Created some colour wheels based on what ronna suggested but instead of using cad yellow I used yellow ochre like Tristan suggested. Abit conflicted really, the flesh colour wheel doesn't really look like the colour of skin to be but I could be wrong. Tried creating a simpler colour wheel for the hair and dress but couldn't match the colours in my comps since I#m using a different yellow.
Tbh at this point I'm thinking of just going back to cad yellow even though Tristan said otherwise, feel like I've spent way too much time on this piece and don't think I can improve much on the peice at my current level. My best bet is to finiish it and make notes on what worked and what didn't and do some reading and studying for next time.
(04-25-2019, 04:54 AM)Peter Wrote: Created some colour wheels based on what ronna suggested but instead of using cad yellow I used yellow ochre like Tristan suggested...
...
Hello Peter,
you've said the following: "Abit conflicted really, the flesh colour wheel doesn't really look like the colour of skin to be but I could be wrong". Take a look at the color wheel from my photo, do you notice how dark are the circles 5 and 4? And right near them the corresponding triangles DO look like a flesh tones. Take a loooook this happens because author lightened all the colors with white. You didn't. Oh, I'm sorry, you actually did lighten them up, but you need more, a lot more. And pardon me for the silly question, but why does your "red triangle" (№3) is soo maroon or burgundy??? This color also needs to be lighten up and mixed a lil bit more with green in order to become less vivid.
Oh and one more interesting thing I've read about in some Russian book, before the beginning of the work artists cover the canvas with a thin layer of oil to make the first application of paint more fluid, easy to move and cover the canvas. I wish I new it before you started the painting with umber.
Good luck.
(04-25-2019, 04:54 AM)Peter Wrote: Created some colour wheels based on what ronna suggested but instead of using cad yellow I used yellow ochre like Tristan suggested...
...
Hello Peter,
you've said the following: "Abit conflicted really, the flesh colour wheel doesn't really look like the colour of skin to be but I could be wrong". Take a look at the color wheel from my photo, do you notice how dark are the circles 5 and 4? And right near them the corresponding triangles DO look like a flesh tones. Take a loooook this happens because author lightened all the colors with white. You didn't. Oh, I'm sorry, you actually did lighten them up, but you need more, a lot more. And pardon me for the silly question, but why does your "red triangle" (№3) is soo maroon or burgundy??? This color also needs to be lighten up and mixed a lil bit more with green in order to become less vivid.
Oh and one more interesting thing I've read about in some Russian book, before the beginning of the work artists cover the canvas with a thin layer of oil to make the first application of paint more fluid, easy to move and cover the canvas. I wish I new it before you started the painting with umber.
Good luck.
Tbh I thought adding more white would really saturate the colours. If mine do look like flesh tones then I'll stick with it. Regarding the 4th colour, no matter how much green I added it just remained red! tried adding a little green like the author said but when that didn't look right just kept on adding it. Guess I needed alot more green.
I actually did cover the canvas first in a thin layer. used some gamblin (turps) to thin the paint, covered the surface and let the paint set for a good 30 mins before I started, then I either removed paint for the hightlights using a brush or cotton wool bud or added paint to darken. Same method that Jeff uses and one I've used beofre in the past. :)
Is that russian book the one where there is also a drawing book from the same author and its about the russian academic approach? Been meaning to get a copy of both.
The author is Владимир Могилевцев, I suppose something like Vladimir Mogilewtsew (Mohilevtsew)... I dunno. Oh, I wish I had this book IRL. When I was living in Ukraine I had no money, now I had money but I can’t get it. How are you planning to buy Russian books? O_o
The grisaille is mostly just establishing context and getting the drawing down. You can of course take a grisaille very far and then thinly glaze in your colors but I think that's sort of outside of what we're talking about right now. There was an issue with the one you did where it essentially was very muddy and you tried to go for half tones and you ended up over-stating them, harming the larger light impression. Having a strong light impression is very useful for when you go from a grisaille to a full painting. So eliminating all half-tones and just going for a kind of binary light vs dark is very useful.
