Leslie

Two-and-a-half hours. I try to live by the saying that goes "You're only as good as your last drawing." And since I hated my last portrait, I dragged myself to an evening workshop tonight in an attempt to put that terrible sketch behind me. This one's got some proportion issues, sure, but I'm a great deal happier with the end result.

Toni

Two, five, and ten minute quick sketches. I was working on these before I decided to switch rooms and subsequently agonized over the portrait below. I should have stayed and done more of these doodles. Next time, Gadget... next time.

Sarah

Two-and-a-half-hours. I struggled with this one the whole way through, which kind of bugs me, because I've drawn Sarah enough times to understand the idiosyncrasies of her face. I just know I could have done a better job on this. I probably I was thrown off in the second set, when the workshop monitor insisted that her head wasn't facing the right direction (and she would know better than I, having started her painting in the beginning of the session, unlike me, who showed up in the middle) It all kind of went downhill from there. Ah well. You win some; you lose some.

Petra

Three-and-a-half hours. I've decided to put off oil painting at workshops for the time being, because I realized that what I really need to focus on right now are values, edges and shape design. I'm terribly slow at finishing long pose figure drawings, but being methodical and exacting during the process is the only way to get better. Increased speed will come as my understanding and confidence improves.

Jason

Five-minute quick sketches and a two-and-a-half hour pose. Aaron helped to group and simplify my shapes and shading once the pose ended.

When I sat down to continue the long pose from last week, I looked at the model, then at my pad of newsprint, and immediately I could tell that the proportions in the drawing I finished last week were way off. I've thankfully grown past the point of getting too precious with my sketches, so I grabbed my kneaded eraser and wiped out everything that wasn't working well, and quickly redrew the features as accurately as I could. In my opinion, it's a much better drawing as a result. I've learned that you absolutely cannot be afraid to obliterate anything that doesn't look right, even if you slaved over it for hours on end. It's almost always better to try to fix a mistake than to just let it stay, because when all is said and done, a piece is only as strong as its weakest part.

Solana Beach

Three hours. Plein air painting done this morning at Solana Beach near San Diego. I started off with fairly accurate colors, but both my instructors (Jeff and Robert Watts) mentioned that it looked more like a nocturne than a seascape painted in daylight (and they were right), so they both introduced a lot of warm colors in the mix, as well as cleaned up my shapes and perspective. Painting plein air is such a blast; I've definitely got to schedule some time to do more in the future.

Thanks Jeff & Bob. I learned so much in your class.

Cassie, Week 7

I've got three weeks to finish this painting, and man, making it has been such a stressful, humbling, and educational experience. I've finally gotten it to a point where I actually kind of like where it's going. Here's hoping the final piece turns out okay.

Licola

Two-hour study using the Zorn palette. It's not bad; I got the overall likeness of the model just fine, but the handling of the paint is downright messy. Plus that white is just glaring. Yuck. Ah well. That's what I get for wiping the canvas and starting anew halfway into the workshop and rushing to get something down before time runs out. Even this result is probably better than what I had going before I scrubbed it all out, so I don't feel too terrible about it.

Malo

Four-and-a-half hours. It's been a while since I've drawn a portrait from life for that long a session. Having so much time at your fingertips is convenient for people like myself who like to methodically correct mistakes in a drawing until it starts looking right. I just wish for this session that I wasn't so far away from the model (Malo was sitting about 20 feet away). The light stand being propped up in front of her didn't help either. I think I managed fine though.

Jerald

Five minute quick sketches and a two-hour pose. Erik helped add more structure and clarity to the arms and torso of the larger drawing.

Today marked the last pair of sessions for my figure drawing courses at Watts. It was a such a pleasure to take classes at that little school and to have met so many new friends and fellow artists. I'm looking forward to meeting up with them again in the new year.

Studying Zhang Lu, Final

Three hours, on and off. This one kind of took on a life of its own and morphed into a direction I didn't exactly intend to go, so I'm not completely happy with it. I'm not in the mood to fix it either. I did learn a bunch from this exercise though, so it wasn't a total wash. I'll try again to do better sometime down the road.

Studying Zhang Lu, Part 2

Another two-and-a-half hours. I removed the sepia tint to help me focus on obtaining proper values in the painting. I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

Jason

Five minute quick sketches and a two-and-a-half hour pose. This is the first part of a two-session pose. Next week, we will continue from where we left off and try to bring the drawing to a complete render.

Studying Zhang Lu

Two-and-a-half hours. A work in progress. Ever since Chinese artist Zhang Lu posted his amazing work up on ConceptArt.org and announced that he would be doing a series of foundational digital portrait downloads for Massive Black, I have been anticipating them with bated breath.

