A thread with artwork and words (Nov. 25th MASSIVE ART DUMPING)

[Marlisa]

Wow... really awesome! 5 stars!
And I think I could really learn something from your oils, so also thread subscription

[Jason Scanlon]

Nice sketches! I love drawing drawing people, they make good models. Also really feeling the sketch posted earlier with the reaching hand. More.

[Adam Nowak]

richart - Thank you!

ryanoir - I bought Henry Yan's book a while back and since then I've done a lot of research into Chinese and Russian realist artwork that has been coming out in the past few decades. Yan is definitely an influence on how I approach some drawings.

SnobbyOo - Thank you very much man for noticing some change.

Marlisa - Aww thanks.

Jason Scanlon - People just make good models period. {Like train passengers.] Except for those who find out you're drawing them and they go out of their way in order to not get drawn.

MOAR!

[Alfy]

Beautiful stuff dude! I especially like the one from your sketchbook avatar, just the perfect blend of detail and mess!

[Vloth]

wow, how dedicated you are! It's really nice to see the rapid development you've gone through since page one. I especially enjoy your work with light/shadow in all your studies. Also, sweet to see some more traditional stuff here on CA.

[purplegoat]

Enjoying your sketcbook! No crit from me. Just stopping by.

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks guys.

1 + 2- Another painting from the same pose, from the above post I made. I'm happy with this one. Took around 15 hours though the latter half was basically fixing all the mistakes I made the first few hours. Second photo is a closeup I wanted to post to see what kind of texture of the board I had to deal with. Used a few coats of acrylic "gesso" and then went over that with acrylic gel. I forgot to sand it like I usually do. At first I hated it but by the end I found out how to play nice with it.

3 + 4- Some 30 min. Not winners, but not everything always is. Drawings that I specifically focused on with black and white charcoal. Want to try this on a longer pose.

5- Came in late for the session so this was about 3 hours., limited palette. Terra Rosa, Yellow Ochre Pale, Ultramarine Blue, some Raw Umber in places for the hair and a few others for a a few vibrant marks in his dreads. I always try to use a different method if I haven't done it before and thought this would be a perfect time. So I just started with a mark on her forehead and layed down every brushstroke down as accurate as possible. If not, I tried to correct it right away. Since I was basically having to think about proportions as I was thinking about value, form, color, etc... I ran into trouble and had to do some reconstruction.

6- 3 hour pose. I see there isn't much dealing with shadows. I tried to not get any "muddy" color in and rather used a way of trying to turn the form with color instead of just value.

7 + 8- Oh boy. First image was a work in progress. 3 hour pose. What I learned then - do not use Refined Linseed Oil on some shellaced wood. Bad idea. Second photo is yesterdays touch up I did.

9- Just finished up my last page in my sketchbook. Time for a new one.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

Nice work, you've got a good handle on traditional media. Keep it up!

[ryan mcshane]

ahh your moleskine kicks ass!! really lovely work here bro! keep kicking it haaardcore! love it all : D : D ahhh

[Adam Nowak]

Gotta keep going guys!

This is my first sculpture I've been working on fir a few weeks now. I got about 6 days left to finish this so before I get fancy with details I really need to fix up all those little inaccuracies. Some misshapen and lopsided features. But I do love doing it, it's a lot of fun.

Another painting started today, 6 days left for it as well. We'll see how it goes...

[Adam Nowak]

Today was a great day! Woooooooooooo-

[ryan mcshane]

good looking shtuff mate! what school are you at?
looking nice man!

[Thebest12]

I see you

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir - I'm currently attending the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

Made some progress on the sculpture and I have 4 days left to work on it. Really sat down last time and reworked all the features to make sure they were precisely the exact shape they needed to be. I'm sure this is obvious to anyone who has sculpted before but I have to constantly check everything I'm working on from all angles as it shrinks and grows as I manipulate it. I realized that when I started going after details the bust resembled the model, but everything was off so now that I got everything in it's right place I'll start to refine it.

There was a new model at the Palette and Chisel last night and on Thursday nights the guys who run the session like to use a warm light since the pose goes from 6:30 - 9:30 pm. We kept the natural lights on during the pose and I just so happened to set up right where I could get both major highlights. This was done on board with acrylic gel layered with a palette knife so the surface was untextured but tacky. It made it possible to lay down a color (like the pink in the ear) and then take a clean brush or rag and wipe away the color to show the white board again creating translucent effects.

[SekuDanba]

See what a little bit of Life Drawing can do for you?!
And its good to see you do little sketches on your moleskine, cause practicing every day is beneficial in the long run, as evidence here.

So I guess if you were gonna take a life drawing course, they could use you as a success case, that Life Drawing is Essential for drawing realistically and abstraction.

Now for critiques:
Clay is coming along nicely(Klean Klay isn't it? Working on one myself just now.)
In terms of the contours of the face, I'd start roughing those in. Because you've mapped the whole face perfectly, proportion, scale, height/width yadayada.
Maybe the ears need a little work..

Last painting has a good use of color. Contrast between light colors and darker ones. But it seems kind of flat, maybe its the angle. And some features are squished.

Anyways, overall you are very talented and I'm looking forward to see your skill grow.
Toodles.

[zeo-x]

there's some really amazing oil paintings going on here!

