Dorian Vallejo "Drawings Inspired by Life"

Anyone who reads this blog or knows me also knows that I'm kind of a groupie for artist Dorian Vallejo.  I'm happy to say he is a good friend of mine, so it isn't simply a case of me being a fan-boy creeper who would randomly appear at his door after work to talk and... wait no, that's exactly what I did :P

Anyway, the Christmas season is upon us and as such there are only a couple weeks left before the exchanging of gifts between friends and loved ones.  For anyone who loves art or knows an art lover, especially figurative, then I highly recommend Dorian's book "Drawings Inspired by Life."  The book has high quality images of his life drawings, from quick ink sketches to more fully realized drawings in mixed media.  He captures the human form with an entirely unique vision that, above all else, speaks volumes of his love for the craft and his subject.  Having drawn with him and watched his process, I can also add that he likes to have fun with his experimentations.

Buy the book for yourself, a friend, family, or the homeless guy down the street whose always talking about that time he and Michelangelo snuck into a church basement to do dissections.  For a really special treat I would recommend getting the special edition and he'll personalize it with a one-of-a-kind drawing.  Click on the image below to visit the book site and order.

Just a small taste

Here are three of the better life drawings from yesterday's open studio.  I forget the model's name but she was pretty good.

Here are two landscapes.  First one is another Crissy Field painting done almost entirely with palette knife:

Second is a work in progress, being done in my room from reference.  Although interestingly this one was started based only on my thumbnail from life and colors blocked in from imagination.  The colors and values are keyed a bit more accurately to how the scene actually looks, but it was fun starting with no reference.

Both are in my limited palette of titanium white, gold ochre (or italian earth), raw umber, burnt umber, brown pink, and ivory black.

I still haven't had a chance to shoot any of my paintings from Zhaoming's class and I'm still working on a couple small figure paintings that I'll post when they're done.  Stay tuned!

First post from San Francisco

Hello hello!  So I've started my first semester on campus at Academy of Art University.  So far I'm loving every second of being here.  I could probably write a whole lot more about it, but I want to get back to some studies I started yesterday in the room.  For now here are some life drawings I did yesterday at Valerie Winslow's anatomy workshop as well as a plein air painting I'm really proud of and the strongest study from yesterday's output.

5 minutes

two 10s

two 20s

40 minutes

study done using ivory black, titanium white, and brown pink

monochrome landscape in ivory black, titanium white, raw umber, burnt umber, and brown pink

Last Open Studio Sunday :(

Today marked the last time my group met for Sunday open studio before my move to San Francisco.  It was a bitter sweet afternoon as I have had such an incredible time working with everyone, growing and learning together, sharing many laughs, strengthening existing bonds and making new friends.  And while it's certainly not the end, this marks the definite closing of one chapter and start of another.  When I get some of the pictures that were taken I'll post them on here.  On a personal level it was really lovely to have been surprised by the group with a going away festivus complete with yummy food and a pretty awesome gift; Andy did a quick sketch of me drawing a couple months ago and everyone signed the mat...

Not gonna lie, I got a bit choked up.  This played all the right notes on my heart strings :)

Now onto some art.  I had a kick ass day!  These are more or less in chronological order from my favorite 5s to the long pose.

If any of my open studio mates are reading this, thank you all for a wonderful 8 months :)  Much love to you all.

More Caitlins

Worked with both Caitlins this week.  First painting was done on Thursday and the second one today at open studio.

A tale of two Caitlins

Worked with a new model named Caitlin today.  One of my best all around sessions, so I'm happy with how almost everything turned out.  These are some 1-minutes

Now on to some 5's

I think this next one is a 10-minute

A 20

Long pose in oils.  

This next painting was done in my friend John Atura's class a couple weeks ago.  The model was the other Caitlin who I've worked with before.  It seems models named Caitlin tend to be pretty damn good.  Mental note made...

Life Drawing... today and last week

Here's my batch of better open studio drawings from last week and this afternoon.  Last week we had Robert Fortunato.

Today we had the lovely Erica, one of my favorites and always a pleasure to work with.  These are in order for the most part from 1's to the long pose at the end.

Booty Shot

Today we had the lovely Caitlin as our model for open studio.  This was subsequently my favorite drawing from the day's output and the one she proclaimed "Oh!  Booty shot!" hence the title of this post.  Because I'm nothing if not highly clever :P

Anyway, it was a 5 minute drawing.  The next five pages were 1-minutes...

Next two are 20s

and this last one an hour

All in all I had a pretty good day.  The best drawing in my opinion was that initial 5-minute and I gradually became more timid with the longer poses.  I have to work on that.