Figure Drawing #9

I feel so disconnected with this class- I missed 2 classes last week and will miss one tomorrow night.

Last night was good- we did two extended poses and I enjoyed doing it. I need to work on hands...and faces.





I don't need to work on genitals. I know it looks like I spent a lot of time on them- but they ARE darker than the rest of the model and I was struggling to get the face right.

Painting class #5

What a week! We spent Sunday through Wednesday in Disneyland, and had the perfect trip we hoped for. The kids are the PERFECT ages for Disney- no more diapers, no strollers,but yet young enough for it all to be magic, still. They got autograph books and hunted down characters, traded Disney pins and looked for hidden Mickeys. I love these little geeks we're raising!!

Yesterday I was so tired and honestly feeling pretty un-motivated to paint for 5 hours. The previous week, I was so cranky and stressed about going on vacation, I could hardly mix my colors or make anything look right.

After a huge cup of coffee, I found myself getting into this painting, FINALLY!!! Its not done, but I am finally getting into the groove of painting again.


The pillow needs work, as well as the drapery behind the duct. The duct itself needs some more work to make it less flat. The purple drapery needs to be filled in and then I think I will be done.

The next phase of this project will be to make another painting based on this one, but semi-abstract.

I haven't a clue what to do! But, I'm excited to try.

Painting class #4

This was a good one- we critiqued the paintings we'd done last week that featured the paper lanterns. Usually critiques take quite a bit of class time, but with only 6 in this class, it makes it go rather quickly. The amount of feedback we get is awesome.

We are embarking on a project consisting of threes stages: realism, semi-abstraction and finally, abstraction. I'm stoked.

I bought boards to paint on at Home Depot. They were cut from on 4' by 8' piece of tempered MDF. I probably should take a math course and learn to deal with numbers- I ended up with some fairly severe rectangles. I'm a dork.

Oh well, a good compositional challenge. Composition is something mysterious to me- it sort of feels like numbers and math when I think about it. I need to learn it- it's just that I fear I'll never understand all the basics of placement and proportions. Maybe I will. I don't know.

Anyway...

Laying this thing out was rough- I needed to keep it all very vertical due to my very long and narrow board. This meant I had to position myself on the side of the still life. I think (I hope) this will give me an opportunity to display depth.

Here's the still life from my angle- and this is not good photography:

Here's what I have so far:



It looks like a wretched mess right now. I'm taking the skull out- it's just not right for this painting. It would look forced, and from this angle, it's just not a strong form. I need to believe I can do this- but I was really struggling while painting. I feel like I can't snap into the painting.

I am pretty excited about going to Disneyland this weekend though- and I had cramps. And this week was weird- my brain was tremendously...scattered? Fogged? Discombobulated? (is that a word? It doesn't really matter...it fits.) My mind is full of disjointed thoughts, incomplete sentences, unexplainable opinions and random acts of word-invention. Its amazing people put up with me.

I *think* I'll be able to focus more next week- after our vacation.

I'm in an extremely creative place right now, which is always good- lots of ideas. I am thinking a lot about what it is I want to draw and paint. I'm getting great material for my writing through research. All good things.

The problem is- when this happens my life turns to mush. I forget to call people, my kids have ratty hair, there's no socks, and the cooking suffers. My husband starts getting frustrated with me, my friends probably start questioning my sanity (a worthy concern) and my kids get out of control.

Usually, though, I follow these times with periods of focus, where I can apply and arrange the information properly.

Usually.

Sometimes.

:)

Acrylics Class Exhibition

Last night I stayed after Painting Class for a show our Acrylics class from last semester put up in the Library at El Dorado Center. It was great to see all these pieces together and being appreciated by students and faculty!!

There really were some great paintings. I took a few shots of the pieces that were hung:

You will recognize a few different projects- the fruit, the acrylics-as-watercolor, the abstract featured the ceramic face, and the chair project (one realistic, one abstracted).










I love all the chair paintings- they are my favorite!!

Figure Drawing Class #8

I don't really have any pictures, as there really wasn't much to photograph.

Tonight we sketched landscapes to get ideas for fargrounds on future pictures. I'm not so sure how good I am at drawing grand landscapes. At least not in Folsom. Tract houses and power lines and parking lots? I was a bit un-inspired, but worked hard regardless.

Then we made thumbnail sketches of different figurative compositions.

:) Thats it! Hopefully I'll have more visual stuff from next weeks class.

Painting homework

Oh, this painting...sometimes things just don't start well. (the actual painting is brighter- the flash washed this out quite a bit)

This one is tough- at least I'm struggling with it. The colors are an interesting mix of saturated and muted. The large red lantern dominates, but I cant get it to do that. It's a good challenge for me.

I worked on it a bit this morning- I should have done some this weekend, but time got away from me.

I put in a bit of background and tried to give more dimension to the green cloth.

I think the lemons need work, for sure. The duct needs...something- I'm not sure yet. The lantern needs texture and some color tweaking. And I need to decide whether or not the orange in the bottom right corner is going to live there or not.

