Malo

Four hours. Morgan Weistling, Jeremy Lipking, and Richard Schmid swear by Langnickel brushes, so I tried out some brights I bought a few weeks ago. Uh, yeah... I don't know why I didn't switch over to these before, because they're kind of bad-ass. I use much less paint now and have more far control than I ever did with Robert Simmons. Blending is a dream with these babies.

Angela

Twos, fives, and twenty-fives. Whenever I feel like I'm plateauing, I challenge myself by trying out new techniques as a way of forcing my mind to see things differently and to break out of old habits. It feels like I'm walking a tightrope without a net, and my drawings often suffer at the beginning of the transition. In time and after much practice, I know it will get easier, but it can be pretty frustrating to see yourself fall from your usual standards. I have to do this though to keep learning.

Liz

Four hours. Pretty tough painting today since I had to contend with two warm lights, a main and a fill bounced off a gray wall. It also didn't help that the room lights weren't turned on when we started, so I had to fight ever-changing light conditions from clouds dimming ambient light coming in from the skylights above. Still, I learned a lot from this piece - and that was clean your palette often and avoid getting it too chalky!

Margaret

Three-and-a-half hours. I've been watching the hell out of Morgan Weistling's and Jeremy Lipking's demonstration videos to gain some insight into how to paint portraits better. Their preferred method of painting is from the inside-out - meaning, they pick a feature and bring it to a finish, then move on to an adjacent feature and bring that to a finish, and so on and so forth until the painting is complete. I like their approach much better than blocking it in and using average tones, because I spend less time battling a mush of paint that will eventually be corrected and refined later anyway. Plus, this way I can make cool vignettes!

Peggy

Fives and tens. God, I love using brush pens!

Sonja

Twos, fives, and tens. I'm asking Kirk to help break me out of my reliance on shape and tone to concentrate more on form. Old habits die hard. Sometimes I feel as if I'm fighting every single line I put down.

Marci

Three hours.

Lynda

Twos, fives, and a two-hour pose. These were done in Joseph Todorovitch's Portrait and Figure Drawing class at LAAFA. I'll be experimenting in the future with different papers and mediums to try to get to a finish with the time that we have.

JJ

Four hours. My paintings are starting to get a little too soft for my tastes. I'll have to force myself to stop licking the paint from now on. Wish I had time to include all the ornaments JJ was sporting - a feathered headdress, gold earrings, and all sorts of tribal accouterments. I'm just terribly slow at painting right now... sigh. Hopefully all this practice is making me faster.

Amy

Fives and twenty-fives. I blew up one of the longer poses since I kinda liked the way it turned out.