Ramon Hurtado: Recent Work and Demos

[vineris]

Great work. I like the painterly quality of the paintings, but I love that crosshatching on the sketches. Beautiful.

For your username, try posting in the Support section of the forums, one of the general mods should be able to change it for you.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Marian, Mane, Vineris: Thanks!
Andrew: Thanks, and good eye! It's hard to keep it all in perfect pitch when the head is less than 2 inches long haha. I'll keep an eye out for that next time!
Alternative: Thanks, there'll be some compositions coming soon!

So, in about a month's time, I'm heading back to LA. I'll be teaching "Long Pose Figure Drawing" at LAAFA this summer. Class starts in July and is on Mondays 10am to 3pm or 10am to 5.30pm (you can choose a 3 or 5 hr option). If you're in the LA area and hankering for some long poses, check it out!

To sign up, you can visit LAAFA's site here

Here's a little taste of what we'll go over in class For a full write up and high res images, check out my blog

[Ramon Hurtado]

2 hour study from the model, from the Art League's open life sessions. Pen and ink, 8.5x11in

[Katt Leeds]

Thanks for posting the progress shots of your figure paintings, and for answering everyone's questions so thoroughly. Such an informative thread! Your work is incredible- a pleasure to see.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Katt: Thanks! Your work is beautiful. I particularly like your drawing of Nate and the recent study of the shell.


I'm back on the West coast! The summer has been great so far and my long pose figure drawing class at LAAFA starts in less than 3 weeks.

I'm excited to share everything I've learned from Vilppu, Weston, Gottlieb and Liberace with art students in LA, it should be a lot of fun!

Here's the last drawing I did at the Art League in Virginia.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Here's another demo I put together

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Ramon thanks for this latest demon, I always enjoy seeing as much of my fellow artist's process as possible. Also wanted to wish you good luck for the class you are teaching, I'm sure it will be a great experience for you and your students.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Thanks for the good wishes Marian! There will be more demos and personal work coming soon.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Hi everyone, here are some recent quick sketches, mostly 5s and 10s with an occasional 20. It's been fun to get back into LA's drawing workshops, we have some great models here!

[Gpozzo]

This is great Ramon, loving your work, i'm looking forward for more, saludos.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Thanks Gpozzo, I'm glad you're enjoying the thread!

Here are some more 20s

[Cory Hinman]

Wow. Lovely work, really inspiring. Thanks much!

[Ramon Hurtado]

No problem Cory, glad you like it!

Here's a foot rendering demo I did for my students. This was specifically to show how different materials are useful for different parts of the rendering process. 2b charcoal for the main masses and lay-in, color giant pencil for the main modeling and sharp colerase for the finishing.

[Jonas Heirwegh]

Your progress these last years is inspiring Ramon! What are your future plans? Do you plan on getting into galleries or commercial work?

[Ramon Hurtado]

Hi everyone!

Here's a detail of a demo in progress for my Monday class at LAAFA. The drawing on the right is a direct study of our wonderful model, Mark Snyder. The drawing on the right is an anatomical breakdown of the pose, to show students how the skeleton affects the surface forms we see on the model.

This is from day 2 of a 4-day pose, next week I'll work some more on the drawing of Mark, developing more areas and using white chalk for the highlight. I'll also draw another diagram to show students how the muscles interact with the skeleton.

I'll be teaching this class again on Thursdays this Fall. The class is offered as a 3-hr or 5-hr class. If you're in LA and are looking for a long pose figure class, come join us!

To sign up visit LAAFA's registration page:

http://laafa.org/PDF/Fall2012Schedule.pdf (under Thursday)

I'm also doing a FREE demo for LAAFA's Open House event on September 9th, from 3:30 to 5:30 pm. RSVP here!

[Marian Rowling]

Hi Ramon, sadly I am a long way from LA, here in the UK, so unable to attend your demo's. I do appreciate your posts though as they are great to study from. So useful to see how the skeleton fits.