When working in color, you should consider your colors a kind of axiom rather than 1:1 comparison. If you don't have a strong yellow, you have to compress that range of visual colors and shift all the colors in your painting to make room for it. It's like value keys and compression. You can compress all light values together into one in order to make room to explore the variance in the darks, you can also compress the darks to make room in the light and compress both to fit a middle range. Then what you do is work with the values in relative contrast to each other, rather than 1:1 comparisons with your subject.
It's very common for people to now mostly brush mix all their colors but I'd really recommend using a palette knife and mixing up every tone you want by hand before placing it on the canvas. It will both teach you how to mix what you want without putting any risk to your painting, it also lets you keep a great degree of purity and directness to your colors and values, always getting exactly what you want where you want it with no mixing on the canvas or in the brush.
I don't know what pigments you're now using exactly but you should always be very careful with reds. Unless it's something like transparent red oxide, they almost all have extremely strong tinting strengths and if you get too much red into a mixture on the palette you may as well re-mix that color from scratch because you can't really balance it out.
There is no need to give up on an image unless you've seriously overloaded the canvas (and even then - see Mancini). Rather than giving up on it, you can try to figure out what the issue is and correct it. You're working with oils, you can easily let it dry and re-paint it. Think of it like a problem to be solved. You ran into an issue, if you give up now there's a problem out there lurking that may hit you in your next painting just when you thought it was going well. Instead what you could do is to tackle the problem and solve it so that every other time you will encounter it, you know how to defeat it.
roanna you mentioned covering the canvas with a thin layer of oil. It is a practice that should really be done very carefully because it can really mess up a painting. It's usually referred to as "oiling in" or "oiling out" and 90% of the time it's to counteract or prevent the sinking-in of colors. Sinking in is when a second layer of paint has enough of its oil sucked into the first layer that the surface becomes matte and it distorts the colors and values. When adding oil is otherwise done, the argument is that it provides a layer of oil for the second layer to bind to the first however it doesn't seem like this is the case and actually it may harm adhesion as well as come with a lot of other disadvantages.
Oil paints take months to fully harden and during that time, the surface remains relatively absorbent, enough so that any second layer of paint will have part of it's oil penetrate the existing layer forming a good bond. There are issues however when paintings can become oversaturated with oil so that surface isn't absorbent anymore and the second layer won't properly penetrate and bond with the first. This can happen when youse too much of an oily medium or if you oil-in the surface too much. Every time you add oil to your paints or cover an area with a thin layer you move the painting surface closer to the stage of being oversaturated, so you want to use it very carefully.
There are techniques developed to counteract the over-saturation of oil. One is to use the bones of a cuttlefish to scrape back a layer of the painting, pressing the calcium of the bone dust into the painting layer. The bones of cuttlefish are mostly calcium carbonate and it's a material that can absorb a lot of oil, adding an absorbent layer that things can stick to well.
There are reasonable reasons to oil-in a layer of a painting. Dark colors can easily sink in and look much lighter than when they were initially painted but you have to be very careful to use very little of the oil when doing this, many artists have cut their oils with mineral spirits to use even less oil because each drop of oil harms the painting. Artists have long used resins to prevent the oil from sinking in without the need of oiling-in. Oil darkens and yellows with time, they can also contribute to bad cracking and adhesion issues. Even if you buy "refined" linseed oil, you'll still have this issue because the refinement process isn't particularly effective in commercial products. The best option is to refine it yourself and even then, you still need to be careful.
Also, most of this can be fixed with a non absorbent oil ground canvas.
Peter, what you probably did was an imprimatura, not oiling in the canvas. Gamsol is a solvent and is meant to evaporate leaving nothing of it left in the paint film. Think of it like just toning the surface with some pigments.
