Sketchbook

My favorite gesture by far.

3 minutes is almost too short for my style. The wet on wet technique that dominates my way of painting does not work well in such a short period of time. There’s no time to dry between layers and while everything blends together beautifully there’s no definition in the figures. 5 minutes however, at least when using just two colors is just right. We tried a six minute long pose and it took the spontaneity out of it.

The first gesture of the week. I enjoy this one because it shows my progress from the first time I took this class. I was known as puddles that semester. Not because I have a habitual problem wetting the floor, but because all my gestures looked like puddles of color. Beautiful puddles, but puddles none the less. At least this one has a ghost of a figure. That makes me happy.

This model was a bad two weeks for me. I don’t have anything against her, but I hate drawing her. She is near impossible. Her coloring is difficult as well. Everytime I sat down I happened to be in mostly shadow and her shadows tend to be grey. We were supposed to be doing one to two day drawings, but most of mine turned out so bad right away that I just kept starting over. Blah. But it is over and I am very happy with the next set of paintings.

*Edit: I changed the color balance to show a closer version of the color of the painting. My camera takes very yellow pictures because of the flash. I need the flash because I am too shaky to take a good picture w/o.
This is my version of Sargent’s Spanish Dancer.

I am working on a second painting that I think will that if it is not a diptych then at least be a sister piece. I am hoping for a diptych. I love diptychs. Both paintings are huge, coming in at 24″ X 32.” For watercolor, that is gigantic.

This is a portrait of Joe’s mom. There are a few things that I really like about this painting, mostly in the face. I like the way I painted the eyes and skin tone. I don’t like that I messed up on the drawing of the eyes and they are not on the same line. I also don’t like how the nose is drawn because it looks a little sunken in. However, I do think I got a likeness and I would like to try this painting again.
This is also just a detail, the painting is huge and I really don’t like how I did the rest of the painting. I just made a few bad decisions and did not have the time to really carry off a painting so large.

This painting started out as being an exercise in a loose, fast technique and trying to use colors. I am very happy with the way it turned out.

Another gesture, same woman 

This is a gesture drawing. They are fun to do, but complicated. You have to sit at the far edge of the bench with your arm straight, drawing by only moving your shoulder and/or elbow, holding the pencil at the back and so lightly that the teacher could just tap your hand and it would fly out. You have to scribble and draw in circles not using any straight lines and then when you get everything laid out you can go back and make a few areas darker. All while not picking up your china marker. (we use china markers not pencils for these) And it’s done in 1-3 minutes.  

This is the first straightline drawing we did for class. This took me the whole week to do and I didn’t get hardly any of her legs finished. Plus I think my teacher did some of it. God that one was so hard. It’s the same lady as the the one I got to use pencil and white charcoal on.