Best Of and More Figures

One of my pieces, "Warm Winter", managed to get into the Best of Ringling show. I touched the painting up a tad bit, so here's an update for what it's worth.

I'm simply glad that I made it into the show. I think the fact that I get to share space with people that I respect and admire at my school is greater than only me getting into the show. This year's been a very humbling and learning experience and I hope you guys continue witnessing my progress as well.

Changing subjects...

I was lucky enough to have painted a very great model twice. Each painting took three hours to complete and the second pose was set up in low light. I absolutely loved painting these and I learned a lot through them. I hoped to be able to render out the paintings in later sessions, but I simply didn't have the time. Anyways, I plan to analyze my paintings and reveal what I learned in later posts, so stay tuned ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy!

Pimples and Treats

Here's a piece about torrenting. I added a bunch of unpleasant small stories in the image, so beware if you decide to look closely! Also, I learned a lot about how shadows work in this specific lighting situation and angle of approach. It's funny how I've never thought about it despite how common it is for people sit in front of their computers. I hope you guys enjoy it.

P.S. Here's a small WIP of a painting I'm bound to finish tomorrow. I haven't figure painted in quite some time, but I'm glad to be back. Enjoy!

Warm Winter

I'm not too happy with this next piece as an illustration nor its composition, but I can say I've learned a pleasing amount through both the image's strengths and weaknesses. I've experimented a lot with design and composition with the painting, with great help from my friends Andrew Theophilopoulos and Nery "Ned" Mejicano III. There's simply too much to go through in terms of what I've taken away from this painting, but if I had to pick two elements I learned most about, I would choose composition and noise. 

Noise is a fairly new term I've learned over the past couple days, but from my understanding, the term simply represents the attention a certain area or element may draw from its handling. In essence, greater handling of noise helps develop a greater sense of rhythm. There is a trick however: noise is relative as much as any other element of the piece.

Composition is a very broad term, but something I know I have to wrestle with. I experimented with this recent piece but it wouldn't have been successful without great critique and suggestions from my peers and teachers. Simply put, I believe I need to improve with this.

Anyways, I hope you guys see some examples of what I've talked about in the piece. Enjoy.

A Quick Update to Celebrate the New Year!

I kind of failed myself with the post a day project. But! I didn't stop learning, so I'm not too bummed out. Here's a quick update to a previous figure painting. I focused on fixing obvious problems with the drawing, making more economical brushstrokes, and improving my edgework. I've been exploring a lot of different approaches, and right now, I'm trying to find more minimal ways to render. I've been looking a lot at design as well, but that's a story for another day, in a future post. I hope you guys enjoy.

An Update a Day, Days Nine and Ten

Hopefully, this post will be the last one where I cover two days in one. My break isn't necessarily ideal, but I'm making the most of it. Here's an acrylic painting of an alpaca and a still life done in oil. I have to say that I've learned a great deal from these two pieces about color and temperature; something just clicked with each exercise.

The alpaca was the first piece where I really considered temperature and learned of its importance. Before this piece, I was trying to wrap my head around warms and cools and how temperature affected color and form. I'm not sure if the concept of temperature was executed well in this piece, but I can say I learned much about temperature in executing the painting. A big thank you to Matt Howley for pushing the concept of temperature onto my painting. You guys can check out his blog at: http://mattyhowley.blogspot.com/

The pears were absolutely fun to paint. I've handled oils for a while now (unfortunately I still use student grade oils) but the approach for this painting was refreshing. I put down a "washy" cadmium red light underpainting of the still life, and then, I painted right over the underpainting while it was still wet. I considered the influence of the underpainting in my mixes, and when it was necessary, I simply overpowered the influence with sheer volume. The real fun was in painting the white cloth. I really struggled to see and exaggerate the colors on the cloth. Again, I probably walked away with more than I could put on the canvas. A very big indirect thank you to Andrew Theophilopoulos, a constant inspiration, friend, and teacher, for bringing to my attention the importance of saturation and color. You guys can check out his website at: http://cargocollective.com/Theonides

P.S. I'll be posting more recent sketches and current projects starting next post!

An Update a Day, Days Seven and Eight

I'm kind of cheating here. Here's a couple figures I did in vine charcoal and in conte. Of all the mediums I've worked with, I have to say I've had the most fun with vine. Conte was fun as well but conte never gave me the freedom vine charcoal could.

An Update a Day, Day Six

The oil portraits were done within the first few weeks of the fall semester. I thought I should post them to keep me humble and to give you guys a good laugh.

The last piece is a portrait I did with nupastel with a limited palette, and I believe finished it within the last few weeks of the semester. Most of the colors I used were a bit impure and the darkest pastel was the violet. I thought a limited range of values would help give the drawing a softer more delicate mood. I hope you guys enjoy!