More colour is better

We continued our exploration of the basic colours and their inherit values.

Here are my demo notes representing the primary and secondary tint/shades chart instruction and their relative layout placement.

I love the colours around this sample swatch.

Gorgeous greens.

Beautiful colour strings in arcs on each disposable palette paper. 

And the rest......as they say.......

is HOMEWORK!!!

Colour, who doesn't love it?!

As creative people artists are really drawn to colour. Candy  for your eyes.

I am teaching Colour Theory for Painters at ACAD this semester and it is really shaping up to be a great class.  It is so much fun, it seems like class time just disappears in the blink of an eye. Here is a peek as to what we have been up to in the past few classes, seeing all this colour may interest you, maybe this is a class you'll be interested in learning colour theory and taking this class with me in the future.

The glorious colour wheel. I assigned students a very limited palette in which to create the secondary and tertiary colours with.

Others opted for a different challenge and worked with warm and cool variations of each hue.

Or blending with transparency to create something that reminds me of the "spinning wheel of death" on my mac laptop.

The majority of work, insofar, is done on the palette and the notes are what are transferred in these swatches and diagrams.

I like how each students work space looks, the variation in tools and scattering of materials.

My demo area is just as chaotic. I do bag my oils in separate zip top bags per colour, but when its time to get creative, we all know, order goes out the window in the chaos of passion :D

Back in the swing of things

Well I've been back at it, teaching and chores but before all of this I managed to squeak off a squeaky clean episode from my Japanese hotel bathtub. Watch below if this sort of thing seems interesting.

More to come from the far east in my you tube episodes.
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My summer courses at ACAD are underway and my students so far are doing great.  In my drawing 1 we have already begun our studies of line, followed by shape, tone and form. Here are some of the exercises form the previous weeks class.  We worked in graphite, with lit painted white shapes in order to help with understanding how to see and apply tone on paper to create a believable illusion.

The following weeks class we focused on how to construct objects in proper proportion with still life items brought in by each student in class.

We began with simple shapes as we did in the previous week, this time as f they were invisible crystal to help get their size, shape and form correctly placed in the visual space.

Even without the information of shading we can tell clearly where objects are because of their placement as well as proportion to other objects in the picture.

 They are progressing well through the steps and I'm sure if classes were more than 3 hrs long each they could bring these to proper completion. However, the lessons were learned and we can move onto the next step in progressing their drawing skills.

Check out this soaking wet bunny

and this turtle in the rain in my latest episode from Japan.

Update from Japan

It's been awfully quiet on my blog posts due to the fact that I have been overseas in Japan.  Im running around putting on an extra zero onto my steps everyday and taking in the sights, sounds and tastes during my travels. I managed to squeeze off this video from Naoshima, don't worry there will be more good stuff to follow, check this out!

Pigment!

I think one generality I can make about artists is that they all seem to love colour!

This week-end I received my intermediate Copic certification and the participants oohed and awed over the variety of colours. The same thing happens in many of my classes. Heck, I feel it when i pass by the paint swatches at home depot. I really, really love colour!

I went to Sunnyside Art Supply to watch Nick do a free oil paint making demo. I have made my own oil paints in the past based on reading I had done, just so that I know a bi more about my craft. But Nick has taken this passion to a whole nee level and stirred that passion in me. He demoed a variety of pigments ans techniques and let everyone try mulling.

The tools are fairly simple, the options and combinations for recipes nearly endless and the final product exquisite.

Here is a comparison on how the natural pigments from France and Italy differ. I am really interested in making more paints using a variety of ingredients and pigments from different sources.

Here is some of what they have at Swintons. The colour's are making me salivate. I am really looking forward to finishing off what I have, using the new Williamsburg and Shiva brand pigments I recently bought and rounding it off with some good old fashioned elbow grease made pigments.

A dozen ways, a dozen days....what am I doing these days?

Keeping it up as any bunny would and could. I made this video from the studio of a piece I am slowly nudging toward completion. Check out the video on my you tube channel by clicking on the video below. It's only 5 min of your time deep in my thoughts and goals.

Drawing self portraits

The dreaded self portrait....

I begin the first and end on the last class with this task. You always have something to draw if you use yourself as your muse.  Here are some of my students from Drawing 1 doing self portraits at various stages of completion and some in comparison to their first self-portrait drawings.

EPISODE 11 - "Muslce head"

I made Episode 11, the third in a series, in order to show more detailed rendering and to bring my charcoal study from the mini plaster cast. Check it out below or on my you tube channel :D

EPISODE 10 - "Making Headway"

I continue on with my drawing study of the tiny plaster head and muscle cast.

Check out how after building the proportions with a scaffold of sorts I begin blocking in the lights and dark values to create form.

EPISODE 9... the latest is up!

It was the long week-end and I assigned my self some additional homework to help illustrate how I get started and going on a sketch from life. Watch it below and/or share this link: https://youtu.be/AUhWN8zCFiY

My final figure class

The Figure Drawing classes I taught at ACAD seemed to come and go so quickly. I had a terrific group and I'm sad to see them go s soon, it feels like we were just beginning to pick up speed. We did some warm ups them worked on a single long pose drawing for about 2hrs total. Of course, we can always use more time. Hopefully I see the work of these drawers at future figure drawing events and courses around town in the future. here is a sampling of the near completed drawings from the final session tonight.

Holy Bible, It is Good Friday tomorrow...... For once in a blue moon I actually have off work so I am going to take myself out on a treat date to Bodyworlds to do some drawing myself, I am excited!