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: