Portrait Study - Kathryn

Portrait Study - Maddy

Portrait Study - Pam

Figure Study - Collin

Collin - 12" x 16"

This figure study was done last night at Michelle Philip's figure study class. I came to class prepared to do a color study, but once we got into the session, there was so much interesting stuff going on with this pose, structurally, that I just had focus on that. The wash effect is always so interesting to me.

Portrait Study - James

Jasmine

Jasmine

12" x 12" Oil

Little Babushka

Little Babushka

12" x 16" Oil

Gesture Paintings

Some of the most fun that can be had either drawing or painting is doing gestures. Like scales played by a pianist or any other musician, gestures are an integral part of any artist’s regimen, providing a “warm-up” for the main event. Usually gestures are done within a limited time period, never longer than 5 minutes, like the one above, down to 10 seconds, like the ones to the right. The point is to get the artist out of their analytical brain (the part that says, “this is an arm”) into the part of their brain that recognizes space and makes judgments based on what is seen, not what is known about what is seen. It is the part that says, “this is a shape that is next to this shape which connects to this shape” and so on.

Studies

Today’s open studio was very nice, and our model was superb; expressive, steady and very subtle in her poses. This three hour session was mostly focused on drawing, so we did lots of five-minute poses (as are the ones above), and gradually moved up in time. I was able to get a modest color study done in our last two 20-minute sessions (right top), when she held the same pose for both. I tried an exercise from Virgil Elliott’s Traditional Oil Painting and used a very limited palette (right bottom): Ivory Black, Red Ochre, Yellow Ochre and Titanium White. I was pretty impressed with the range of purple and greenish tones you can get without blue on the palette!

I’ll continue with this palette for some time to come. With only forty total minutes messing about with it, I didn’t even scratch the surface.