Mike

Twenty minutes each. I'm trying to simplify things for a clear read. I need to be more aware of overlapping structures and on the importance of making sure my drawings read three-dimensionally before laying down tone.

Carol

Twenty-five minutes each, focusing on values and indicating forms with simple brush strokes. Not my best effort, but I had fun, and that's what counts at the end of the day.

Oh, and about the neck on the watercolor portrait I did yesterday... my instructor Nathan Fowkes agrees as well that it feels a bit too small. Reading his note in my sketchbook actually comes as a relief for me, since it means I haven't lost the ability to view my work with a critical eye. Being able to spot your own mistakes and what you can do next time to improve upon your work is an essential part of the growth process. I end up learning much more from all the terrible drawings and paintings I've done than from my more successful ones.

Laura

Watercolor with white gouache, three hours. Charcoal, two hours. When I got home from the workshop and looked at the watercolor painting again, the neck began to bother me, since it looks a bit too tiny on her. I was pondering fixing it, but then I glanced over at my charcoal drawing of her from the same session and noticed I've drawn a thin neck there too. Now I can't tell if this is just one of my tendencies or if a slim neck is a characteristic of the model herself. Hm.

Gerald

Two to five minutes.

Nikki

Three hours.

Adam

Three hours each. Adam works in law enforcement and fashions together armor in his spare time. We swapped stories about being into Macross and Dungeons & Dragons as kids. I wish I did a better job rendering his chainmail in watercolor - I can't figure out an effective method of indicating that type of material with such a slippery medium.

Michael

Four hours. I forgot to grab fast food for dinner tonight, and I ended up sharing a helping of green curry with Michael that someone else had brought in. He does fire dancing on the side. His intense gaze always makes him a blast to draw. Throughout the entire session, I took my time to build up the painting slowly, remembering past mistakes and successes, and incorporating what I learned from both into this piece. All that patience looks like it paid off. I'm pretty happy with the end result.

Kirsten

Two and a half hours. A fill light with red gel was added for tonight's session and that threw me completely off, since the shadows were no longer their typical cold shade of blue. I spent most of the night racking my brain trying to mix the right colors and temperatures. In hindsight, I probably should have paid more attention to the background - although I'm debating if toning it a complementary color as I normally do would have been a good idea in this case, as I kind of enjoy the overall warm feel this painting has.

Heather

Tens and twenty.

Michael

One hour. My Sketching From Life instructor Nathan Fowkes showed us a quick and messy way to get solid tonal head drawings. First, we lay in the head using a modified version of the Reilly method, then once we're confident about the accuracy of our line placement, we block in the shadows using compressed charcoal and smear it around to get halftones. A little touch-up here and there using a sharpened charcoal pencil for the dark accents and various erasers for the highlights and we're finished.