Stephanie

Four hours. 11" x 14". Here's my last alla prima for 2009. Looking back through my old posts this year, I'm thrilled to see I've grown a lot as a painter. I wonder what the new year - and new decade - will bring? I can't wait to find out. See you folks in 2010!

Sarah

Three-and-a-half hours. I kind of went overboard here and gave her a Farrah Fawcett 'do!

Eddie

Three hours. This dude was pretty fun to paint. Every time his eyelids flipped up and down, it felt like umbrellas were opening indoors.

Doodle Before Sleep #2

Two hours on and off. Used reference for the hair. I wonder how long I can keep this up.

Doodle Before Sleep #1

45 minutes. No ref. I should do quick doodles like these before I head to bed every night to exercise and strengthen my imagination. As vital as drawing from life is, it is also equally important to devote time to draw from memory as well. The two will build upon each other.

Amy

Four hours. 11" x 14".

Crystal

Four hours. 11" x 14".

Christine

Four hours. 11" x 14". I am often afraid to paint the entire figure - hence all the portraits - but I really should be more confident of my abilities. I'll endeavor to tackle more of these from now on... they're actually pretty fun to do.

Tanya

Four hours. Yeah, I know... I've been painting a lot. I really should get out and soak up some sun.

Stephanie

Four hours. Purple hair calls for alizarin crimson to the rescue. My favorite part about doing this painting was placing the bright orange spot in her left eye where the light exits her iris.

Karen

Four hours. Translucent objects are so tough to paint.

Nicole

Three hours. Trying a "tiling" approach to painting... it's pretty fun!

Malo

Four hours. Painting with ambient lighting is really tough since you have to concentrate so much on keeping the overall value structure intact. Soft, diffused light makes for a beautiful effect though... !

Mark

Three hours.

Crystal

Two-and-a-half hours. This was done at the Kirkshop - we mostly paint friends and classmates there.

Keziah

Twenty-fives.

Lynda

Fives and twenty-fives.

Christine

Fives and twenty-fives.

Mike

Twenties.

Quante

Twenties. Some of the drawings are flipped - meaning, I tried to work out the pose as if I would be seeing it from the opposite side of the room, without actually walking over there. Looking back at these, I can't remember which were the originals...

Malo

Twenties.

Brant

Twenty-fives.

Speed #5

Two hours. No reference. I just needed to get this out of my system.

Crystal

Five hours. 16" x 20". Worked on this a little at home since I wasn't too thrilled with the final product at the end of the night. Drawing problems you overlooked in the beginning always come back to haunt you later.

Jadyn

Four hours. 16" x 20".

Eaton Canyon

Two hours. 8" x 10". I need to keep reminding myself of the big three - foreground, middleground, background.

Schabarum Regional Park

Two hours. 8" x 10". Trying to get better at plein air landscapes.

Mike

Three-and-a-half hours. 11" x 14". It's fun to paint a dude every once in a while.

Roxanne

Four hours. Ultramarine blue is now a permanent addition to my palette.

Jennifer

Three hours.

Joanna

Three-and-a-half hours. 16" x 20". This is the second biggest head I've ever painted. If anyone got that obscure reference, you're just straight-up wonderful and it's such an honor to call you my friend.

Larva

Two hours plus.

Nibru

There's a ridiculously awesome thread over at ConceptArt.org that has proven to be downright irresistible. I just had to participate.

Yes, that is a donut above his head!

Roxanne

Three hours.

Connie

At Garden Cafe the other night, a buddy and I made a deal - if he would bust out the paints like he's been saying he would, I would do more than just paint a disembodied head (which I've gotten too comfortable doing). We kept our promises. This was a great learning lesson for me. Painting clothes and accessories will help me get better at rendering different types of materials and simplifying details such as drapery folds, the knowledge of which go a long way in improving my character and environment designs.

This was done on Sunday over at the workshop in Kirk's garage - which we have lovingly christened: the "Kirkshop". Catchy, huh?

Vikki

Three hours. I haven't painted in a couple of weeks, but I think the sabbatical actually helped. I guess I just needed some time for concepts to sink in.

Gargoyle

I was thinking on the drive home from work one day, if we call the females of the species gargoyles, does that make the males garguyles?

Thank you, thank you, you're too kind. I'll be here all night.

OK, seriously, enough bad jokes.

I figured, since Halloween season is upon us, I should do some paintings to celebrate my favorite holiday. This started off as a doodle in my sketchbook as an exercise to explore the analogues between the arms of a human and the wings of a bat. I'm constantly floored at the beautiful and strange pathways the basic mammalian skeleton utilizes to best take advantage of its environment.

To give it a sense of viciousness, I referenced deep sea fish for the head, and raptors for the hands and feet. It's fun to mix and match animal features to make up your own creatures.

More to come!

Amy

Twos, fives, a ten, and twenty-fives. I tend to get bored during the twenty-fives nowadays. I'm not exactly sure why, but I guess the reason why I prefer shorter poses is because I move my hand faster out of necessity, and doing so makes me I feel as if I'm conducting an orchestra or waving a magic wand. Or something similarly cheesy like that. I guess another way of putting it is that I end up feeling the natural rhythm and flow of the sketch. Whenever that happens, my drawings usually turn out well.

It's too difficult for me to reproduce that sort of experience and sensation with longer poses. I'm sure there's a way; I just haven't stumbled upon it yet.

Lynda

Three-and-a-half hours. 11" x 14".

Toni

Three-and-a-half hours. 11" x 14".

Pasadena Plein Air

Various sizes, from 5" x 7" to 9" x 12". These four were all done in under 1.5 hours last weekend at a plein air workshop with Bill Perkins and company. Thanks guys, for being so friendly.

Our goal was to focus on color relationships to help establish the time of day and the atmosphere of a scene. Rendering was largely thrown out because the short time frame necessitated a focus on the big picture. In other words, since your main light source - the sun - is moving, you have to paint just as fast, if not quicker.

I mixed with a larger palette than I was used to for these exercises. I'm not accustomed to seeing so much chroma in my work.