Mogilevtsev's books are kind of bad. They don't really have any information that you wouldn't easily be able to find online and even then, it's not a lot they say. It's somewhat disappointing because the boys in Saint Petersburg don't really share much of what they do in regards to paintings (I think it's because their students struggle a lot with painting because of their particular drawing techniques).
The author is Владимир Могилевцев, I suppose something like Vladimir Mogilewtsew (Mohilevtsew)... I dunno. Oh, I wish I had this book IRL. When I was living in Ukraine I had no money, now I had money but I can’t get it. How are you planning to buy Russian books? O_o
Just had a quick look and I believe that is the same book as the one I was thinking of. I beleive there is a site in America selling them in english, could of sworn it was gallerynucleus. Worth a google atleast :)
(04-27-2019, 02:54 AM)Tristan Berndt Wrote: The grisaille is mostly just establishing context and getting the drawing down. You can of course take a grisaille very far and then thinly glaze in your colors but I think that's sort of outside of what we're talking about right now. There was an issue with the one you did where it essentially was very muddy and you tried to go for half tones and you ended up over-stating them, harming the larger light impression. Having a strong light impression is very useful for when you go from a grisaille to a full painting. So eliminating all half-tones and just going for a kind of binary light vs dark is very useful.
When working in color, you should consider your colors a kind of axiom rather than 1:1 comparison. If you don't have a strong yellow, you have to compress that range of visual colors and shift all the colors in your painting to make room for it. It's like value keys and compression. You can compress all light values together into one in order to make room to explore the variance in the darks, you can also compress the darks to make room in the light and compress both to fit a middle range. Then what you do is work with the values in relative contrast to each other, rather than 1:1 comparisons with your subject.
It's very common for people to now mostly brush mix all their colors but I'd really recommend using a palette knife and mixing up every tone you want by hand before placing it on the canvas. It will both teach you how to mix what you want without putting any risk to your painting, it also lets you keep a great degree of purity and directness to your colors and values, always getting exactly what you want where you want it with no mixing on the canvas or in the brush.
I don't know what pigments you're now using exactly but you should always be very careful with reds. Unless it's something like transparent red oxide, they almost all have extremely strong tinting strengths and if you get too much red into a mixture on the palette you may as well re-mix that color from scratch because you can't really balance it out.
There is no need to give up on an image unless you've seriously overloaded the canvas (and even then - see Mancini). Rather than giving up on it, you can try to figure out what the issue is and correct it. You're working with oils, you can easily let it dry and re-paint it. Think of it like a problem to be solved. You ran into an issue, if you give up now there's a problem out there lurking that may hit you in your next painting just when you thought it was going well. Instead what you could do is to tackle the problem and solve it so that every other time you will encounter it, you know how to defeat it.
roanna you mentioned covering the canvas with a thin layer of oil. It is a practice that should really be done very carefully because it can really mess up a painting. It's usually referred to as "oiling in" or "oiling out" and 90% of the time it's to counteract or prevent the sinking-in of colors. Sinking in is when a second layer of paint has enough of its oil sucked into the first layer that the surface becomes matte and it distorts the colors and values. When adding oil is otherwise done, the argument is that it provides a layer of oil for the second layer to bind to the first however it doesn't seem like this is the case and actually it may harm adhesion as well as come with a lot of other disadvantages.
Oil paints take months to fully harden and during that time, the surface remains relatively absorbent, enough so that any second layer of paint will have part of it's oil penetrate the existing layer forming a good bond. There are issues however when paintings can become oversaturated with oil so that surface isn't absorbent anymore and the second layer won't properly penetrate and bond with the first. This can happen when youse too much of an oily medium or if you oil-in the surface too much. Every time you add oil to your paints or cover an area with a thin layer you move the painting surface closer to the stage of being oversaturated, so you want to use it very carefully.
There are techniques developed to counteract the over-saturation of oil. One is to use the bones of a cuttlefish to scrape back a layer of the painting, pressing the calcium of the bone dust into the painting layer. The bones of cuttlefish are mostly calcium carbonate and it's a material that can absorb a lot of oil, adding an absorbent layer that things can stick to well.
