日外拍笨寶

Five hours? (I honestly can't remember. When you're having fun, time flies by oh so quickly) Photo reference used. Just trying to practice painting heads in Photoshop using only a single brush. I'm aiming to do at least one of these a week.

Brant

Two and ten minutes. I'm trying to break free of old habits and styles, so I'm taking a couple of classes with Glenn Vilppu, who teaches a very different method of drawing the figure than I'm used to. His approach is more classical; akin to the master draftsmen of the Renaissance. These doodles were done in his quick sketch class, which encourages us to experiment with different types of media. The first two pages are two-minute continuous contour drawings - meaning, we use line to feel around the forms we're looking at, and do our best to never lift the pen off the page as we draw. The last two pages of ten minute poses were done with a combination of a felt tip pen and a Pentel brush pen. I admit to have a particular soft spot for brush pens - it was the medium that got me drawing again after a decade, all thanks to Craig Thompson's gorgeous autobiographical graphic novel Blankets, a moving coming-of-age romance and a poignant reflection on his loss of faith. Pick it up if you haven't read it yet; wonderful stuff.

Jennifer

Three hours. Tonight was our last session in Sean Cheetham's Alla Prima Portrait Painting class. My painting turned out a bit rough, but that's to be expected after a three-week hiatus. This class helped improve my oil application, color mixing, and understanding of values immensely. Thanks for everything, Sean.

Jee

Four-and-a-half hours. Jee dressed up as a cowboy for today's session. I don't know about you guys, but the idea of an Asian wrangler is totally awesome.

Moi

Three hours. I don't know who this guy thinks he is, but he has no business being a model. Moves too damn much.

Eaton Canyon

Three hours. 8" x 10". Back to Eaton Canyon, trying to make good on my goal to do more plein air landscapes. This was done at the same spot as yesterday's, facing counterclockwise 90 degrees instead.

Head Studies

Twenty minutes each. Almost forgot. Another New Year's Resolution I have is to get faster and better at portraits, so I'm going to endeavor to do at least an hour's worth of heads for practice before I go to bed every night. Here's two I did a couple of days ago.

Happy New Year!

Eaton Canyon

Two hours. 8" x 10". Two of my New Year's Resolutions are to get better at depicting color relationships and creating believable environments, so I'm going to do as many plein air paintings as humanly possible. This one's admittedly quite messy, but it's a start.

Here's to a productive 2009!

Roxanne

Four hours. Been a while since I've done one of these, so I felt a bit rusty today. Such a pleasure to be working again with just charcoal though; it was like catching up with an old friend.

Toni

Two-minute quick sketches and an hour-and-a-half long pose. I always have a tough time drawing Toni for some reason, but tonight I didn't struggle as much. My instructor Glen helped clarify and contain some of my wilder shapes.