Odd Fellow Meeting 05/21/13

This Tombow ink drawing was done at an Odd Fellows meeting. I managed to get this done during the meeting time.

There is a really nice texture created by the lines I used in this piece. The rhythm of the crosshatching is very nice. I also drew a very nice expression on his face.

"Expression is the mystery of beauty." 

~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Zwick Studios - Burnt Umber

I was unable to go to Zwick Studio this week thanks to a previous engagement. However last week I did get pretty far into the Burnt umber of the painting. I am pretty happy with the pose and the figure.

I am thinking of doing more with the rest of the picture then what was presented in the still life. I need to do some research, but I was looking for legends about woman near bodies of water.

"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize 

how close they were to success when they gave up."

~ Thomas Alva Edison

Zwick Studio's - Elaine Sitting down - Tombow Sketch

At Zwick Studio, there is a new painting going. I know going into this that I will be missing a few days of the class because of previous engagements. 

Billy has been trying to make the poses more interesting. Adding flowers and a pool of fabric beneath her feet to create a complete pose.  

I did a quick sketch of the pose as well as doing a good portion of a burnt umber under painting. 

The sketch was to layout how I wanted the painting to look.   

HMoA Drawing Class - 05/07/13 - Quantae

Monday was another drawing class at the Honolulu Museum of Art. The model was Quantae; it's like drawing a super hero.

I was sort of in a bad mood on Monday, but this class made me feel so much better.  Drawing is great way for me to work out my problems. I was really happy after completing these drawings.

I am kind of happy with these drawing. I have been recycling pages I am unhappy with. The result in these cases is a very thick, almost impasto look to the drawings. The oil pastel is almost caked on to the page. The color is so thick and rich it looks almost like a painting.

There is also great spontaneity to these drawings. I have been told by other people in the class they love the movement I am able to capture in the drawings. Looking at these three pages, I am really fascinated how the figure seems to coalesce from the chaos in the background. 

I have been a little worried about muted colors. I have this great fear that the reuse of old pages and the reworking of drawing upon drawing will leave me with a hideous brown mess. The "fear of mud" is what I'm coming to call it.

In the drawing above the orange in the main figure really keeps the figure together on the page. I am a little more dependent on outline in this drawing, but I really do like the result. The variation in shadow from the dark to the light is very subtle in the form itself. The outline is really needed to keep the figure separate from the background.

I really like how the right arm falls behind his body. There is some really nice color shifts that subtly detail the forms of the arm.

This figure is kind of neat. It is the second long pose of the night. I had to move to a different area of the room to get this view of Quantae.

The figure is well done. I can see I rushed a bit in some places. I am a little unhappy with the shadow on the left of the page, but I still am very happy with this page.

I really like the yellow ocher pieces of this page. It's really visible in the chair and the space under his arm. It is a nice vibrant contrast to the subtle shifts in most of the page. I think it adds to the mood of the page. 

The shadows on his stomach are rather dramatic. The blue ink is really doing a lot of neat things there.

This was the last pose of the night and I am really happy with it. It is very similar to the first drawing, although it is less dependent on the outline.

There is really nice play between the very vibrant and the very muted colors. It is creating a neat contrast in the drawing. I do like the play between them in most of the figure. In the leg and the knee it is a dynamic transition between the muted gray yellow ocher color showing the highlighted flesh, then the really vibrant burnt umber and orange and finally the muted blue of the background. It really is focusing and moving the eye around the page.

All in all I had a really good night.

"The thing you really believe in always happens... 

and the belief in a thing makes it happen." 

~ Frank Lloyd Wright

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