There are reasonable reasons to oil-in a layer of a painting. Dark colors can easily sink in and look much lighter than when they were initially painted but you have to be very careful to use very little of the oil when doing this, many artists have cut their oils with mineral spirits to use even less oil because each drop of oil harms the painting. Artists have long used resins to prevent the oil from sinking in without the need of oiling-in. Oil darkens and yellows with time, they can also contribute to bad cracking and adhesion issues. Even if you buy "refined" linseed oil, you'll still have this issue because the refinement process isn't particularly effective in commercial products. The best option is to refine it yourself and even then, you still need to be careful.
Also, most of this can be fixed with a non absorbent oil ground canvas.
Peter, what you probably did was an imprimatura, not oiling in the canvas. Gamsol is a solvent and is meant to evaporate leaving nothing of it left in the paint film. Think of it like just toning the surface with some pigments.
Mogilevtsev's books are kind of bad. They don't really have any information that you wouldn't easily be able to find online and even then, it's not a lot they say. It's somewhat disappointing because the boys in Saint Petersburg don't really share much of what they do in regards to paintings (I think it's because their students struggle a lot with painting because of their particular drawing techniques).
Again thanks for another well thought reply. :)
Your absolutely right it is an imprimatura, at Watts they simply refer to it as a "pick out" but when I took a workshop last year with a guy who trained at the Florence Academy (atleast I think it was that one) he called it an imprimatura. Must of misunderstood what roanna meant.
All of my paints are winsor newton artists oils, they reccommended them at Watts but they've also mentioned rembrandt oils and I think holbein? Can't quite remember.
You talked about a value when referring to using colours. I had that in mind when doing my value comps but definitely dropped the ball when transferring that idea to colour. I don't have a whole lot of experience with colour, once the weather is nice here I want to get back into plein air like I mentioned and really dive into it.
For the painting I was working on I did pre-mix all my colours with a knife, I was gonna take a photo to go along with the painting but my cat decided to jump onto my pallette............don't ask.
On various art blogs that I read they all seemed to recommend Mogilevtsev's books, shame really that it doesn't add anything new. I still look every now and then to get one of the chinese reprints of russian academic drawings but haven't had any luck so far.
I'm gonna have to make a note of everying you've said for future reference! yuo've given me a lot to research. :)
Apologies for the late update. Spent last Thursday working on the painting but was really struggling with my colours. Spent a good hour pre-mixing my colours and they looked good on my pallette but once applied to the painting surface they just looked horrible. I did use a fair amount of white to lighten the overall value of the paints to match my colour comp but I think it threw off the saturation as they just looked horrible. Might also be becuase I was painting thinly, perhaps if I went thicker then it would of looked better? I'm not too sure.
Tried remixing my colours to try and correct it but my colour knowledge isn't where I need it to be atm to be able to correctly correct the mistakes, I decided to leave the painting atm and once I have more experience with colour and painting I'll come back to it and see if I can correct it.
Apart from that I spent the weekend catching up on art videos that I've bought but either hadn't watched completely or not watched at all (I know).
New term of Watts classes started last week so I'm back to studying. I mentioned a few posts back that I want to focus purely on my figure drawing skills for the next term so I'm only taking Erk's figure class, plan to spend the rest of my days working on different aspects such as quick sketch and anatomy and get my figures up to the same standards as my heads.
Erik's Class
Week 1 of Erik's class. Again I started with the big envelope shape of the figure and tried measuring more with my eyes/plumb lines rather than careful measuring so to speak (e.g. how many heads tall is the figure). My height seems to be ok but I'm still having problems with my width measurements being too big.
Anatomy
Started this week off with some anatomy tracings. Didn't refer to Proko's tracings when doing them as I wanted to see how much I still remember about anatomy and use it as a starting off point to see where I am currently. Once I've studied anatomy more I'll come back and redo these tracings to see how much I've improved.
