HMoA Figure Drawing 06/03/13 - Kat

This Monday was drawing at the Honolulu Art Academy. Kat was the model and as always she is a lot of fun to draw.

Above is my favorite of the night. There is a nice tightness to the drawing that I like. Kat had her legs up on a stool for this pose but I knew that I would not be able to finish the drawing if Ii included her legs. It was one of those pretty, but really difficult, poses to capture in 20 minutes.

I made the joke that because her eyes are open, the drawing looks like a Law and Order victim. I do like the purple cloth underneath her; it is making a nice contract between the yellow in her skin tone.

This is the 10 minute pose over an earlier drawing.  The page is not done, but this drawing is a nice addition to it.

This is one of the drawings I am on the fence about. It is a nice drawing, and an  interesting pose, but with no hands or faces, it is kind of simple. By simple,  I mean that I should have been able to do more with the drawing. It is not my favorite of the night.

This page needs some work. As I was drawing the face I got a real Picasso vibe from the way I handled the pastel.  The outline was looking like how he drew some of his ladies. I softened up the outline and think there may be something in this pose. Let me spend a few hours on it and see what I get.

"If you add something to a painting, never let it be for aesthetic reasons. 

Only let it be for reasons of expression." 

~ Asger Jorn

Ko'olau Mountains from Kaʻaʻawa

Ko'olau Mountains from Ka'a'awa, Ink on Paper, 11" x 14"

So at the request of a friend, I found myself in Kaʻaʻawa  He was photographing a wedding and needed some help. The weather was not agreeing with us, I had some down time, so I drew the Ko'olau Mountains.

On the windward side of Oahu, you can always draw the Ko'olau Mountains.

I used my fountain pens and am really happy with how the above drawing came out. The ridges of the Ko'olau Mountains are really a lot of fun to draw. It was also a challenge to try and render them with just the two colors in ink.

I really like how I rendered the palm trees and the one "fake" palm tree, otherwise known as a civil defense warning siren.

I even got a quick sketch of the wedding party...

Wedding Party, Ink on Paper, 11" x `14"

“Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait."

"I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. 

"No wonder I've been so confused all my life.” 

~ Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

Candy's Drawing Spectacular 05/26/13

Candy, one of the regulars of the drawing classes I attend, invited me to a drawing event she does a few time a year. She calls is a marathon drawing session, but in honor of her I will call it "Candy's Drawing Spectacular."

The session ran for 6 hours. There were 6 different models each posing for 50 minutes. The pose time varied from 2-10 minutes. The pace was exhilarating and the time flew by-- it was a great time. There also were no set pose order. Candy would set the times, depending on the model and the pose, and if anyone needed more time with a pose they could shout out for an extension.

Overall I was really happy with the day. The pose are short so it took me a while to get into the groove of the session. I am normally really bad at the short poses, at least with oil pastel. I may next time just use pen or charcoal for this session.

There are four drawing pages here from hour 2 to hour 5.   I didn't include page 1 from this session because I was really unhappy with it.

Above was my favorite of the session; this is hour 5, the last one I drew (I had to leave early to get to a wedding). The model was Honey who posed for a long painting session at Zwick Studio. I really started to like the later sessions. I was getting used to what I could draw in the pose times and getting better at building pages out of the various poses. All really helpful skills.

 

This is the first time I drew this model. His name is Keith and  he has the most unusual tattoo over his left eye. It is of a square with a concentric circle in it. I have heard from others that he used to be a regular model, but an injury had kept him from working recently. 

I do like this page. This is an example of me not realizing how quick the sessions were as I clumped the poses expecting to have to fit more poses in. I was having fun with outlines in this page. 

Above is Karli I have drawn her before at the University of Hawaii and the Honolulu Art Museum sessions. The pose on the bottom of the page was one of my favorites of the morning. Although I am unsure how much I like it now that I have had a second look at it.

Above is another model named Harold. This was the first time I drew him and was a little unready for what he did. He is an Leeward Community College Drama dance student making the transition to the University of Hawaii. His dramatic side showed when he took poses. He was really expressive with his face and his gestures. He was really great for this type of drawing session.

It was a challenge to try and capture his mood in the short time period. I think the page looks pretty good.

"Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything; 

you are you and that is the beginning and the end - 

no apologies, no regrets." 

~ Clark Moustakas

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