited, 

that you could die at any point. 

It is that perspective that allows you to

 live a better life while you're here."

 ~ Shelley Hamlin

"Cancer is not for sissies."

 ~ Suzanne Somers

HMoA Figure Drawing 04/15/13 - Sergio

Another Monday drawing class at the Honolulu Museum of Art. I missed class last week to watch a movie at the film festival. Just one week away from the museum seemed like a long long time.

The model was Sergio and as always he was a blast to draw. I have started judging my figure drawing sessions by the number of complete works I post to my Pintrest page. This week was excellent a 3/3 week.

Above is my favorite of the night. My thought after the pose was done is "I have to do a painting of a battlefield and include this poses in on the ground." It looks like a battle casualty.

I am really happy with how the piece of this pose are fitting together. Often in poses like this it's easy to get lost in detail, so the things like the arm will look well rendered but not fit with the rest of the pose. I am really happy with how the hand and foot look in this pose.

Above was the second 20 minute pose of the night. When Sergio took the pose I moved to the floor to get a more dramatic view.

I like how the figure seems to unravel as the right leg trails off the page.  I like the forensic look at how I composed the figure sketch.

I keep regularly going to classes and figure drawing sessions and can see a difference in the quality of my work.  A lot is judging how much I can do in a time frame. However, as I try to explain what I'm doing differently I really am having a rough time doing so.

But in that leg I can see the Burnt Umber I drew the general shapes with. I then smudged it along the edges and added Yellow Ocher as a highlight. Normally I would hide the transition going back into the drawing with both the light and the dark, but in that leg I kept the transition more clear. I then will use highlights to blast out a detail or lines to extenuate a shadow.

It's even difficult for me to see what I did on a page after the fact, but in that leg I can see exactly what I did.

This is an interesting page.  It is the earliest poses, the 2 fives and the ten and the last pose of the night. The two fives are in yellow ocher and blue and are mostly covered up by the ten minute pose on the right and the 20 minute pose on the left. 

After the 10, I immediately regretted using the blue and the green in the earlier poses. I thought the colors were too bright.

Sergio likes his difficult poses. So in the 20 minute pose he was pulling down on a bungee cord that was attached to the back wall. I was really tempted to move because there was very little light dark contrast in the pose; he was entirely in shadow, with some simple highlights on his shoulder and arm.

I stuck with my spot and played up the play with the burnt umber and the blue. The end result is a page I am pretty happy with.

This life drawing class is on Monday at 7PM. It is located at the The Honolulu Museum of Art School, formerly the Academy Art Center at Linekona. There is a $10 class fee.

IOOF - Inside Guardian

There was an Odd Fellows Meeting on Tuesday.  I had enough time to do this drawing of our inside guardian. I love the shadows in this drawing. I did manage to capture his pose and gesture well.

At Coffee Bean - Man on his computer.

On Tuesday I had some down time so at the Coffee Bean in Foodland Kailua, I drew this sketch of a man on his computer. I really like how I rendered the man's legs through the chair in the foreground.

"A work of art comes only from inside a human being."

 ~ Edvard Munch