Tracings
Tried to see how many of the muscles I can remember the names of.
Proko's tracings ontop of my drawings
As you can see my arm/leg anatomy is pretty much non-existent.
Portrait Class
Still focusing on drapery in this class as I'm taking a break from head drawing. Been reading Erik's drapery handouts while in work and trying to identify fold types in-class. Had to do a little of invention as the model wouldn't keep still.
Hey peter! You've been doing these Watts studies for quite a while haven't you? I think Watts seems like a really good program, and they have good things to teach. But I wonder if it's really working for you.
Watt's drawing approach is based on finding rhythms connecting the forms, which you do. But you tend to focus on really small things and get preoccupied with the same lines the instructors draw. I think it's preventing you from really seeing what's right in front of you.
For example, you tend to have really bumpy contour lines because you're trying to articulate every muscle. It's good that you can see that detailed anatomy, but let's face it. It's not part of the big impression of the drawing. You're shading really sharply the model's individual abdominal muscles, even though that's something that is so subtle it would have to be at a really late refinement stage. Meanwhile some proportions are a little off, like the right leg and hand feel shrunken. You've also got a core shadow between the pecs which isn't really there. I'm not trying to nitpick it, I've just observed that you focus on certain things which I don't think are helping and I'm wondering if that's a result of your long Watts training. Approaching things from a different perspective might not be a bad idea.
Take with a grain of salt of course.
Not a perfect copy of the photo at all, but I see the picture more like this (outline less curvy and inner forms subdued):
i agree with joseph, love watts, but you are in need of like an occam's razor when it comes to drawing, learn to simplify more, see value in just straight lines and dont religiously follow the rielly rythms, see the drawings in more of an envelope ^ couple drawings like that could yield a lot of insight
(05-02-2019, 03:18 PM)JosephCow Wrote: Hey peter! You've been doing these Watts studies for quite a while haven't you? I think Watts seems like a really good program, and they have good things to teach. But I wonder if it's really working for you.
Watt's drawing approach is based on finding rhythms connecting the forms, which you do. But you tend to focus on really small things and get preoccupied with the same lines the instructors draw. I think it's preventing you from really seeing what's right in front of you.
For example, you tend to have really bumpy contour lines because you're trying to articulate every muscle. It's good that you can see that detailed anatomy, but let's face it. It's not part of the big impression of the drawing. You're shading really sharply the model's individual abdominal muscles, even though that's something that is so subtle it would have to be at a really late refinement stage. Meanwhile some proportions are a little off, like the right leg and hand feel shrunken. You've also got a core shadow between the pecs which isn't really there. I'm not trying to nitpick it, I've just observed that you focus on certain things which I don't think are helping and I'm wondering if that's a result of your long Watts training. Approaching things from a different perspective might not be a bad idea.
Take with a grain of salt of course.
Not a perfect copy of the photo at all, but I see the picture more like this (outline less curvy and inner forms subdued):
Thanks for pointing those things out to me Joe. I was aware of a few of the points you made such as my proportions which I struggle alot with in my figure drawings, I thought drawing/measuring more would help with that and gradually overtime that would correct itself.
I still have a hard time with the gesture phase of the drawing, sometimes it's really clear to me on say a compressed pose, but when the gesture is very subtle, as you said, I get caught up in the little details so to speak.
Yh I wasn't sure with the abs on that one, I knew they were in halftone when looking at the ref but when I squinted it appeared to be apart of the darks to me.
Think I first started with the online portion of Watts just under 2 years ago and the live streaming just over a year ago. i thought my best approach moving forward would be to take more live streaming classes as I can ask questions and get feedback since there is nowhere near me to train tradionally apart from one guy who studied in florence, but he only does workshops a few times a year.
Your probably right about taking a different approach but not really sure where to begin.
(05-02-2019, 10:23 PM)Fedodika Wrote: i agree with joseph, love watts, but you are in need of like an occam's razor when it comes to drawing, learn to simplify more, see value in just straight lines and dont religiously follow the rielly rythms, see the drawings in more of an envelope ^ couple drawings like that could yield a lot of insight
Thanks Fedodika. I've started doing studies of Brian's drawing, I thought if I did that regulary and analyse how he simplifies forms and his shadow shapes it would start to ingrain into me. I thought doing that and working through his simplified quick sketch videos as they are meant to come out soon that would help me when it comes to simplifing things as I quite frankly suck at it, unless you have better suggestions?
Had to work extra hours the past week so haven't really had the time to post.
Been working on my figure drawing skills lately, mainly using the watts figure phases as a guide for what to practice. My practice schedule has been:
. anatomy
. quick sketch
. 20 min lay-ins (setting myself a 1 hour limit on these)
. master studies (studying Brian Knox's work so far to help me with my simplification)
Life class
usual 3/10 min gesutures and a 40 min pose.
Quicksketch
These are 5 min poses from photo ref
These are mostly 5 min poses but copying Brian's quicksketch drawings with a couple of 3 min poses from Erik's drawings. Like doing studies of his figure drawings I thought this would also help me with my design skills.
Master Study
Spent far too long on this and had a really tough time with the proportions.
20 min lay-ins
Trying to work on increasing my overall drawing speed/decision making as I'm far too slow. I noticed that I seem to get the head in the right place but not the bodies. I overlayed the ref onto my drawings to see where I'm going wrong and it's mostly a width proportion error that I consistently have. I think specifically where I'm going wrong is judging incorrectly the shoudler width and since I'm getting that wrong the rest of my plumb lines get thrown off having a snowball effect.
Erik's Class
Thought I did a better job on this one compared to last week, fle tlike I captured the gesture better and simplfied better aswell. I noticed afterwards that some of my mapping was wrong or could be changed e.g. I shouldn't have included the shading on her stomach, again like last week I feel like that is a halftone.
Week 1 feedback
I've got more work to post but haven't had time to take any pics yet. Prob gonna leave it till next week, might take a day or two off and re-evaluate things, been feeling dejected lately from just working constantly.
i think your gestures feel really basic, like you could push them further. i dont quite remember you attempting figure phase three all that much where you do the more quicksketch technique. id like to see you attempt it, if your concern is being slow, try to get those exercises down in the time alotted, or give yourself an extra minute but work on that speed. more volume in your studies helps bridge those proportion gaps faster since youre doing lay ins quicker and of course analyze them meticulously after the fact and take notes on things you do in a short span of time since thats the thing your brain immediately goes for
(05-12-2019, 02:48 AM)Peter Wrote: Do you have any suggestions at all?
It's kind of up to you. The guys at Watts are really good artists. Way better than me. You can trust their advice. But you don't want to just internalize their mannerisms.
I think that sometimes the answer isn't just drilling and practicing the same thing, even if that's what you want to be good at ultimately. Studying something else can make you understand the thing you're really trying to arrive at (mysteriously). The approach you're taking now is really heavily constructive. You're not bad at it at all but you still have trouble with proportion. So try an impressionist approach which deals almost entirely with proportion and recording what is before your eyes. Try working from life more. It's good to make your own observations about nature. Try copying Charles Bargue drawings or something similar. Research the ideas of various schools of art of the past.
That's my advice. I'm afraid of steering you wrong, but I don't think what I'm suggesting could hurt.
i think your gestures feel really basic, like you could push them further. i dont quite remember you attempting figure phase three all that much where you do the more quicksketch technique. id like to see you attempt it, if your concern is being slow, try to get those exercises down in the time alotted, or give yourself an extra minute but work on that speed. more volume in your studies helps bridge those proportion gaps faster since youre doing lay ins quicker and of course analyze them meticulously after the fact and take notes on things you do in a short span of time since thats the thing your brain immediately goes for
Yh towards the end I realsied I drew her head way too big but since I'm trying to stick to a 1h slot I didn't have enough time to go back and re draw it. Just need to get more of these lay-ins done.
