Classical Gas ~ Sketchbook (Updated 01.16.12)

[thinairart]

Dreamworker- Thanks! I had fun with that painting, it was tough to get the reflections in the blue bottle right, but I was happy with the result.

Here's anothe quickie from early this year. I have a Homer Simpson Rubik's cube that when solved looks like Homer, and when mixed up looks like something out of a Dali painting. So I put that on a little pedestal, and did a quick contour drawing from life.

[Bendragon]

Great to see all these master studies. I also really like how subtle you are with the rendering in your still life work. I'd like to see the texture of the material defined more though.
Great work here!

[Farvus]

Hey. Thanks for posting in my sketchbook.
The studies look great. I admire your patience for doing those Bargue drawings. I tried only once and it's really hard .

[Listing]

Intense, respectable study but don't be so methodical. Sketch more, loosen up. Very fine results, by the way.

[thinairart]

Bendragon: Thanks for stopping by! I hear you on texture, the casts used in Bargue/cast drawings are so smooth that I've kind of fallen into the habit of not looking for surface properties and just rendering tone... so when I have a lemon in front of me I'm not as sure how to handle it.

Farvus: thanks! Bargue studies can certainly be a lesson in tedium. What really sucks is realizing a measurement is off late in the process. That is some serious pain! But in the end I think they are worth it, my eye for measurements and relationships has really improved.

Listing: I've been thinking the same thing lately, that I need to balance the intensity of Bargue/Cast drawings with gesture/short pose work from the figure. Thanks for stopping by my SB!

[thinairart]

Finally finished up this latest still life. I'd been wanting to work my cheap maquette into a composition somehow, so I put together something simple that I thought would make a good exercise. Next up, another Bargue copy. Figure wise I'm planning to take a life drawing class next month, so that will make for a good break from the more academic studies.

[GreekGodMan]

Hi reidaj,

just poking my head in and like what I see, I like it a lot.

I also love the acrylic in post #29

keep em, coming.......GREAT STUFF !


PEACE

[DennisCurrie]

Good work.

[thinairart]

GreekGodMan & Dennis: Thanks for stopping by my SB!

Hopefully I can post more frequently soon.. I'm getting married in two weeks, and the wedding planning has sucked away a lot of my free time.

[Sonaj]

Very nice reidaj!

Great master studies, and that acrylic stilllife is nice too.
You could try to push the contrast in the drawings a bit more, i guess that a bit gets lost when taking pictures?
Looking forward for some updates, enjoying the paintings especially.

Best wishes for your marriage

[thinairart]

Sonaj- Thanks for your comments! One of these days I'll figure out how to photograph graphite/charcoal.. I can never seem to get the full range of contrast without blowing out all the details in the lights... so the shadows are darker in RL. That said, I have been wanting to push my darks even more so that I can achieve a richer range of values. I've started experimenting with charcoal as it seems much easier to get really dark in the cast shadows. I can get fairly dark with graphite, but it takes layer after layer, which can be pretty tedius.

[matejkovacic]

I like the #6 study the most. Keep posting!
Best wishes for your marriage from me too!

[inouye]

wow!!nice painting & drawing!!
really nice sketchbook

[thinairart]

matejkovacic & inouye - Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

Well now that the wedding is all said and done, I finally have free time again! Everything went off without a hitch, but all that planning for one day, it is a big relief when it is all over.

So finally I have started on another Bargue copy. I figured that I'd post this one in stages. I'm using a sight-size approach, measuring with a knitting needle from a distance of 4 feet or so. The drawing and original are mounted on my drafting table, which has been adjusted to vertical, bringing the setup to my eye-level.

So here is the drawing at a very early stage (2hrs), just a basic construct. I've tried to focus on the gesture/structural elements as much as possible, working on the larger shapes and relationships.

I'll keep posting updates as the drawing evolves. I apologize in advance for the photos, I won't be able to get a proper shot until the drawing is finished, but the progress shots will give you an idea of the process.

[emily g]

Congrats on your wedding!

Awesome to see that you are doing this. I'm excited to see how it goes.

[thinairart]

Thanks for stopping by again Emily! I'm excited to make headway on my 2nd Bargue. So far I've already caught a couple mistakes. I think the first time around I had a tendency to almost subconsciously avoid checking and rechecking my measurements, afraid of the mistakes I might have made. Of course, when those mistakes finally did surface during the modeling phase, it took a lot more work to correct. So this time around I've been trying to stick to a plan of measure once, measure twice, and then measure again!

[Seedling]

Beautiful drawings. Really lovely. And congrats on getting hitched!

I was surprised to see that it took you 50 hours to paint this one: http://conceptart.org/forums/showpos...6&postcount=29 . I realize that you are coming from or progressing through a particular academic method of working, but I think that method is in this case holding you back. In that same 50 hours, you could have done five, or ten or fifty paintings, and learned that much more, particularly in the area of composition.

If you aren’t familiar with Duane Keiser, you should look him up.

Cheers!

[thinairart]

Seedling- Thanks for stopping by! Actually, your reaction to the 50hrs it took me to complete that painting is the same reaction I had. I thought... wait a minute, I could have done 5 of these in the same timeframe!! So last July I decided to start working shorter studies.. 10 hrs max. I soon discovered that I was spending a lot of time correcting drawing errors.. and then I realized that my ability to draw from life wasn't quite where I wanted it to be. So I started drawing again, and eventually my short exercises turned into long ones, putting me essentially back in the same situation. Life works that way sometimes I guess, moving in circles! Anyway, I'm hoping to get back into painting eventually, focusing on shorter studies using a more direct method.

