Andrew Sonea -14/5/2013

[Marian Rowling]

Love your caricature painting Andrew, makes me want to smile right back at you.

[lord_regenschirm]

Crazy youth ... What probably impresses me most is that you seem to be a quite active person and STILL have the drive to study you ass off ... your days must have 48 hours ^^ You will make your way to the very top, that much is for sure.

[Andrew Sonea]

Jessibelle: Thanks!

merl1n: Thank you!

Marian: Haha it was a lot of fun to do

lord_regenschirm: Thanks! Though I don't really agree with either the part about me studying my ass off or my being very active...





I couldn't leave this page with no art, so here is a drapery study I thought I'd throw up here. I gave her some sort of skin disease on her face haha because I was kinda bored near the end.

[Andrew Sonea]

A little something for this week's Teen Challenge. Nipple eyes make me laugh so much

[Andrew Sonea]

No replies...gotta work harder I guess.


Not a whole lot to show, but a bit different stuff I guess. I snapped a few photos of some traditional stuff I did in my last week here at school. The painting is acrylics and done in about 2.5 hours (unfortunately this photo was snapped with my phone, so lower quality). The life drawings are nupastel (decided to try it for the first time!) and are done in about 20 minutes each, with a focus on construction.

[Marian Rowling]

Really solid looking life drawings Andrew. Good to see you doing so well.

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

We're all boycotting you until you update every third day.

No really.

God damn you're too good.

[shockowaffel]

Hi,
the nipple devil looks really nasty °-°
Technically a nice piece, but you should pay a little more attention to composition.
The two sticks are pointing towards a point between the Samurai and the monster, without something beeing there and they're also dividing the devil and his target visually. And than there's the stong light in the centre, which gives a nice flair but is a definete focus point.
I'd also feel better if I knew where the beast is coming from. The stone wall would be an ovbious choice, dont you think ?
The soldier in the bg looks a little too big for me, but that's just a detail.

How about this ? Not perfect but a little better, I think.

[xinranliu]

digging the updates

[Andrew Sonea]

Marian: Thanks, I've been really enjoying life drawing lately and have had a lot of nice responses from people regarding it

Aksel: Haha, thanks man! I can always count on you for a little ego boost. I'll see what I can do about more regular updates...

shockowaffel: Thanks so much for the paintover! I won't bother going back and changing things, but I'll keep in mind what you've said.

xin: You've been doing pretty good too lately--any chance of a new update?


So I just got back from a week long cottage stay at Rondeau Provincial Park to catch the migrating birds. It's been about five years since I've done any serious birding and it was nice to get back into it. Total number of species for the week numbered in at 121, not great but not bad (especially considering how rusty I was and the fact that I was there about a week before the real migration kicked in!). I even got three lifers (birds I've never seen before)--Eared Grebe, Whip-poor-will and Tufted Titmouse (before I had only seen the Black-crested subspecies, which is now considered separate). Not sure how many people on the boards here are birders, but thought I'd share a bit of that. I even got a bit of plein air painting done there, so I'll try to photograph those tomorrow to post up.

I figured I might as well spend the next little while studying birds seeing as I never have fully in the past (from an art point of view anyhow). I'm thinking it will help with identification of birds if I paint them out, especially for tricky ones like shorebirds and immature gulls. But to start off, here is a little topography study from Crossley's new ID Guide which I just bought (highly recommended to intermediate level birders). I didn't label everything, just some of the more important ones which I felt I needed to hammer into my head better...turns out I've been calling the supralorals the lores for years. Oh, and I discovered in the second study of the White-crowned Sparrow that the smudge tool can be used to very quickly give a painterly feathered look! Will explore more in the future.

[Andrew Sonea]

Here are the plein air oils as promised. Each took maybe an hour or two...I kinda rushed them all I think. The largest is 11x14". I still have no clue how to use oils properly . That being said, these were a lot of fun (with the exception of the last one which was basically a series of disasters including things such as it falling off of the easel onto my palette and dramatically changing light that resulted in my largely making up the lighting).

[Andrew Sonea]

Just throwing a couple more bird topography studies up...they top of each image is after David Sibley, and the bottom is from photos.

[rinnikirun]

Oh wow that devil sketch is so cool, and i really like those life drawings to. Keep pushing!

It be cool if ya dropped a critique in my sb!