I have been learning about unified shadow shapes today as I am lucky enough to be attending a workshop with Henry Yan, he is visiting the UK, teaching his direct drawing techniques, so I now have a slightly better understanding of what you are looking at and rendering in this stage of your drawing. I hope you get the chance to post the next stages, especially the muscles on the skeleton.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Marian: Henry's work is great, I'm glad you got to take his workshop. Glad you're enjoying the demos!

Hi everyone, we just wrapped up the Summer term at LAAFA. Here are some updates on the long demo.

Skeleton


Muscle


Surface

[ninaren]

gorgeous

[Ramon Hurtado]

Ninaren: Thanks!

Here's some work from this week. When I do quick sketch nowadays, I try to arrange the figures into a coherent composition. In this case, I opted for pyramidal structure with a circular rhythm to guide the eye through.

Once you get comfortable drawing figures in a 5 or 7 minute interval, it's fun to up the ante and begin composing them. It's an extremely fun way to work, since you are drawing in a timed setting and never know what the model's next pose will be. This is a also a great way to practice staging for multi-figure scenes.

[Eleyon]

Wow you have a great perception of the human anatomy, I love your drawings with pen!

[mburrell]

I like the way you make a game out of composition. Having fun with challenges makes them much more manageable. I'm enjoying your various threads.

[Black Spot]

What a lovely thread. Thanks you.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Thanks everyone!

Here is one from this week

[lanotdesign]

I really like you r drawings. and great composition of anatomy.

[ja1307]

Truly outstanding work a joy to look through.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Thanks lanotdesign and ja1307!

Hi everyone! I'm teaching Figure/Costumed Quick Sketch and Long Pose Figure Drawing at LAAFA this term. There are still some spaces available, so if you're in LA and want to improve your figure drawing skills, come join us! To sign up visit LAAFA's registration page (search under Fall 2012 and Ramon Hurtado)



Here are some assorted demos:

Process


Rendering


Gesture and Proportion

[Ramon Hurtado]

Here are some demos from this term, I'll try to keep posting more of these and add some explanations along the way. These are from my Quick Sketch and Long Pose classes at LAAFA. Hope someone finds these useful, if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

Quick Sketch Rendering



This is a basic rendering diagram, demonstrating a full range of values to produce form on a sphere. During the lecture, we discussed which parts of the value scale are most critical in communicating form, and which can be left out when doing a quick sketch drawing.

The diagrams on the right show how the transition between values is more or less abrupt, depending on the form they're describing. Lastly, we discussed how core shadows not only follow the axis along the form they describe, but also show movement across the form. These small movements across the form add movement, energy and greater naturalism, as they mimic the infinitesimal changes that show up on the living model.



Here we see the same principles applied to a drawing from the model, roughly 20 minutes. I'm showing different strategies for producing a fairly rendered figure within a short span of time. Quick sketch drawing depends on developing priorities. In a rendering like this, we're leaving the shadow mass flat and ignoring the highest value steps. Our attention is focused on the core and half tones to produce an impression of solid forms as efficiently as possible.



In this second demo, we're focusing on how to show forms wrapping and twisting around the figure tonally. The triangle like markings on the right of the figure are what I call "tonal connections": little patches of value that emanate from a point and fan out. These connections help to roll forms over, while also showing a twist, suggesting that forms are wedging into each other and continuing to the unseen back of the figure, not ending at the contour.


Long Pose Figure Drawing



Here is the comprehensive demo I did from the live model, in addition to the muscular and skeletal breakdowns so students can understand how various anatomical forms affect the topography of the model.



Detail of the comprehensive demo and skeletal breakdown.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Hi everyone!

Here is the final comprehensive demo I did for my Thursday long pose class at LAAFA. The class is running again this term, starting January 24th. I'm also teaching Figure Construction and Nude/Costumed Quick Sketch. To sign up, visit LAAFA's class page.







Also, here are some images of work in progress: the start of a landscape and two studies for larger works.







Best,

-Ramon

[OmenSpirits]

Why does the model's head sit strangely upon his neck, almost disconnected.

[Mane]

lovely stuff man