Thanks for introducing me to Duane Keiser.. a painting a day would be awesome, maybe I'll shoot for a painting a week first, that would be an improvement!

[Seedling]

Awesome! Glad to help.

I've been learning to use oils in a method that is polar opposite of how they teach at ateliers – one one-hour painting from life a day. I’ve made a lot of terrible paintings, and I know at some point I’ll have to work specifically on taking my paintings to a real finished state, but in the mean time I’ve learned an amazing amount. It’s been a bit like keeping a sketchbook in paint. (They’re in my sketbook if you want to see my blunderings.)

If you haven’t read it, the book Alla Prima by Richard Smith that everyone around here talks about is a great resource.

I hope you post some more work here soon. Perhaps try a drawing style that allows you to sketch in values with lines rather than building up smooth layers of graphite. The smooth layers are sexy, but fast sketching comes in so handy for taking snapshots of what’s in front of you or what’s in your imagination.

Cheers!

[icebergart]

your work is very inspiring, and I really enjoy your pencil work. Do you blend the graphite at all?

____________
Iceberg Art

[thinairart]

Seedling- I do have Schmid's book.. I love his work! (and the work of his students- Daniel Gerhartz, Scott Burdick, etc..) Schmid's color charts were a great inspiration to me, I did my own and finally felt like I understood a little about mixing. I'm planning to take a life drawing class this summer, one that focuses on short poses & gesture. I'm looking forward to it, as I've been wanting to practice portrait work using my wife as a subject, but I know she won't sit still for hours on end like my Bargue plates or still life!

icebergart- Thanks for dropping by my SB and commenting! Instead of blending I'll work up a surface by applying multiple layers, concentrating on flat tonal shapes. For larger drawings it takes a lot of work to produce large dark areas of tone, but I don't mind. I feel working directly without blending for me always leaves the door open to keep a drawing loose, with less finish. Of course, most of my recent work has been fairly tight, but I like having that freedom to take a drawing anywhere from a simple contour, to a highly polished Bargue drawing.

[Dreamworker]

From my last visit your did very great stuff! Your technique is impressive, I admir in particular the rendering of the head in post #44
Cheers

[thinairart]

Dreamworker- Thanks for stopping by again!

Here is an update on my Bargue copy... about 12hrs so far. The block-in is basically done, although there are a couple measurements I'm planning to recheck before I dive into the modeling phase.

[thinairart]

The 'ole Bargue copy is coming along.. I've started blocking in the shadow tone, working towards more specific shapes as I go. I like to keep it light at this stage, as there are always a lot of corrections that pop up. Once I have the shadow tone locked down, I'll darken it, but save any further shadow modeling (cast shadow, reflected light) for after I've established the darker halftones.

[molotov_billy]

Reidaj, really great stuff here, lovely rendering, and I think it's very clear that you have good observational skills.

I have to echo the sentiments of others, though, in that you really need to be doing more gestural/shorter studies. You have to understand that even in the typical classical atelier, 3 hours are spent every morning doing gestural work (the same amount of time spent on longer studies and copies.) All of the masters did it, you should do it too!

Especially with the sargent study - those types of sketches were done fairly quickly, and he was able to do so because of his experience and his confidence in line - all the result of gesture work. In spending such a great deal of time in copying a sketch, I'm not sure that you're learning as much as you could be by doing many more, quicker, studies of it.

Something that I've found to be exremely useful is master copies - but doing so in 15 minutes or less. Grab a master figure book with images on every page and just do quick studies - lots and lots of them. Don't worry about copying marks slowly - do your own take on the image and try to represent the form as best as possible in the time given.

With any kind of art training, quantity can be far more important than quality - think of the number of sketches you could have done in 50 hours! Just try to balance out the two disciplines!

[emily g]

Looking good so far...you've got things blocked in nicely.

[Dose206]

wow, great studies.

I see that you're in denver, I'm down in the springs. mayhaps it would be fun to get together and sketch one day.

[thinairart]

molotov_billy: Thanks for stopping by! I'm down with what your saying- check my prior discussion a few posts back with Seedling. Soon I'll hopefully be working from the figure and I'm looking forward to that.

emily: Copying this Bargue drawing has definitely been less frustrating then my first attempt. That is to say that I've made fewer major mistakes that called for a lot of correction... so far so good!

Dose206: Thanks for dropping by my SB! I'm in north Denver, but sketching is something I need to do more of.. so perhaps if I could make it a bit more southward one of these days we could meet up to draw.

Time for another update.. I decided to go ahead and block in the shadows, midtones, and lights before I started in on the modeling. A great thing I feel about working this way is that I have been focused on big shapes and relationships, and have put off working on small details until the very end. Next up, I'll finish my Bargue copy by diving into the details and creating a polished rendering, working from the shadows to the lights.

[Ramon Hurtado]

hey there reidaj, really really nice work in here, your bargues are really well done, i admire patience and obvious hard work that your work shows, keep it up!

[thinairart]

Thanks for stopping by and commenting panchosimpson!

I'm very close to finishing the Bargue I've been working on.. the final version should be posted this weekend. I also recently picked up a nice cast of the Eye of David, so I'm excited to get started on a cast drawing in the next couple of weeks.