He wrote that entry in late April. Nearly five months have passed and there's still no sign of his tutorials in sight. I reached the point where I didn't want to wait any longer to learn how he went about creating such beautiful portraits and decided that I would analyze his paintings as best I could and teach myself how to paint like him via reverse-engineering.

Maybe it's presumptuous of me to do such a thing, but it's not like I don't know how to already, because the three schools I haunt on a regular basis (LAAFA, Watts, and Concept Design Academy) have given me solid enough training in the foundations that I have a pretty good notion on how to deconstruct and mimic his methods. Of course, I'll definitely buy his videos when he does finally get around to releasing them, not just because I greatly admire his work, but also out of curiosity to see how close I was in duplicating his process.

Beaches

Two hours. This week we focused on indicating wet sand and rocks in a beach environment. Both Bob and Jeff Watts helped me out with this study. Next week, for our final session, we tackle the real thing in plein air. Eep. I hope I'm ready.

Marisa

Three-and-a-half hours. I tried to break out of my comfort zone with oil portraits a smidge and attempted to paint some drapery along with the usual head and shoulders routine. Obviously I need a lot more practice indicating clothing. Back to studying Sargent and Zorn again.

Lynda

Two-to-five minute quick sketches, and a two hour pose. I think I'm finally starting to loosen up in my quick sketches.

Bernini and Friends

One hour each. I went to the Getty after lunch to check out their Bernini exhibition on display, and sketched a couple of busts while I was there. The first, Portrait of a Gentleman is by Bernini's rival, Alessandro Algardi. I doodled it on vellum paper, which I've come to dislike, as it tends to pick up the blacks fairly quickly, leaving little room for error. And there sure are a lot of them in that drawing.

My second sketch - of Bernini's lover Costanza Bornarelli - I feel is more successful. Instead of using vellum, I worked on this drawing in my Fabriano sketchbook. Its paper matches well with the Conte pencils I've been using as of late.

Sherman

Two-to-five minute quick sketches, and a two-hour long pose. Goofy story about our model: when he asked for a copy of the photograph I took of my instructor's demo, I said sure, and asked who should I address my e-mail to. He replied "Sherman." I chuckled and said, "Strange, my name is Sherwin." Then he said, "Oh, people call me that all the time", to which I replied, "it's funny, people call me you all the time."

I guess our names are relatively easy to mix up.

Sarah

Five-minute quick sketches and a two-hour long pose. I'm still debating whether or not the cast shadow under her nose helps or hurts the drawing... I'm leaning towards the latter.

Waves

One-and-a-half hours. Jeff Watts helped me add some visual oomph to my study, by adding spray, splashes of puddles and waterfalls on the rocks, and a multitude of colors in the troughs of the waves. It's really cool how adding a little bit of controlled chaos will make your paintings that much more exciting.

Cary Grant

Three-and-a-half hours. “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”

Alma

Three-and-a-half hours. On Wednesday, I had one of those rough nights that make you question whether or not you really know what the hell you're doing. I'm pretty embarassed about the progress (or rather lack thereof) I made during week six of my long pose portrait painting class, so I'm a bit reluctant to post the results of that session. However, I did find a silver lining out of such a frustrating experience. I learned a better process to apply towards my paintings done at workshops. That is, after I establish the initial lay-in, I mix as many colors that I can see on the model on my palette before I apply even a single stroke of paint on the canvas. Forcing myself to pre-mix helps to organize and streamline the act of completing a painting and as a result it ends up being a much less stressful and more efficient use of my time.

Looking at my painting of Alma, I can see some of the lessons I learned from doing my Chen Shu-fen study also found their way in. It's pretty cool to see how different approaches and experiments in one medium can help you refine your skills in another.

Audrey Hepburn

Four hours. “I never thought I'd land in pictures with a face like mine.”

Studying Chen Shufen, Final

Three hours, and done. I adjusted the levels to add more warmth to the face and rendered out the hair as best I could. Not bad for a first attempt, I'd say. In total, I think I worked about a half day on this piece.

I'll definitely revisit this style in the future, but for now I'd like to try something new to keep me challenged.

Studying Chen Shufen, Part 4

Four hours. I'm almost done with this one - just need to finish rendering out the hair. I'll leave it for now and post a bigger final in the morning. It's good to step away from your piece periodically so you come at it with a fresh pair of eyes when you return.

I fixed pretty much everything from the last iteration. I'm learning so much from this study - edge control, glazing, indication, rendering, color balancing, quick fixes via the transform and move tools, etc.

I can't believe I'm even able to approximate the look of Chen Shu-fen and Common's work. About a year ago I told myself I would try hard to get to this level, but I didn't think it'd be so soon. It sure is a big step up from my first foray into digital nine months ago. Yikes. It's painful to look at your old work sometimes.