Tuesdays (C0lor study)

Thursdays and Fridays (Figure painting)

Mondays (Figure and portrait drawing)

Tuesdays (Color study)

Wednesdays (Structural Drawing)

Instructor demos (Dan Thompson):

Facial features

The nose is the keystone of the face. If it is too long or short, the rest of the features will be affected. The ear and nose relationship indicates the postition of the head.

The ear is the pivotal point in drawing the head. The sternal mastoid, jaw bone, parietal can all be located off this point.

The eye is a visual vortex – the lines of the face swirl into it.

2 day pose

4 day pose

Instructor demo (Dan Thompson):

Goals for a 5 day pose

1. Action, proportion, shape: use plumb lines, triangulation, abstract division between light and dark

2. 5 tones generally from landmarks. (False value, darkest dark, darken false value in relationship to darkest dark,  general light value, lightest lights erased, then darkest lights)

3. Tones turn into surface form and the range is spread further.

My work:

Thursdays and Fridays (Figure painting)

Fridays (Cast painting)

“Paint to communicate to the viewer the form of the object. Sometimes you have to exaggerate and push the values further than what you see, especially in an artificial lighting scenario where the close proximity washes out and flattens the light.” – Darren Kingsley

Mondays (Portrait and figure drawing)

These are 3 day poses with charcoal pencil. I feel my early stages are very awkward and I am currently struggling with the materials.

Tuesdays (Color study)

Homework:

5 values of each of the colors in the Incamminati palette.

I found that my color studies are staying more vibrant, intense with saturation, keeping the effect of light now that I keep this taped to my easel for reference.

In figure color studies we did an exercise for an hour and a half under our standard artificial lighting, then a second study of the same pose with a blue color gel covering the light.

It’s more important to capture the temperature of the light than the local color.

Wednesdays (Structural drawing and painting)

3 hour graphite pencil study

Thursdays and Fridays (Figure painting)

3 hour poses

Fridays (Cast painting)

2nd pass with the underpainting, this time hitting the lightest values with the white and the darkest values with the ivory black/burnt umber mixture.

Mondays (Portrait and figure drawing)

12 hour pose with charcoal pencil

Tuesdays (Color study)

Light allows us to see. Color on two different objects is more similar between the lit sides of the objects than an object’s lit side compared to its own shadow. The darkest light should always be lighter than the lightest shadow.

You can’t copy nature, but you can manipulate color and value relationships to mimic the visual experience. Go after the EFFECT of the light.

In choosing a composition, pick a well lit object with clear dark and light sides, not a set up that is mostly in raking light.

Have a goal when doing your color studies! If you know you struggle with painting a cool object in warm light, purposefully set up your still life to reflect your learning objectives.

Start with the easiest color to see that is in the light and the color you think would be easiest to mix. Calibrate to the colors in the light first. Go for the lightest value if possible so you know the upper limit of the palette.

PAY ATTENTION to what you are doing! Observe the process. Observe the result.

Color palette:

Burnt Sienna, Alizarine Crimson, Permanent Rose, Perylene Red, Cadmium Red Deep, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Scarlet, Cadmium Orange, Indian Yellow, Raw Sienna, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Green Pale, Cadmium Green, Viridian, Phthalo Green, Phthalo Turquoise, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Dioxazine Purple, Quinacridone Violet, Titanium White

Instructor demo (JaFang Lu):

My work:

Wednesdays (Structural drawing and painting)

Instructor demo (Dan Thompson):

My work:

Thursdays and Fridays (Figure painting)

Instructor demo (Darren Kingsley):

My work:

Each 1 hour poses. We are learning to calibrate values relative to one another.

Start by laying in basic values, then adjust relative to each other on the canvas. These studies are concerned about relativity and effect. Start with shadow relationships first.

3 hour poses

Fridays (Cast painting)

Instructor demo (Darren Kingsley):

First draw the cast as accurately and life size as possible with straight lines delineating the light from the shadow. When it is ready to be transferred, trace the line drawing onto tracing paper or acetate with a fine point marker. Then sandwich the canvas, transfer paper, and traced drawing. Redraw over the tracing until it is transferred onto the canvas. Paint a thin first layer with burnt umber, mars black 1:2 mixture and titanium white. Use 2-3 values for the shadows and 2-3 values for the light areas. This is just an underpainting, so the values are preliminary and will be corrected as the painting progresses.

My work:

Went on several trips this summer. First time in beautiful Maine.

I have started working through some of the exercises from the book by Lisa Sonora Beam, The Creative Entrepreneur.

The exercises focus on 4 pathways to help design a viable creative business.

Pathway 1: Heart and Meaning looks at how to follow your heart’s desire and creative dreams, while lessening the potential for heartbreak.

Pathway 2: Gifts and Flow reveals how uncovering and using your unique gifts contributes to flow, or less-effortful accomplishment.

Pathway 3: Value and Profitability is about creating a customer-centric business, and how to create and deliver value that people will pay for.

Pathway 4: Tools and Skills presents the vital necessity of developing your business skills and leadership capacities to achieve the results you want in the first 3 areas.

I’ve done the collages and journalling that go with the first two pathways below:

Pathway 1: Heart and Meaning

I’ve always wanted to make a difference, do what I love on my own time table, not have to live according to the demands and expectations of others, explore what moves me and interests me as I am internally led, be noticed for my creativity, have a sense of accomplishment in my work.

My creative dream is to produce visually appealing and conceptually exciting work that communicates to others in an inspirational and thought provoking way, create several bodies of work that explore interesting themes, exhibit work in galleries, collaborate with other artists.

I would continue to learn, sharpen my artistic skills, paint, even if it didn’t pay.

What matters most to me is seeking to reach my potential, growing my latent talents and gifts, helping others explore their creative dreams, continuing my journey in reaching my creative goals.

I value financial security, recognition, helping others, autonomy.

I am most passionate about self-expression, self-realization, meaning, harmony, unification.

I have a burning desire to feel rooted, find my place, live joyfully, feel integrated in body, mind, and spirit. I want to be recognized and financially viable as an artist and mentor/creative coach.

If I was to answer my creative calling and knew I couldn’t fail, I would own a studio, produce work, invite people in, receive recognition and admiration as an artist and creative spirit, help others identify and reach their own creative goals, participate in a creative community that is altruistic and wholistic in nature.

My deepest creative longing is for creativity and leisure to take place at home, unharried; to make art and live a life of richness and meaning.

More than anything else I want to be part of a creative community where I am accepted, participating, producing, contributing.

Pathway 2: Gifts and Flow

What do you do so well you barely exert effort to do it? Spending time alone. Self Inquiry. Self awareness. Writing and journalling. Tying ideas and images together in symbolic, metaphorical ways. Abstract connections. Playful discovery.

What comes naturally or easily to you? Flexibility. Adaptibility. Creative problem solving. Although I love my artwork (drawing/painting) it is really hard work! I do not find that it comes naturally.

What do you get absorbed in for hours? Thinking. Daydreaming. I can get absorbed in a drawing or painting once I get started for 3 and 4 hour blocks of time. (But I need to have structure to get started. Being in school at this moment helps.)

What do you do that feels like rowing against the current? Being organized. Knowing where to start. Getting started. Making money and having financial savvy. Networking.

When are you most in flow? When I enter a project excited. When the project is new or when I return to an older project having taken a break. I have to have rested physically or mentally, need to feel energized instead of exhausted. I am most in flow when I have filled the creative well, when the idea for a piece has perculated for a while and I’m anxious to birth it, cross it off my to do list, when I have a build up of emotional energy. I am in flow sometimes unpredictably, as long as I am working, and work through the times I feel stuck.

What are your unique gifts? I like my sense of color and the ideas I want to express. I see the big picture. I  am a unifier and harmonizer of divergent things. I am persevering in pursuing the goals I have identified for myself.

What are the things you are better at than anyone else? Knowing what I want. Making decisions for my own life.

What would I like to stop doing even if I’m good at it? Stop procrastinating. Stop telling yourself you’ll do that later. Stop whittling time away in areas that are not priorities. Take those chunks of time to fill the creative well, take care of my body, reflect/journal, play outdoors, sketch, observe and take note of the things that inspire me. Stop deferring to others by allowing myself to be limited by what I perceive others expect or want from me. 

If you were using your creative capacities to the fullest, what would you be doing? I would be financially viable as an artist. I would be recognized, productive, showing and selling work. I would be satisfied with my work; it would remain authentic to my own creative vision.

How are you being underutilized? I am not investing enough time in my work.

Mondays (Cast drawing, Figure drawing)

Tuesdays (Still life)

Wednesdays and Thursdays (Figure drawing)

9 hour pose

Wednesday afternoons (Color studies)

Fridays (Open grisaille)