Drawing Portraits, Week 3

This is a series on a class called Drawing Portraits, at the Drawing Studio. In this class, as the name would suggest, we will focus on the human face.

For week three, like last week, after some instruction, we drew a live model. We started with some quick gesture drawings, and then settled in for a longer pose.

Here is what I drew for the long pose:

Drawing Portraits, Week 2

This is a series on a class called Drawing Portraits, at the Drawing Studio. In this class, as the name would suggest, we will focus on the human face.

For week one, after some instruction, we drew a live model. We started with some quick gesture drawings, and then settled in for a longer pose.

Here is what I drew:

Here are two quick two minute gesture drawings.

This is a longer pose.

Painting Studio with Betina Fink, Week 4 and 5

This is a six part series -- well, actually a four part series -- on the class I'm taking at The Drawing Studio, called Painting Studio with Betina Fink. All the work I will be doing in the class will be in acrylic paint.

The reason this is now a four part series is two fold. First, for the last two classes, we've worked on the same painting. Also, I will miss the last class. So, there you go.

Like I said above, the last two weeks we've worked on the same painting. Basically, it is a still life of musical instruments and flowers. This is what I created:

Art Show

Today was an exciting day. I had a piece of art that I created featured in an art show. The art show took place at The Drawing Studio, and included art from the Drawing Fundamentals classes. The piece of mine in the show was a still life of desert vegetation done in graphite. In the picture below, it is the one at the top.

Painting Studio with Betina Fink, Week 3

This is a six part series on the class I'm taking at The Drawing Studio, called Painting Studio with Betina Fink. All the work I will be doing in the class will be in acrylic paint.

For week three, we did two things. First, we added glaze -- basically watered down paints -- to last week's painting. Second, we did a new piece. This one was of a knotted yellow cloth hanging under some lights. We primed the canvas with yellow ochre. The idea was to let some of the primed color through the subject.

Below is the one of the knotted yellow cloth:

Painting Studio with Betina Fink, Week 2

This is a six part series on the class I'm taking at The Drawing Studio, called Painting Studio with Betina Fink. All the work I will be doing in the class will be in acrylic paint.

This week we did a black and white painting of various items lined up with lights over them. There were many items to choose from and we had to choose three. I chose a conch shell, a gravy boat, and a clay figurine.

There are a few things that I wish that I'd done better. Compositionally, the three subjects are not integrated enough. It is a little like a slot machine. Also, scale-wise the gravy boat is huge, and conch shell is small -- again, making it look like three different paintings.

There are some things I like, though. For instance, I think that the texture of the various items are well represented. To be honest, I'm am just glad you can tell what the three items are in the painting. To me, that is mission accomplished, seeing that this is one of the first paintings I've done in about 20 years.

Painting Studio with Betina Fink, Week 1

This is a six part series on the class I'm taking at The Drawing Studio, called Painting Studio with Betina Fink. All the work I will be doing in the class will be in acrylic paint.

For week one, we did a still life of a platter full of vegetables: heirloom tomatoes, red and yellow bell peppers, root vegetables, and so on. This is what I did:

Acrylic, 9" x 12".

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals 2, Week 8

This is a series of posts about my second class, Drawing Fundamentals 2, taken at The Drawing Studio, an artist's cooperative here in Tucson. Week by week, I plan to do a log of what we do in class.

For week eight, the last week. we did figure drawing. Each person in the class took turns posing for 15 minutes. The rest of the class drew the person posing. The whole idea is that they were quick. Obviously, they are not polished.

My drawings were all done in charcoal. Here are the best ones:

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals 2, Week 7

This is a series of posts about my second class, Drawing Fundamentals 2, taken at The Drawing Studio, an artist's cooperative here in Tucson. Week by week, I plan to do a log of what we do in class.

For week seven, we took some of the paper we had textured with gesso and ink or paint, and did a drawing in the media of our choice, using that texture. I chose graphite, using a white pastel and white gouache for highlights. Our subject was a simple still life.

This is what I did:

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals 2, Week 6

This is a series of posts about my second class, Drawing Fundamentals 2, taken at The Drawing Studio, an artist's cooperative here in Tucson. Week by week, I plan to do a log of what we do in class.

Week 6 brought us to abstract. For this week, we did charcoal drawings, on toned paper, using two pastels: white, and a color of our choice. A still life was set up, of some odd ceramic shapes.

Though I was not happy with it, the is what I drew:

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals 2, Week 5

This is a series of posts about my second class, Drawing Fundamentals 2, taken at The Drawing Studio, an artist's cooperative here in Tucson. Week by week, I plan to do a log of what we do in class.

For week five, we were back to color. This time we did a still life in a media of our choice. I had never done oil pastel, so I gave it a try. This one was also done on green toned paper.

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals 2, Week 4

This is a series of posts about my second class, Drawing Fundamentals 2, taken at The Drawing Studio, an artist's cooperative here in Tucson. Week by week, I plan to do a log of what we do in class.

For week four, we were introduced to color. We spent the first part of the class putting gesso and colored inks on paper for use in a future class. Following that, we tried our hand at some drawings using color. I did three, two in pastel, and one in colored pencil. Only two of them were worthy of putting on this blog. They are below:

Three oranges in a blue dish, in pastel.

Two limes in a red dish, in colored pencil and graphite.

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals 2, Week 3

This is a series of posts about my second class, Drawing Fundamentals 2, taken at The Drawing Studio, an artist's cooperative here in Tucson. Week by week, I plan to do a log of what we do in class.

