hurray for homework

Today's batch of figure studio drawings.  

MORE homework and my favorite charcoal piece

Above was this past week's homework.

This week's exercise for figure studio

Last week's Head Drawing homework.

Best 20 minute charcoal I've ever done from life (in my opinion).  

Some homework

It's been a while since i've updated the blog, and I apologize since I've been doing surprisingly well this year.  Tomorrow after open studio I'll post some of the drawings I've done in the last couple weeks.  For now, here's some homework.

The above 3 are for anatomy class with Stephen Perkins.  Reacquainting myself with charcoal and slowly learning to love it, despite all my bitching and griping.  I'm still working on some compositional sketches for a large multi-figure painting that's our semester long project.  I'm thinking about 5 feet, maybe 15-20 figures :)

Above drawing is for Head Drawing with William Maughan, along with a close up.  So far he's incredible and gives the most thorough feedback I've ever received.  Just three weeks in and I'm learning to enjoy this pastel stuff.

Stuff n' such

It's been a while.  Here are three paintings I've worked on in the last week.  First one is a single session portrait done alongside my portraiture students last week in Rahway.  Probably about an hour and a half of work in here.

Second is male nude from life done last Sunday at open studio at the Montclair Art Museum.  Shameless plug:  Sundays from 11-3, $15, moderated by yours truly :)

Finally, here's a grisaille portrait I did tonight for my portraiture students.  

works in progreso

I really just want to get to the easel, but I want to keep with my goal to update my blog at least once a week.  Since last week was a dud, I'll be posting more work later on in the week to make up for it.  In the mean time here are two paintings I started this weekend.  Top one is 25 1/2" x 22" on Arches oil paper (love this stuff) and the bottom is 18" x 24" paper mounted on masonite.

Drawings

Moderated the first open studio for the Montclair Art Museum's Free First Thursdays.  There was quite a tremendous turnout and it was a fun time had by all.  The model was the lovely Tina and I'm posting my favorite drawing from the evening.

Next drawing is one I started several months ago when I hired a model named Krystal.  I got a good chunk of it done from life but my budget ran out.  Finishing the rest from reference.  

Louis

Another drawing from last Sunday's open studio.  This model is Louis, a fairly built gentleman and a lot of fun to draw.  I lightly sketched in the gesture and shadow shapes with my HB, blocked in the major forms with a light dusting of pan pastel, and finally got to modeling the form with an 8B pencil.  Like Robert the week before, I didn't get to finish this drawing but will be working from reference to complete it.

Robert

Drawing from today's open studio.  About 2 1/2 hours of work, give or take.  Haven't worked from a male model in ages, except for when I get a half hour here or there to draw in class.  It was nice to sit and work at my own pace.  If we get him back anytime soon I want to finish this up a bit from life, but I took some photos to continue working from.  My gestures and 5 minutes turned out fairly nice too, but Robert's poses are more or less all the same and I know I've posted some of those gestures on here in the past.

Y'know... stuff.

Except for one thesis paper, I'm done with semester two of grad school.  This is what I did on my first no-homework day.

That handsome fellow up there is me.  Started this one a month and change ago as a demo for my young teens who were doing self portraits.  I've blocked everything in for the most part and proportions are there, just have to fix that weird eye on the right.  I'll be finishing this one tomorrow or friday.

This is a drawing started Monday night at my last life drawing class.  It ended with a good sized group and we all ate pizza, drank coke, and ate banana bread courtesy of Becky (Thank You!)  Our model was Tina, who is fabulous and allows us to take pictures.  So after I put the brush down last night I worked on this a bit from some reference.

That manly man up there is a terra cotta statue from the Bernini exhibit at the Met.  It's by a contemporary of Bernini's named Antonio Raggi and is based on one of Bernini's drawings of the "sea Deity with Dolphin. " Started it today and will probably head over again next week to finish it up.  There are so many amazing sketches and models by the man himself that it is overwhelming.  Beautiful stuff over there.

While waiting for a friend to arrive for dinner I sketched the same dude from my imagination to see how much I remember.  This is actually something I used to do often after drawing from life or making master copies, it works out your artistic muscle memory :)

Manly Manliness... Poinsettia!

This is my high key painting assignment for class.  For the purposes of the assignment specs, this is done but I'm going to touch it up a bit more tomorrow because I'm quite fond of this set up.  The paint is too tacky to get any good detail work on the petals and some ripples and folds need to be accentuated a bit more.  The base of the flower where it touches the soil needs more contrast as well.  Once all that is accomplished I'll post a finished, sexier version.

This was painted on Arches Oil Paper, which has turned out to be a DELIGHTFUL surface to work on.  I suggest it to anyone interested in playing with different paint surfaces.