Lost and Found and Other News

Lily was lost! Or I should say taken and then dumped! Luckily there are "good" people around. One took her in and had a chip reader come and read her chip. She was quite far from our town on the other side of a very busy main road #461( Road to Tel Aviv) which she would NEVER cross on her own.

Finished the course and awaiting a new one end of August with Pauline. Didn't get much work done that last week. Combining background with the figure is tricky and not in my comfort zone. Have a few more figures in the process and may go back in this one.

WIP

Conte + Neocolor Crayons I

13.75 x 19.75 "

Gessoed Paper

Started this figure on cut canvas for the workshop but this month we are having structured lessons so working at home.  First 3 stages... going slow! Oils and cold wax + palette knife!

WIP I

20 x28 "

Cut Canvas Wrapped on cardboard

II

III

Have to lighten this!

It's All About the Figure

The third week we started on the full figure! Mainly in black and white, lots of sketches, sketches, and more sketches! The name of the game is PRACTICE! Like everything else, we like to do! First I want to share some good reference links. The first Croquis Cafe, an endless site for everything to do with figure drawing. The second Royal Academy Life Drawing Class.

We got five stills to do gesture sketches in ink and watercolor pencil. I am slowly getting over my fear of INK. It's still intimidating, but the more I practice the better I feel. These are timed 10 minute sketches to keep from "noodling"!

12.5 x 9.5"

Ink

9.75 x 13.75

Ink

12.5 x 9.5"

Ink

15.75 x  13"

Ink

9.75 x 13.5

Ink

Next, we did some upsidedown drawing. This is a great exercise because it helps to eliminate the left brain telling us what we are drawing.  She gave us two examples from Egon Schiele.  Worked with graphite wash pencil and added some crayons as well. Adding water gives a painterly look. Loved doing these!

9 x 11.75

Watercolor graphite + Neocolor I crayons

9 x 11.75

Watercolor graphite 

Did two of these turning the paper!

Here some links for references. Egon Schiele work on Instagram, and a figure drawing board of Pauline's on Pinterest.

Finally a pastel painting of a figure.

9.75 x  13.75"

Pastel Pencils + Pastels

Tinted Paper

9.75 x  13.75"

Pastel Pencils + Pastels

Tinted Paper

Tomorrow we start putting it all together!

Color Color Color

From the Heart e-course, this week is all about color. Building up a color palette based on Master's painting.  This palette was made up of a warm and cool of each primary, raw umber, and white. In the lesson, we used a Sargent painting.

Cadmium yellow- lemon yellow - cadmium red - alizarin crimson - ultramarine blue- Prussian blue -raw umber - white. I added a second cool blue to the palette, a primary blue. 

Various mixes

I preferred the Prussian blue over the more turquoise blue

Using a blending app or blending in Photoshop we took our ink sketch from the previous week and blended it with a discarded painting of Pauline. This was used as an inspiration of how to develop a different way of seeing and using color in a portrait.

Composite using Photoshop

My Version 

10 x 13.75 "

Oils + cold wax

Still too timid!

Berthe Morisot pastel. Pauline introduced us to this marvelous impressionistic artist. Because being a woman she was less known than her contemporaries like Monet. She is an expert draughtsman. Worth looking at and learning from her work which has a very contemporary feel.  Because she was a woman, her death certificate stated no profession. She painted over 800 paintings.

Using a photograph of Berthe we used pastels to make a portrait. I had 2 small sets of pastels and box of pastel pencils stowed away because never felt I connected with this media. But I took the dive, we are on a learning experience!

Pastel Study

Berthe Morisot

9 x 12 "

Tinted Canson Paper

Pauline suggested that I break up the right white line

Revised

9 x 12 "

Tinted Canson Paper

More color

9 x 12 "

Tinted Canson Paper

A Berthe oil study without a drawing. Another exercise to dive in! This time only using 3 primary colors; cadmium yellow, cadmium red, and ultramarine blue, along with raw umber and white. Was way out of my comfort zone! Mainly used a palette knife.

My palette oils + cold wax

Mixed a grey 

First layers

Oils on paper

14 x 14 "

WIP

Oils on paper

14 x 14 "

Second Layer

Lots to fix here