Week three: ink. This week we used ink and a brush to draw, or paint, if you will, a still life of a plant. After the brush, I went in with a feather quill and filled in some lines. This was the result:

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals 2, Week 2

This is a series of posts about my second class, Drawing Fundamentals 2, taken at The Drawing Studio, an artist's cooperative here in Tucson. Week by week, I plan to do a log of what we do in class.

For week 2, week experimented with texture. We arrived at class to find a large still life setting in front of us that included some yucca plants, cacti skeletons, and rocks. We all started out by roughing out the outline using graphite powder. We then took our graphite sticks, various erasers, chamois, and other tools to complete the drawing.

Here is the result:

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals 2, Week 1

This is a series of posts about my second class, Drawing Fundamentals 2, taken at The Drawing Studio, an artist's cooperative here in Tucson. Week by week, I plan to do a log of what we do in class.

The first week of the class we tried our hand at drawing portraits: the close-up of the face. We split into two groups and took turns posing as others in the class drew us.

Here are the best ones that I did:

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals I, Week 8

To expand my drawing skills, I'm taking a class at the Drawing Studio, an artist cooperative here in Tucson. This is a series of posts outlining what we are doing in the class, week by week.

Week eight was the last week. During this class we tried our hand at figure drawing. Each person in the class took turns posing for 10 minutes as the rest of the class drew them.

Here are the best ones:

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals I, Week 7

To expand my drawing skills, I'm taking a class at the Drawing Studio, an artist cooperative here in Tucson. This is a series of posts outlining what we are doing in the class, week by week.

For week seven, we drew draped cloth. Using our sticks, we drew the outline of the cloth's shape. Then, we used the concepts we learned from our value class to fill in the details of the cloth.

This one was different for me in that I did not use charcoal. I only used graphite pencil to do this drawing.

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals I, Week 6

To expand my drawing skills, I'm taking a class at the Drawing Studio, an artist cooperative here in Tucson. This is a series of posts outlining what we are doing in the class, week by week.

Week six expanded the subject of perspective. Rather than drawing boxes, however, this time, we drew the interior of rooms. To do this, we used one point perspective, where walls that do not face the viewer straight on all go to a single vanishing point. We still used our measuring stick to get the proportions of things, though.

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals I, Week 5

To expand my drawing skills, I'm taking a class at the Drawing Studio, an artist cooperative here in Tucson. This is a series of posts outlining what we are doing in the class, week by week.

Week five introduced us the the subject of perspective. Unlike the perspective techniques that we learned in High School, one or two point perspective, we learned how to measure perspective using our measuring stick.

To draw a cube shape, we labeled the hypothetical corner points with with letters and found the points like this:

1. Find AB.
2. Find the distance from AB to CD.
3. Find point D on line AB.
4. Compare AB's length to CD. (One face complete)
5. Find distance of line EF from AB.
6. Find point F on line AB.
7. Compare length of EF to AB. (Second face complete)
8. Find point G on line AE.

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals I, Week 4

To expand my drawing skills, I'm taking a class at the Drawing Studio, an artist cooperative here in Tucson. This is a series of posts outlining what we are doing in the class, week by week.

For week four, we drew plants. We started out doing quick thumbnails of various plants. We then settled in for a long drawing. The idea was to give just enough detail to indicate what kind of plant it was, but not so much detail that we got bogged down.

Long leafy plant thumbnail.	Aloe Vera thumbnail.
A two hour study of a plant in pencil and charcoal. 18"x24". This particular plant was a cactus with big curly leaves on top.

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals I, Week 3

To expand my drawing skills, I'm taking a class at the Drawing Studio, an artist cooperative here in Tucson. This is a series of posts outlining what we are doing in the class, week by week.

For week three, we were introduced to a new topic: value. We started out drawing a strip with five boxes. We then attempted to fill in those boxes with charcoal shading, going from light to dark. After we completed that, we did the same thing with seven boxes.

Once we completed our shaded boxes, we went on to a still life drawing. Like the week before, we sketched out the still life using a stick to measure proportions. After that, we shaded our drawings, using our shaded boxes as a guide.

A five step charcoal gradation.	A seven step charcoal gradation.
A two and half hour still life in charcoal and pencil. 18" x 24".

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals I, Week 2

To expand my drawing skills, I'm taking a class at the Drawing Studio, an artist cooperative here in Tucson. This is a series of posts outlining what we are doing in the class, week by week.

This week we expanded what we worked on the week before, outlining shapes as best we could. This time, however, we tried something new: We held up a stick at arms length, trying to measure the proportions of the objects we were drawing. The items were painted white so that we would be sure to only draw the outline.

Outline of a wine bottle.

Outline of another wine bottle.

The Drawing Studio: Drawing Fundamentals I, Week 1

To expand my drawing skills, I'm taking a class at the Drawing Studio, an artist cooperative here in Tucson. This is a series of posts outlining what we are doing in the class, week by week.

The first class we were introduced to the teacher, Deb Steinberg. We then began our studies by outlining shapes, such as circles and squares, trying to get them as perfect as we could. We then moved on to more advanced shapes, such as garden tools, scissors, and kitchen implements. The idea was to do the outline only, trying to get the shape as perfect as possible.

Attempt to make the perfect circle.	Kitchen tool.
Scissors. I got in trouble for drawing the interior of the scissors.	Garden tool.

Murano In Acrylic

Thumbnail

Photo

This is a five hour study of the buildings in Murano (an island near Venice) in acrylic on 15" x 11" paper.

Rainbow Bridge In Acrylic

Thumbnail

Photo

This was a two hour landscape study in acrylic on 15" x 11" paper. It was my second acrylic painting in twenty years.

Sedona Landscape In Acrylic

Thumbnail

Photo

This was a two hour landscape study in acrylic on 15" x 11" paper. It was my first acrylic painting in twenty years.