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.

Sara

Three hours. Sara wore a white horned hat and lace veil for a Christmas-themed portrait tonight, kind of like a reverse Maleficent. There was no way in hell I was going to even attempt rendering the intricacies of all that lace with a three-hour time limit, so I just indicated it as one huge tone. It was fun painting to holiday music! I have been so busy lately, I had forgotten that it was that time of the year again.

Murphy Batman & Saladang Sketches

A couple of pages from my mini moleskine. I'm limiting myself to ballpoint pen sketches because they make me commit to my marks and force me to discover new ways of indicating features and forms with just line. I'm more of a painter than a draftsman (meaning, I have an easier time seeing in terms of tone), so this is my way of attacking that particular weakness of mine. As you can tell, I am making a ton of mistakes, but at least I am learning and can laugh at myself about them.

The adorable dog is James Paick's. He's really hyper (the pup, not my instructor)!

Toni

Variety of quick sketches from two to twenty minutes.

Victoria

Two minute quick sketches and an hour-and-a-half long pose.

Brant

Three hours.

Laura

Twos, fives, a ten, and twenty-fives.