Figure Drawing Class #6

Here's last nights 20 minute pose:

Figure drawing homework- Contour Collage

I'm not sure this is actual collage. The assignment was to trace some of our blind contour drawings, and some of our gestures if we want. Then we flipped the tracing paper over and transfer it on to new paper to put together a composition using any drawing medium we want.

Tracing sheets:


Inked and ready to go:




A few colors in:



Finished. I think.:



This was actually fun. I could color this for the rest of my life or just stop now with my sanity in tact. There are some elements I would undo if I could, but I'm not going to worry about that right now.

I like the figure elements in this and how it forced me to de-construct my own ideas of the figure. I tried to give large areas some value changes that make the mind think of more figures. (does that make any sense? I'm in a hurry!!)

Figure Drawing #5

Frustration seems to be the name of the game this week.

Apparently I don't understand blind contour drawing. Or so I'm told.

I'm here to learn, though.



I need to relax more when I draw, I suppose...

Painting Class #3

Yesterday was a long, tired day. Part of the tired was my own fault for having gone to bed late the night before. A lot of it, though, is me adjusting to getting up, getting the kids ready, going to preschool and leaving from preschool for my 5 hour class. Plus, we took my mom out to dinner for her birthday- which was fun, but I passed out when I got home. I barely got my makeup off before I lost consciousness!

Ok...painting...

Our class is quite small- only 5 of us yesterday. I think its fantastic! We have motivated, serious people in there and the environment is great.

After several short paintings as a warm up, we embarked on this still life:


It was not easy for me. I am getting a good kick in the pants after a summer of producing what I consider successful paintings. It's good for me to feel this way. I nearly chewed my own lips off while painting. Nothing seemed to pull together. I couldn't get the forms to relate, and the perspective is...sort of not-good. (very technical language, here.)

Here's what I ended up with:


Yes, I will do more as per my reference photo. I hope I can get it to pop. I hope I can pull it together. I hope.

Homework, homework...

This week is short, since Monday was Labor day. Tonight is Figure Drawing and tommorow is Painting. It all kind of snuck up on me!! So, guess who's been scrambling today?

I churned out a couple of paintings...some stronger than others!

(but mostly just mediocre)


This is the one thing I think was successful:


Also, I wrote up a short paper on an art movement of my choice. I chose Surrealism- something I really do love. It was fun reading a bit more about it.

Here's some of the work of my favorite contemporary painters, Vladimir Kush:





I think of him as surrealist, but then I just read that he considers himself a Metaphorical Realist. I get it...thats true. Oh well...I like it, thats all I'm saying.

One more post to squeeze in...

I've been going to the library again. I didn't go for a long time just because I was busy and pre-occupied and...I don't know, I just didn't.

Since I don't have a class on Wed. mornings, I've been going to story time. While Scarlets listening, I wander around, picking up books until my bag is full.

Last Wednesday, I was looking and talking to the librarian. She came up and pulled a few books off the shelf. One was The Four Agreements. Whats so weird is, that very morning I was on NPR's website and had read about this book. I tend to feel like I'm meant to read it, though I've seen it hundreds of times. I am not drawn to self-help books or stuff like this- but when a librarian pulls it off a shelf and puts it in your bag for you without asking-- you read it. It's on your plan. What am I supposed to get out of this book?

I've been doing so much writing research lately! I know I've already said that. I really love doing it. It's kind of weird trying to find information about schizophrenia, mental institutions and bullet trajectory. I like it, though. Its hard information- some very unpleasant things to ponder. But like pencil drawing- there must be dark for the light to be bold enough. This story lacked dimension, reality and grit. I'm trying to get that now.

Ah the pursuit of wisdom...

Painting Class #2

Whenever I get all confident and puffed up, I inevitably get knocked down a level. It's good for me.

I was feeling really, really good about getting into this painting class. I was feeling REALLY good after last monday's Figure Drawing class.

So, it was completely appropriate for me to produce something like this in a 10 minute painting exercise:

I guess I should have painted more this summer. I was making stupid mistakes. It's all good, though. I need this. Like I said in my last post. I need to struggle- I need to do a lot of really awful paintings and drawings. I need criticism. I need to make huge mistakes and be told how to deal with them by someone with experience.

So, it was good.

We also watched a video on 20th Century Art which I found fascinating. I haven't taken ANY Art History, and really know nothing about any of it. I ate it up. We have an assignment to pick one of the movements mentioned in the video and write a bit about it. I'm going to talk about Surrealism, as it completely enthralls me. A close second was a section of the video about feminist art. I don't respond much to the particular art in the video, but I do appreciate seeing women used in art in a way that is NOT idealized or objectified.

Here's the last painting I did yesterday. It's a bit of a muddy mess, but, it's work. I learn every time I pick up a brush.

Figure Drawing Class #4

No model tonight- just a pile of cotton twill on the tables in front of us to render.

We were given a good amount of time for this, and though it may sound simple, it is NOT.

It's easy to lose track of where you are in the drawing, and the values can be particularly tricky.

My biggest problem in this case was smudging, lack of contrast, and in the end- over-drawing.

It's ok, though....practice, practice, practice. My new mantra is "I'm out to struggle." Nothing worthwhile is easy.