I've been trying to stick to simple gesture drawings like how Brian does his as I feel like my gestures don't really capture the flow of the pose sometimes. My plan was to get the basics down and really simplify the pose and once that was in-grained into me I'd start getting into more advanced quick-sketch like Jeff does.
I'm trying to do atleast a few hours a week of quick-sketch to really help with my drawing speed and as you've said just cranking out more drawings to improve my proportion issues.
(05-12-2019, 02:48 AM)Peter Wrote: Do you have any suggestions at all?
It's kind of up to you. The guys at Watts are really good artists. Way better than me. You can trust their advice. But you don't want to just internalize their mannerisms.
I think that sometimes the answer isn't just drilling and practicing the same thing, even if that's what you want to be good at ultimately. Studying something else can make you understand the thing you're really trying to arrive at (mysteriously). The approach you're taking now is really heavily constructive. You're not bad at it at all but you still have trouble with proportion. So try an impressionist approach which deals almost entirely with proportion and recording what is before your eyes. Try working from life more. It's good to make your own observations about nature. Try copying Charles Bargue drawings or something similar. Research the ideas of various schools of art of the past.
That's my advice. I'm afraid of steering you wrong, but I don't think what I'm suggesting could hurt.
I get what you mean. I've been trying to get a master study done a week but with my schedule I think that won't be possible so I'll just make sure to atleast have 1 study going at all times, and rather than that always being a study of one of the Watts instructors I'll branch out to other artists I like.
I'll give some of your ideas a go. Currently reading thorugh the Russian academic books, forget the guys name, it's the one Tristan and Roanna mentioned the other week. Also got a few Juliette Artiside's books aswell so I'll add them to the list.
Tried working through the Bargue book before christmas but never got back to it. I'll give that ago this week at some point.
Had to work some extra hours at work on short notice so didn't get the chance to post. I'm rather behind on posting work so I might of missed a few things but here's some stuff from the past 2 weeks I want to say?
Portrait Class
Still sticking to drapery studies and reading through the handouts from Watts on drapery. Need to do some studies on drapery whether it be from life at home where I set up each of the folds, or from Erik's drawings/other books and try and understand how others simplfy what they see and interpret it, feel like I'm still copying what I see in some places due to lack of knowledge. Can't make it to my class this week but the week after I think I might do a portrait drawing instead just so I don't get rusty in that area.
Life Class
Still trying to work on the big envelope shape of the figure in the 40m drawings, trying to get to that elusive 20m lay-in.
Past week I've been trying to use the reilly abstractions less but keep them in my head when drawing and tried doing my quicksketchs more like Jeffs. I felt like this way of working really loosened me up as I was making decisons much quicker than normal. Still want to practice Brian's simplisitic approach so I will probably vary it up with Jeff's way of working aswell.
Attended my groups Saturday 3h single pose class again. Had some trouble with her facial features, particulary her eye but didn't have enough time to fix it in the end.
Quicksketch
Been working through Phase 3 on Watts.
Lay-In
20 min lay-in but giving myself 1 hour.
Live Stream Class
Here's Week 3. Tried this drawing atleast 4 times but had a really tough time with it. Wanted to work on my gesture/structure with this one. I think muscley physiques are really hard for me as I've struggled with them in the past, particulary the gesture.
Week 4. Used the reilly rythms less and focused more on the envelope shape and plumb lines. Erik suggested I start focusing on half-tones and edge manipulation which I tried on this one but ran out of time.
Sketchbook
Some more stuff from imagination, mostly figure work.
Got some critiques and 1/2 other things to post, just need to sort them out first but I'll be sure to post them this week.
this happens because author lightened all the colors with white. You didn't. Oh, I'm sorry, you actually did lighten them up, but you need more, a lot more. And pardon me for the silly question, but why does your "red triangle" (№3) is soo maroon or burgundy??? This color also needs to be lighten up and mixed a lil bit more with green in order to become less vivid.