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Andrew I really like your last plein air landscape painting. In an effort to help I feel the other two are perhaps lacking a little atmospheric perspective. I think the eye might be more drawn into them if the mid and background had softer edges and lower chroma, but then again I to am only just trying to learn oils so I appreciate how difficult it is and how well you have done.

[Andrew Sonea]

ven-: Thanks! I dropped a comment in your book

Marian: Thanks! I know exactly what you mean. It was tough because in real life it was all pretty uniform looking (bad overcast lighting). I should have pushed it though rather than just sorta copying what I saw.



Just tossing a couple quick self portraits here. Each took just over an hour to do...I should really do a super finished one sometime instead of all these quickies.

[Andrew Sonea]

So I felt like I've been doing a lot of studies lately and not enough personal illustrations where I apply things. I did a few thumbnails on the topic of dragons to try and pump out ideas for what I might want to work on. All it did though was make me realize how bad I am at composition! Guess I gotta do a LOT more thumbnails...

Also another little bird study. Almost done these basic studies then I can move onto some nice ones from photos.

[Ian Barker]

These are really nice man! Wish I had some critique to offer, but all I can say is to just keep it up!

[Frostblade]

I really like the labels on the anatomy, more people should do that

[Andrew Sonea]

Liffey: Thanks! Critiques are nice, but so is encouragement

Frostblade: Yeah I usually don't bother, but I'm not that familiar with the bird ones, so I thought I'd do it for myself. Glad it can help others though




Spent the day with my girlfriend then procrastinated in the evening and watched a movie. So...didn't get much done. Here's the first hour in a (messy) master copy. It's a little behind where I normally would be after an hour, but I decided to do a quick line drawing this time which slowed me down somewhat. Oh, and tomorrow I'll get around to photographing some life drawing and an oil painting I did during the week.

[Andrew Sonea]

It was too dark today to photograph the stuff I promised. Ah well.


And I was really unproductive today again...here's all I did. Spent another two hours on my study (the third hour looks like no change; I mostly did colour adjustments and tried getting a better likeness), and did some shitty thumbnails.

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

Now you're updating at a reasonable pace. Keep doing it.

Also, that portrait study is pretty neat.

You started on your work yet?

[Andrew Sonea]

Aksel: Yup, gonna try and update a lot now. It keeps me going. And no I haven't started...I guess I should eh?




Life drawings and a Rembrandt study in oils (sorry for all the glare), both from a few days ago. And a couple speedpaintings based on some of the earlier thumbnails. Paraceratherium are fun to draw haha! But yeah, speedpaintings have always been a problem for me, but starting off with a ton of thumbnails to solve composition/value lets you go loose and have fun with brushstrokes and colour on the painting which leads to a TON of fun. Seriously, they were a blast to paint. I gotta do way more like this...

[Andrew Sonea]

Thread didn't bump for some reason.

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Andrew latest updates look great. I especially like your self portraits and the life drawings. My favourite in this last lot is of the man's back, I really like the pose and everything about that one.

[Andrew Sonea]

Marian: I liked that one too Thanks so much for your continued support by the way. It really means a lot to have you always coming by and commenting, even when nobody else does. I don't think I tell you that enough haha, but it really is nice to see you here


Here is a little more work into the previous speedpaint (I'm liking the direction it's going), as well as a new quick one based on one of those dragon thumbnails. I'm not that happy with the dragon one though.


(and if Aksel is reading this...then yes, I have started that thing. I started working out some poses but that's it)

[Andrew Sonea]

Just finished this thing. My eyes are pretty tired of staring at it...but all said and done I am fairly pleased with it. Not super happy, but I think it works.

[lancer_idenoure]

nice stuff man. love those life drawings especially. try to translate some of that form rendering to your illustrations. that new piece looks pretty sweet as well gotta love prehistoric stuff! a little too much reflected light on its neck but other than that it looks pretty solid. keep posting man, its good to have you around again

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

Good boy, keep em coming!

And keep working on it. This is serious, not some willy-nilly. Please your client and he will come back, make him happy and he will tell his friends.

[Andrew Sonea]

Lancer: Thanks! I'm still trying to figure out how to apply what I learn from observation in my imaginative pieces.

Aksel: Find out soon which one I need to finish up. I'm not doing all three...





Just tossing up some of last night's life drawings. I feel like I am starting to get a bit tired of the red/white pastel. Might switch it up in a week or two.


Also, I'm not sure how I forgot to mention it here, but I have registered for an 8 day workshop at Watts Atelier in late September. Super excited for that!

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

Those are wonderful, how long did you spend on each?