Week 23 Looks Good Enough to Sit In

It actually looks pretty decent without any sort of pattern. No background alas, but I already started Week 24 so we'll call it good. It was healthy practice if nothing else.

Week 23 - Warmth

I sat down on Thursday night and realized that the perspective and proportions were all horribly wrong. Apparently sketching out works much better for me than rough blobs. This looks a lot better.

Also, if you're wondering just how obnoxiously complicated the fabric pattern is, here's a close up. I love this print, but there is no way on this earth I am replicating it for this drawing. Maybe some simplified pattern with a similar color, but definitely not this.

Week 23: Study in Red and Wingback

My aunt and uncle had this awesome chair, and when they moved into their new house they didn't want to bother with finding space for it, so it was passed onto me. I love this chair, too. I mean look at this thing. How can you not love it?

I haven't done any still life studies in a long time, and definitely none that took longer than ten minutes, so I decided this week to try and polish my skill a little by doing a digital painting whenever I'm home and have time. Since I started a new full time summer job this week, this might prove difficult. We'll see what happens.

PS: if you think I am going to draw the pattern you are sadly mistaken

Finishing and Re-Visiting

While the self-portrait is finished, the photo quality leaves something to be desired. The outcome of the actual painting, however, is satisfactory. Or, dare I even say, something to be proud of. The instructor and class were very fond of it during critique. It isn't perfect, but it's much better than before.

Also, since I had my paints out early this week, I went back to this painting and covered over the obnoxious lemon in the front that was disrupting the desired vocal point. It's much better now and still my favorite of the paintings done this semester.

The next painting is our choice as long as we demonstrate what we've learned over the semester. I have a concept, but it wouldn't translate to words very well. Hopefully a sketch will be ready to show soon.

This is Gonna Be Tough

This week marked the start of the next assignment in my painting studio, and also my first time working on a real canvas. Let me say, that stuff sure is greedy when it comes to trying to spread pigment, or maybe it's the gesso on top of it? Granted, the point with oil is to lay it on thick anyway.

The real tricky part of this assignment is that it's meant to be "arbitrary color", and based purely on the color value rather than representing anything with color. Yes, that's as complicated as it sounds. The most simple way for me to describe it is that every thing has to more or less be made of a quilt of various colors as long as they have the same value.

The drapery up top is being done correctly, but my teacher wants me to separate the colors out more on the bottom so they're not simply blended, but each color needs to have its own place.

I've been doing sketching here and there, but haven't gotten around to scanning anything.

Contains Nudity

Well, now that I have everyone's attention, let's start things with my finished painting for my studio class.

It's... not something I'm particularly fond of, but I knew it wouldn't be from the start. I never expect that of my first time trying something. It's main issue is that it's incredibly dark, even where it should be bright. I've noticed that I have that problem a lot, however. Hopefully this semester will help correct that. Hopefully I'll also stop comparing my work to the other students and convincing myself that I'm not as good as they are.

This may be shameless and may be resulting in the rolling of several sets of eyes, but I did it strictly to enjoy myself. In my defense, however, it was also good anatomy practice. It's been a while since I really sat and studied a reference, so this was helpful (the reference was a hard-bound book called Anatomy for the Artist for those wondering.) And hey, drawing Ivan (Hetalia) as a sexy vampire was therapeutic. A real vampire, mind you. None of that Twilight nonsense.