Second self portraits

I taught my final drawing 1 class at the Alberta College of Art ad Design this year.  I like to start with a self portrait and end on the same note in order to contrast and compare the improvements made through 24+ hrs of learning with me, it tends to be quite a difference. Some drew better from life than from photo even. In my 45 min lesson/demo I did a bunch of notes on the board of things to now and look for when drawing the face and head. I just managed to snap the end of much erasing ad drawing with a white board marker but you get the gist of it.

Below are some of the ones I managed to snap while they worked and a few where you can see the comparison.

Portraits in Oils - Week 2 - FRIDAY

The final day, keep working + time to put some finishing touches

 We began the day slowly. I think the reluctance to start stems from a few areas, fatigue, was a major one, but mostly we didn't want it to end. We stood around as Martinho covered glazes, with a video from a surly guy from Brooklyn telling it exactly how it is, quite refreshing. A glaze is just thinned down paint used to tweak the tone if needed a the end.*

*With this style of painting that glazing is unecessary if you did it right the first time,  I need to make an additional clause:  VERMEER AMENDMENT! (glazing over a Grisaille under painting method.)

 I oiled in and then decided to rework the girls face because I like torturing myself. Mainly I felt the need to assert that I had in fact learned to understand the value system and to work with my palette. Plus I wasn't happy with it, I knew I could do better and when you have a pro who can give you feedback it helps, 'cause in the studio you have no one to help. So though it looks a little messy, I went back to the first stage of controlling the fall of light/big form modelling stage. Her chin area wasn't dark enough before and it was throwing off the whole relationship between values. This helped solidify some of what I had learned throughout the workshop.

Here are some examples of Martinho's work. The top is a copy he made from one of his teachers pieces. He has not only fantastic drawing skills to get the details and proportions right but also superb control of the subtlety of values and colour. That is a skill in my craft that I badly desire. In the bottom piece if you start at the feet you can see the beginning stages of the work, as you follow up the leg to the thigh you pass the dead coloring stage and get to the big form modelling stage. As you travel up the light side of the ribs and arm you see masterfully finished work, and for me, my jaw drops the the beauty in which he subtly renders the figure to perfection.

At the lunch break, I helped another participant, Darryl, with his HD camera. After the lunchbreak, We we introduced to the theory of colour for broken colur backgrounds. This is where if you look from a distance the background appears to be say greenish, but as you get close you realize those greens are mixed in your eye and in fact, it is made up of a variety of other colours. first there is th movement of tone in the background, from low to high value. With each of those colours you then mix a breakdown of each with low and high chroma. Green is made up of yellow and blue so you mix a yellow and blue of high and low chroma for each value that will go on the canvas. It may be equal to a day of work, but the effect is quite stunning.

 I revisited the work from the first week to play with the background. This piece was a learning lesson and will most likely be abandoned unless I really feel like making it into something, I hung it in my studio as a reminder. I barely got the legs to second stage painting but you can really see how this method lends itself to creating realistic looking figures, for me the legs seem to pop. Now I need to keep working on my craft and develop and loose sensitivity to applying the paint subtly like the masters.

 Here is a scene from the workshop, the craziness of an arts studio while we are in it creating. Now it site empty. The other participants were a joy, through the trials and tribulations. I kept thinking that this is what art school should have been like, the work ethic and the challenges making ti worth while to show up daily. Like the studios for training the masters back in the day. I learned so much in so little time. It renewed my vigor to attain artistic mastery. I asked myself, why hadn't I done this so long ago?!

Here are me and my half Portugeuse bretheren and workshop Instructor Martinho on the last day. Teh Bob Ross shirt is definitely tongue and cheek when you know the level of work and quality we hope to attain. It cant be done watching a half of an hour PBS TV program. I want to impart why this pursuit toward beauty matters to me so much. I feel vigorously renewed after this training, my goals in life redefined:

Beauty is my muse. 

It is the essential life blood of my existence.
 

I am an artist. 

I make beautiful things to look at. 

The job of the artist is to uplift the soul.

I must become the best at my craft so that I can do this.

If you see beauty in everything your soul is set free.

This brings me happiness.

Portraits in Oils - Week 2 - Thursday

First and Second painting stages 

Regular start to the day, set up my area for working. Oil in on both pieces to bring up the darks. The morning chat was extended over some coffee and donuts the nice ladies brought in, I know I'll regret it later though. My medium for the day is 1: 1 (1 Damar to 1 oil) + a little cobalt drier to speed things up.

The most important thing I've found out is to put the time in to properly lay out my palette. Today I further refined it and it is really helping the work progress.

Struggling with this female portrait, I decide to refine the shadows in order to help me really "see" the values. On some parts I mixed Persian/Indian red straight in from the tube and blended it on the canvas. I am surprised how much chroma is needed, further emphasizing the importance of as high quality materials as you can afford.

My work is angular and harsh. Above is Marthino's as an example of what this stage should look like. The lighting is very different, but he is highly adept and subtle value and tonal ranges, it is very impressive to me, and if you look closely at his work is is still very loose and painterly up close.

 I had to step back and re-examine my value range. It is really starting to click. I began describing the planes, and in some areas they are still very angular but as I begin to blend the edges they will be more convincing. Here I mainly worked in bringing up some of the lights in the shadow area and adding more highlights.

 The importance of a proper first painting and falling light/ flesh ball are very apparent, if they are not right it is difficult to hold the entire picture together realistically. Now I can tell why so many works I've seen (not by any accomplished artists, of course) look so flat and lifeless, they do not have proper control over sculpting the planes of the face on top of properly under painted value ranges.

Here is my happy little work area, my tabaret full of materials.  My piece has second painting done with a more full color range. The girls portrait is beginning to come together a bit better.

 After class, I am going to Marthino's talk about A renewal of Sacred Art at St. Mary's University.

Portraits in Oils - Week 2 - Wednesday

big form modelling...

I began by oiling in. The first color I started with the basic flesh color. The basic idea is to make the head into a flesh ball of sorts.  By examining the planes of the head and where the light is hitting it makes it easier to get the basic turning of the simple form.

The medium I used was a 3:1. That is 3 parts solvent/Damar varnish mix to 1 part linseed oil. A good place to start is with a bit of red umber mixed with white and starting near the bed bug line. Commit this to memory: "the darkest light should be lighter than the lightest dark". Already the image has moved away from flat Warhol like image to a rounded naturalistic form.

 I jumped back and forth between canvases once the paint got overworked and tacky due to the rapid drying provided by the addition of a few drops of cobalt drier. Here you can see the modelling of the form of the girls face, done in much the same way. It is becoming apparent how important the early stages, though seemingly simple, make up the map you will need later on to take the picture work.

One method I'm working with is learning how to properly use a well laid out palette. Here is my first try. Its simple but it seems to work. I've strung out the main colors of the flesh palette we are using. It helps to understand the changes in value and tonality and how to use it systematically to the best effect.

Another pointer, and I'm picking up a lot of good working skills, is to have two containers of turpentine, one for the first clean of the brushes and my smaller one for the cleaned brushes used for thinning, that way I wont get muddied colors while working. Also use more paint and have more chroma, in order to guard against inadvertent greying of my tones.

The next step after the big form modelling is to work on the planes of the face.  This is where small color shifts based on the values are added in. We had a reference picture to simplify the planes of the face, very useful. I also had to go back into my shadows and darken them to get more depth in my image.  I worked on creating more form and tonality in the shirt. You can see how having the initial big form modelling is a real asset/

I went back and forth into the two portraits. Here I built more into the female face but was really struggling to maintain her beauty, while my work was still to flat and the creases and planes too well defined to be believable.

I ended off on a positive note with my self portrait. Got some color in the lips. Nice form on the forehead and some definition in the shadow areas and some depth developing in the clothing and background. Looking forward to the Animation Lock down tonight and hump day coming to a close so I can get a little rest and really make a charge on the last two days of the workshop.

Portraits in Oils - Week 2 - Tuesday

Self - portrait

Our workshop Martinho Corriea gave a demo on creating a portrait. He is so skilled in his craft, he makes it look easy.

I didn't have a color copy so I printed out a black and white reference on my home computer. I traced out my image onto tracing paper by taping it up on the big windows at the Calgary School of Art.

 I rubbed down the back of the tracing paper with vine charcoal, lined it up the way I liked the composition to appear on the canvas and traced back over top of my line to press the charcoal thru the paper and onto the ground.

The canvas that was prepared last week with Lead white and textured with a super sponge was wet sanded and given a rub of burnt umber before beginning. I then inked in traced sketch with thinned down umber.

I dead coloured my shadows first, the half tone for the skin and threw down come color for the shirt area.

 I added a background made up of yellow ochre, black and white and let it dry overnight while going back and forth between the other portrait of the girl I started (yesterday's post entry).

Portraits in Oils - Week 2 - Monday

Today we began work on a self-portrait based on the photo take by the instructor last week.

I decided to work on two canvas simultaneously. First because I had a prepped panel and a close up of the model from last week and It was holiday Monday and I didn't have a color print out of my portrait yet. I didn't have a chance to get one done since I was in Animation Lockdown all Long week-end. So this bit is a reminder of the steps before we get into the nitty gritty of my self portrait in oil.

Back to stage 1 of creating the piece = drawing. Due to time constraints I traced out the face, from a photograph, on tracing paper and created a line drawing with the bed bug line (the line where the shadow meets the light).

The back of the tracing paper was rubbed down with vine charcoal. I then place it on top of the prepared ground (in this case canvas board rubbed down with a neutral color). Then the tracing paper was lined up over the canvas board until I had an adequate composition. I taped it down and retraced the line, imprinting charcoal onto the ground.

I use raw umber thinned with mineral spirits to draw in the lines. This is to set down the composition and is referred to as the "cartoon". The lines emphasize the high and low points. Rather than use curvilinear lines that drift into inaccuracy, these are made up of small straight ones.

The next step is to block in the shadows. I use burnt umber and white and begin the dead coloring starting with the shadow.

The next step is dead coloring the mid-tones in the lit side. This color was made of the base flesh tone ( red + yellow ochre + white) plus some red umber if needed for your model.  I loosely filled in the mid-tones of the background with a mix of black, yellow ochre and a touch of flake (lead) white. The background could be done thicker but scrubbing it in quickly is fine since I will be going over it again.

I began filling in the fall of light doing the big for modelling. You can see the highlight on the left side near the eye and it drops off. The focus here is getting the basic fall like on the flesh ball example.

 

Here is is more softly blended with the additional tones added to create more form in the hair. As well you can notice the repainted flat background. After this dries I will have a chance to continue on with the first painting stage.

Small self portrait with hair

As I'm sitting here preparing for tomorrows lecture on squash and stretch, I pick up a small mirror and my trusty Bic mechanical pencil and do this little self portrait. I really am in the awkward stage of getting hairy.   I thought growing a beard was a good idea, but I'm definitely doubting it right now. I am one hairy man.

DRAWING RESTRAINT

I'm teaching animation again. The creative spark has hit me again. I feel like I did when I entered art school. I am fascinated by drawing again. I repeat three words in my head; Draw, Draw, Draw.  The only way to learn to draw is by doing it.

 In order to see where I am at today and to chart my progress overtime I decided to sit down for a few and do a self portrait. Yes, the dreaded self portrait.  Besides, maybe you'd like to see what I look like...yesterday.

This was drawn with a 0.5 mechanical HB pencil. 

RE-LEARNING TO DRAW. SELF PORTRAIT.