ccsears sketchbook

[yongs]

nice update! has a nice elegant and feminine feel to it!

[alicelefay]

Ohhhhh this last one is awesome!
I love all of what you do, your tecnqiues never stop to amaze me.
But this last sketches has a inner grace and elegance, made me really fall in love

[MeTaL-Mike]

man i hate you for drawing such awesome fucking stuff

[ccsears]

trying out new things... this is actually a lot harder than it looks, which has kind of bummed me out for a few hours yesterday. there's a certain efficient way to draw this stuff where you waste very little time. i've seen mark and mike do it. but it's tricky to zone in on. you have to know the exact minimum amount of rendering, linework, etc. to get the job done, and the most direct way of doing it.



metalmike, alicelefay, yongs thanks! as far as the female one went, it was about mood. i'm glad you guys used "elegant" because that was one of the effects i was going for.

[nickmarshallvfx]

Loving that last update man! I so wish that my sketchbook pages looked like that! Gorgeous!

Nick

[ccsears]

yeah... i'm sick of fighting against the way i naturally draw and trying to compensate for running them through the xerox machine and guessing how they'll turn out. this is faster.

the point is always that i have to design and idealize the shapes. "just" tracing won't cut it. some of these things i think i can do traditionally, but this is just too fast in comparison.

painter... 3 brushes: charcoal pencil, square charcoal, glow brush.



spacesprayer thanks!

[yongs]

looking good. it's so cool here at your sb , there's so many interesting things that i don't commonly see. thx for sharing! can't wait for the next update!

[paperX]

I think I prefer the traditional attempt better, something about the glow brush just feels unnatural (personal preference ofcourse) I definitely see what you mean by efficient strokes though, very very skillfully done, awesome stuff man...can't wait to see more!

[ccsears]

more work on the portrait tonight. i spent the first half hour watching mark explain some things on his demo, and then spent about 2 more hours doing the modeling on mine.

palette--raw sienna, yellow ochre, cad red light, alizarin crimson, ivory black, ultramarine, raw umber, cad yellow light.

i'm using walnut oil as the painting medium.
(yes, this is the same guy i was sculpting a few weeks ago.)

the paint is very thin, and i'm using the "velatura" style of modeling in the light.

here's a piece of advice, and a note to myself...thin does not mean thinned out, necessarily... i don't use too much medium, just enough to do the trick. the rule of thumb is, don't use medium to do what your brush should be able to do. i.e. if you can use a soft touch with a soft brush to paint a translucent/transparent passage do it; do NOT try to make up for it using medium to thin your paint out.

next, i'll probably throw a glaze on a few things this weekend when this dries, and then finish the pose next wednesday.

(the kitchen lights, and the low light compensation on the camera really kill the grays on this thing...)


yongs Thanks! i'll just keep playing around and see what happens.

paperx Thanks, I know what you mean. these last few sketches have all been pretty awkward. the glow brush is kind of unnatural and not the best thing to use a lot of the time, but it works for this kind of monochrome sketching. it's what i use on some kinds of storyboards because it's down and dirty. there are some tricks to it though...

[wookiedabo]

the way you simplify shapes seems frighteningly efficient, and I really like the drawing further up, you seem comfortable with that type of rendering. really nice structural stuff.

[staticpen]

Those comp sketches are working well, man. I know what you mean when it comes to getting frustrated that you can't paint or draw in a particular fashion as quickly as you'd like to. I don't have to tell you that it comes with practice, but I also think these days that it's not always worth the trouble to force yourself to do something the hard way (read: someone else's way). The grass is always greener on the other side, but I feel it's worth it to develop the way one naturally draws and refine that style and make it their own. I feel that's probably the route that was taken by the very artists we try to emulate. They worked in their own style and mastered it, and their hard work is rewarded by the fact that the next generation of artists tries to emulate what they did.
Of course, as a dude who's still got heaps to learn, I'm aware that a huge part of the learning process is absorbing technique and knowledge from other artists. So there's a balance to be attained, hey?

Anyway, the painting is coming along super nicely. Really great work you're doing there.

[chaosrocks]

hey Chris
lovely paint handling on the portrait
I wish I had your patience

crx

[n0ireclipse]

Aaaaaahhhh such beautiful worrrrk.
I think you should

teach art

at a one-on-one level.
BECAUSE TRAFFIC IN LA IS HORRID.