[Adam Nowak]

zeo-x - Thank you very much!

SekuDanba - Thanks for the crit. and comment. The clay is Roma Plastilina, the softest grade. It's oil based which is very nice for working on it for extended periods of time. I tested to day to see if I wanted to go full out with a smooth, realistic texture but decided that I'll try that out on the next sculpture most likely. This one will stay kind of rough. I'll probably start casting tomorrow. As for the painting, I can kind of see how it might look squished. He did have an awkward arm position that raised his shoulder significantly but I think the thing that makes it look flat might be the warm light. I tried to keep it balanced. The lightest thing I have to White is Cadmuim Yellow Medium. So I didn't want the warms to look too cool which was hard to keep in balance. Good temperature practice though.

Was sick all weekend so only got some school work done.

[Adam Nowak]

Finished the sculpture. I'm casting it in plaster now. One more day for the painting and did another portrait study tonight.

[ryan mcshane]

wowowow man! looking wonderful! that sculpture turned out lovellyyyy
great work!!

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks ryanoir! I'm glad to be finished with this painting. After being sick all week but still going to school everyday I thought it would never end. Did a lot of minor touchups. Learned quite a bit about color and brush control. It's something like 17" x 23". Won't be submitting as much for a little while as I'm still sick and haven't been attending extra classes as a result.

[knut-]

Nice line/ brushwork. Really gives a 3d feeling on the paintings. Also, it's funny how you can show things and people with only a small number of lines, really makes you think how to draw in real life situations where people are moving without loosing that movement and pose. Keep up.

[SekuDanba]

That sculpture looks way better. I kinda prejudged, because I didn't know if you were finished or it was in-progress. But yeah, it turned out good.
Paintings as always are really good. its good you want to start with rough oil paintings. I've seen alot of people rush into detailed oil paintings and end up with a crappy looking painting. Keep it up!

[Adam Nowak]

knut- - They're always moving. Unless they fall asleep on the train.

SekuDanba - Yeah. Another reason why I leave them rough is because I tend to work on a smaller scale. I'm planning on moving to something larger soon.

So the plaster cast I'm making right now is almost finished. I made the mold and ran into some problems. You can see in the photo that parts of the blue layer has chipped off. Or more like completely disintegrated. It's blue because I mixed in some pigment to help differentiate how close I am to the sculpture when I'm chiseling away. I think it happened because I put way too much pigment in. Everyone elses turned out fine with no cracks like mine. Also the fact mine was quite a bit bigger since I had a part of the torso. I think when pulling the two part mold apart I was too aggressive with it. Large pieces fell right off which I fixed. Will be pouring the plaster in the week. I did manage to save the face and will make another little plaster cast from that.

Painting! The first one was done at the Palette and Chisel and there was some beautiful cool light filtering through on a somewhat overcast day. The horizontal portrait was done in 20 minutes because I was waiting for another canvas with some washes on it to dry and I had some extra time. last one's from the weekly after school portrait sessions. I've been pushing the chroma in my paintings lately, especially the after school portraits to play around with color and better understand some of its qualities.

I was able to check out the schools collection of past artwork from students and instructors. I got to see work from William Mosby, Alex Ross's school work done in oils, Scott Burdick, and got to handle a few Richard Schmids from demos he did at school and the best part, a few of his figure oil paintings from class! I'll definitely remember that. In fact I'd like to go back now and look at them again!

[LAL]

hey my friend, Amazing works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I love your oil painting and the sculptures very much ,you color is beautiful!

[surus]

Thanks for sharing all these pencil and charcoal sketches!

[ryan mcshane]

sorry to hear about all your unfortunate things with the sculpture ;_;

could you talk about your process with oil painting portraits please? it'd be quite interesting, not sure how to do alla prima D:

[Benjy]

This one is beautiful! I love the hair and the yellow highlights on the skin. Gorgeous stuff.

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks everyone!

ryanoir, I'd be glad to, though I don't claim to know all that, I'm still learning too. No matter which way I approach it, as I have been trying out different ways recently with different surfaces which will affect the way you paint even if it's in a small way, there are some things to keep in mind when you're painting in one session.

- Paint only as fast as you're able to. Don't rush because there is a time limit. Better to produce a simple but well structured head that can make a statement rather than one with frilly details which cannot hold up. You will get faster over time. Once you do it enough times and learn which mistakes not to make, you'll realize when to paint fast and when to paint slow.

- Step back and squint. I don't know how many times I hear this but I still don't do it enough. You can judge how hard your edges are, find your hardest edge, and simplify the values.

- The more you look at one area, the more and more color and smaller value shifts you'll begin to see. Which can be a good thing, or a bad thing. You don't want to get stuck on one area for too long.

Make sure to get a solid line drawing in either before you paint or if you decide to start out by blocking in the shapes of the face with color always step back and judge how your painting looks compared to the model.

Another alla prima today, 12 x 16, 5 hours.

[skMOP]

Your colors in oils are awesome! Love tha alla prima portraits especially.
I think that there are some slight proportional errors or really tiny facial faults in some of the portraits. Like the newest one for example the (stage) left eye/cheek seems a bit higher than the otherside.. just a really small nitpick thing though.

Nice variety with the moleskine pages and the sculpture too.

[B-zilla]

Looking good, man! Keep up the lovely work.