[ccsears]

week2. no big deal.
thanks to HunterKiller for showing me how to do this...


this is probably where i spent most of my time working from tonight...


this somewhat contradicts how david simon teaches in his class. he emphasizes tighter "drawing" on a thinner clay profile, but i kind of jumped ahead and filled out a lot of the volume on the right side of the head. for how i like to work, the profile is accurate enough to do that. next is mostly a matter of transferring a lot of the forms over to the opposite side of the head and making it symmetrical. maybe i'll get a chance to tighten that up outside of class, maybe not. but even for an asymetric head, it's good to start from a symmetric base.

as far as the POLL goes... i'm trying to get rid of it because it's an idiotic way to pose the question. suffice it to say that there might be an opportunity for me to teach drawing on my own in a certain space in a certain part of LA. but to make it cost-effective, i've been trying to calculate how many students i would need at what rate.

from what i've seen in LA, classes typically range from 390-500$ (US) for a 3-hour x 10-week class. i'm thinking, depending on a few variables and some of the circumstances of the space, that i could probably do the same at maybe 275-300$ per 10-week session. maybe as low as 250$, but it depends on some things, number of students, etc.

it's probably better asked over in the lounge area or wherever, but i'll throw it out there. the class would be somewhat centrally located in LA, north or north-east of downtown a little bit. if you are in the LA area and you think you might be interested, send me a PM with your name and e-mail address. it's all under discussion and hypothetical right now, but it would be useful for me to know if there's even enough interest in me teaching head/figure/quick sketch to make it worthwhile.

******
wookiedabo Thanks! not there yet, but i'll get there eventually. shape-thinking is a pretty powerful conceptual tool when you draw. look at leyendecker...

staticpen thanks for the support man. i think right now the main thing is just too many variables and unknowns. i'm simultaneously trying to come up with a fake concept for a movie, art direct compositions for a hypothetical poster, and then draw in a different style under new constraints... i think i'm going to make it easier on myself by having mark act as a fake art-director and give me a fake assignment just so i'm in "drawing" mode instead of "come-up-with-a-fucking-idea" mode. it's weird because it's not like a personal project...something i've been planning on. it's like playing chess with yourself or something. pretend you're not you and then tell yourself what to do. just a colossal mindfuck that trips me up before i start.

chaosrocks thanks! i'm really impatient though. the painting is going super-fast, so i don't get too frustrated with it. and there's a lot of pressure that i don't have to deal with--showing up early at a school to get a good seat, transporting a bunch of crap and solvents, washing brushes before i go to sleep when i get home... all that nonsense. painting "underground" with mark and a few others streamlines all that b.s. out so i can finally do what i need to do.

[ccsears]

thanks Noireeclipse you were posting that just as i was writing tonight's post. I'm trying to get an admin to take down the poll because it's not as helpful as it could be.

for anyone interested...
just to reiterate, if you're in the LA area (or can come to the LA area) and you are potentially interested in taking a drawing class with me, please PM me with your "real name" and e-mail.

OR

if you're not in the LA area, but think you would be interested, send me a PM with your name, e-mail and city. i don't have any plans on travelling just yet, but who knows? if Comicon came to your town, or i'm visiting a friend in the area, maybe i could kill two birds with one stone or something. definitely let me know if you're in the Chicagoland area because i do go home to visit my parents and brother a few times every year.

sorry to bump the thread, but thanks.

[paperX]

really loving how the oils are coming along man, especially digging the warm hues you're using...gotta work on my skin tones haha...

the head sculpt is coming along nicely too, cant wait to see more progress on that...good luck with the classes!

[Sonaj]

Hey ccsears or Chris,

I really enjoy your work and reading through your rambles and thoughts here. There is a lot to learn from you. Props for your mentoring thread btw, very valuable.

What do you mean by "velatura" modeling? I'm self teaching/learning and just are not familiar with some of the terms as i notice. Could you describe it shortly?

The sculpting is also nice, i am sure it helps a lot with modeling form in 2D. I have to try this again, didn't do anything like this since little things in school.

Keep up the great work and writing, i am sure a lot of people here really appreciate how open minded you are about sharing your knowledge.

[ccsears]

as far as classes go...
i'll be taking a tour of a possible space tomorrow and meet the owner/proprietor. maybe something good will happen, maybe nothing, but at least i'll know more.

velaturas this is better left for maybe a mentoring thread, but i'll give you the basics of it here...


there are basically three kinds of oil painting applications:
1) transparent (glazes)
2) translucent (velatura)
3) opaque

you can take almost any color and thin it out to the point where you can glaze with it. even dirty, opaque colors like raw umber or yellow ochre can be made transparent with a combination of medium and thin brushwork.

to make a color translucent, the basic idea is simply to add some white. i don't believe in "formulas" but the "recipe" for a velatura is pretty simple--anything plus white and thinned out with medium so you can control the opacity. emphasis on the word "translucent"--velatura derives from the italian word for "veil" so imagine you're laying on veils of color.

in the portrait i did above, the grisaille accomplishes a few things--it sets most of the drawing, it establishes very basic values (light vs. shadow), and it maps out highlights, crest lights, etc. there isn't too much modelling per se and it looks very metallic and specular.

because i was just using white thinned out over burnt umber, the white becomes very gray. also, the whites are super-bright. so, to set up a little bit of a color scheme and knock the things into place, i washed over the piece with glazes. this establishes a local color--almost like a halftone color--and it knocks the highlights down from pure white.

once it's dry, you can use a translucent technique. more or less you mix a color somewhere between the highlight and halftone in value, and you work "from the highlights towards the halftones" decreasing the opacity as you go. your velatura should "bridge the gap" betweem the highlight and the halftone. this is a big oversimplification, of course, and there are a lot of rendering and drawing subtleties that go into it, but the basic idea is correct.

so, here are some related questions:
1) what do you do if you're modeling with the velaturas and the value gets too high (bright)?
you wait for it to dry and then you knock it down with an appropriate glaze in the right places.
2) what do you do if you glaze too dark?
either wipe it off before it dries, or just adjust the translucency of your velaturas to correct for it.
3) what if i lose my highlights?
restate them with opaque paint, not necessarily pure white. experience and judgment will tell you what to use.

it is important to realize that all the white highlights in my grisaille were not created equally. of course, i realize that the cheek and forehead are closer to the light source than the chin and neck. but i adjust for that with my glazes and velaturas. don't become a slave to it! you don't have to apply a glaze evenly across the whole piece, and you don't have to use velaturas to every highlight. when painting in layers, some parts of the painting become more or less finished, and then you leave them alone. at first, though, everything will need a bit of modelling.

for example, i'm going to glaze over the far side of the face, and do some more glazes on the underplanes of the neck. what i'm thinking of is the generic "egg effect" where you idealize the head as an ovoid shape with a simple highlight (the forehead and cheek). everything else will recede in value. if the glaze winds up being too dark, i'll just readjust it with another velatura.

note: when you add white to a color, it tends to cool. therefore, when you do most velaturas the color will cool a bit due to the white. don't worry about it too much, you can warm it up later with a very thin glaze. in fact, you almost always finish a piece with a few light glazes to tie it all together.

for medium, all i'm using here is walnut oil. and not a whole lot of it either. translucency is a combination of soft brush + thinned out consistency + good hand control. don't try to make up for lack of coordination or a shitty brush with too much walnut oil or you'll screw it up.

anyway, the portrait is just mediocre. nothing special. but it does show the process very clearly. if i had it to do over again, i would've spent more than 20 minutes doing the under-drawing and making it more accurate.

but, if you have 2-3 weeks to work on something, you can get this done very quickly in only 8-12 hours total painting time.

you can take an extra shortcut and do the first couple of layers in acrylic before you finish it in oil too.

[paperX]

Thanks for the tutorial man...was very helpful, much appreciated

[Josef K.]

damn you blow my head off everytime you update!!! Kinda feel like the alien-guy in the MIB movie! awesome stuff!

[Cam Sykes]

great variety of mediums here, and you handle them all beautifully. Will be great to see you finish the odin piece. The face is lookin good already. Just encouragement not any crits really.

[ccsears]

ballpoint at the laundromat on a friday night. yeah, i know it's large... scroll, please.



paperx Thanks! the tutorial you translated was really helpful too.

Sonaj Thanks! I hope that last answer explained a few things. i was writing it too quickly to edit and make it very coherent, but i think you get the basic idea. one of these days i'll update my mentoring thread and write it out correctly...

JosefK Thanks! here are a bunch of heads for you...

CamSyko Thanks! there's a funny story about the viking/odin/black metal thing. a Swedish black metal band said they want me to finish the doodle so they can use it for their album cover... i replied, but i'm still waiting to hear back from them.

[SoufMeng]

I know i told this you already but you rule man, i check out every lil update and each is as good as the previous one!
These heads are pretty cool esp the square-shaped bloke with the almost horizontal hatching!
Thanx for posting!

[MJ_Alcazar]

I really like the new things you are doing. It seems like it would be very difficult.

Also, wanted to thank you about the tips with the oil. I've always wanted to experiment with it, but I always got confused by the different things and how i was supposed to start. Since oils are expensive and hard to come by here, didn't want to start. I may experiment now though, try a few things.

Oh, and thanks for the comments in my SB, I appreciated them.

I like the sketch on post #870. She is very feminine looking and mysterious. She has an almost underlying haughtiness about her. I really like it.

[paperX]

wow really confident lines, I like the exaggerated features too, really gives character. a pleasure to look at for sure, keep it up man!

[ccsears]

feeling sick this morning. exhausted. will write more later.

[Victor B]

loving the tonal stuff ccsears!

[jedininjaman]

man awesome painting, it is neat to see the process
you have such nice variety of material in here, in the latest model/chalk drawing the shapes and form you picked out are amazing, I love the collar bone/ neck especially
thanks for sharing man and keep it up
-jedi

[Vorace]

impressive stuff, great sb I learned a lot hehe!

[staticpen]

Gorgeous work on the toned paper, again. The way you adjust the value of the line, not solely the masses, as the image recedes almost makes it look like you washed atmosphere right onto the page. Super super.

And that flat-headed alien dude in the center of the sketch page looks an awful lot like a skinny Slythe from Thundercats. hahaha. Points.

Concerning the velatura post: a hundred thanks.