Studies.....from life and from the masters

[Ramon Hurtado]

Greenwood, Dose: Thanks guys!

here's a quickie portrait of my friend Catherine....I have some other plein air stuff that i'll post later

[Art_Addict]

Hey Pancho!

It's been a while since I commented in this thread. It's always wonderful to see
someone passionate about what they do. I really like what you've got going on here.

Couple things that cross my mind. When I see the studies in pencil on the last page.
You're making a lot of straight and parallel marks to indicate plane change or form or
shading of some sort. Keep in mind that that too makes something easily look mechanic and generic. Not life like.
I talked before about the importance of thinking organically and not mechanically/ geometrically when studying human form.
When you look at most old master drawings, like the Carraci's and the florentine school, Vouet and his pupils, LeBrun, Carle Vanloo,
baroque drawings etc... Most of those drawings aren't taken to a high finish, they usually serve as studies to be painted so they
put down just enough information to work from. Those drawings epitomize organic form in full glory. No lines are ever parallel,
not on the outside nor on the inside. When they hint to plane change it is done by radiating lines in stead of straight ones.
Because there are no straight marks on the body! The underlying form of the body is irregularly rounded. You could think of the surface
of the body as a basket weave ( this comes straight from Ted Jacobs btw ) The only reason to see the different parts of the body
as boxes should be to understand their planar relation. The baroque artists put everything in a curving arrangement.
Even Prud'hon's drawings, when observed closely, you'll see that he is really putting down little non parallel marks,
always thinking with the shape of the light and thinking organic, lively form !

My 2 cents
Keep it up.

[the_allejo05]

Pancho check this out. hmm I think Jeffrey will recognize your talent right away..plus tell him i know you hehe.
http://www.mimsstudios.com/scholarship.htm
keep it up..really nice portrait.

[Kai H]

Hey the portrait is really impressive.

The mims atelier is great. They approach with 2d manner to the subject, like florence academy of art, angel academy of art, the atelier and academy of realist art.

It is different way from the bridgeman, vilppu or other 3d form stuff. But it might support the 3d thinking i a way... I dont know

[Ramon Hurtado]

Thanks for the comments guys I'll respond to individual comments in my next post, for now, here are some studies after Repin's Archdeacon

PS. to anyone who hasn't had a chance to see Russian artwork, you really owe it to yourself to look for it

[Jamie Romoser]

wow i learned so much from looking at this thread makes me wana draw

[Ramon Hurtado]

Art Addict: Hey nice to see you around here again! Once again, you make a very solid point. When trying to indicate plane changes I do get carried away sometimes and make things too stiff. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll try to fix it in later studies.

Allejo: Thanks for the link man, that sounds fantastic, but I don't know if i would want to venture all the way to Mims (North Carolina right?) at this time. It's definitely something I'll look into in the future though!

Baretul: You're right, even though I'm learning from the constructive tradition right now, a lot of my favorite artists were trained academically and I like a lot of things about that kind of training. I really think there are more similarities than differences in these approaches, I think they mutually reinforce each other and I try to not be too dogmatic about either. For this portrait for instance, I blocked in the outline with straight lines (academically) but used construction for the features.

OmertA: Thanks!

Here are the plein-airs I promised from last week. Also, some new life drawings from Will Weston's class, I felt really refreshed being in front of the model again (especially since I studied anatomy like crazy over break), and I think these drawings are a bit better than the ones I had done in Glenn's class (which I'll start going to again in mid Feb). The darker corrections and muscle groupings are by my instructor. Some 2s but mostly 5s.

Lastly, here's a portrait of my friend Matt who sat for me for 4 hours last night. This was great fun to do, he chose the pose and wanted to look as "intense" as the people in the Russian paintings we were looking at this was my first time painting a hand from life....it was hard, and it's overworked but...oh well! the face was really fun to paint, especially the angle, which is not something I'm used to. I also tried to watch my edges and think of planes throughout. Critique away!

[Ramon Hurtado]

another one for the day

[the_allejo05]

nice stuff..watch closer..on the plein air..those shadows arent really purple..

[Art_Addict]

Congrats on that last portrait !

It feels lit and the color is nice too. I like it.
You've got talent kid, keep it up !

[Ramon Hurtado]

Thanks Art Addict! I think it's the most satisfying portrait I've done so far

I've been taking a LOT of inspiration from Russian artists recently, especially concerning plein air painting, the work that came out of Russia from the mid 19th century onwards is nothing short of amazing, and utterly trumps french impressionism IMHO....anyway, after looking at Levitan, Repin, Kramskoi and the assorted impressionists of the soviet period, I got out and did a plein air . This one is larger (9 x 12) than the previous ones....I didn't finish the BG because the sun hid behind some clouds and didn't come out again.

Also a lot of 2s from Will's class, some motion studies (exciting!) and a few 5s ...I feel like I'm getting a bit better in the gesture, volume stages....but every now and then I'll be careless and screw up my proportions (like the rightmost figure on the 2nd to last sheet) even though I know them..alas...i must be more careful

[Ramon Hurtado]

Went to the Getty with some friends today, it was amazing! it was my first time seeing Titian paintings in person, they were awesome! saw some more Rembrandts too, some were very smoothly painted, and got my fill of Rubens and Van Dyck for the day I am a very happy man right now! Also there were some awesome sculptures to draw from!

[Ramon Hurtado]

still life, croissant, apple and spoon. First time painting metal, woo! Also an anatomy study I did from my head a few days ago.

I'm going to to try to step things up soon, hoping to copy a Ribera, then a Velazquez, both complete nude figures in a larger format than I normally work in Should be fun and they'd make nice room decorations!

[Ramon Hurtado]

practice drawing from imagination

[Mengel]

it's really, really hard to criticize work when all i can think of is how to assimilate your style into my own heh...

keep this thread going though, i want to see more!

[Ramon Hurtado]

Mengel: haha thanks, though there's not much a "style" here, it's wayy too early for me to care about that.

Here are some studies after Soviet impressionist artists, and one after Zorn (covered in ethics notes)

[the_allejo05]

nice Pancho your sense of architectural forms and proportions is reading very well , on the last batch of Getty studies..hmm to improve your drawing even more..copy a drawing of a master..not a sketch of his,but a finished study..not from a painting though..i know you know lots of techniques..and your pretty confortable with drawing from life but it is a good refresher to do that once in a while,to get finer,more sensitive. Test yourself with the hardest draftmen ..Leonardo,Michelangelo,Raphael , I know many wont agree haha..but I wanna see them copying one drawing is all about the mind and those 3 minds were divine.keep up the good work!!

[dose]

Hey there. Awesome work and progress as usual.

Regarding your plein-air studies- If you're looking at Russian artists, you might want to check out this long-winded post I made describing a painting technique I learned from several artists trained in the Soviet academies:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=113990

If you're going for the Russian Impressionist look, you're missing a cool component in a lot of your colors, and occasionally there's the opposite problem where you're missing the warm component. I tried to explain what this means in the thread, but it's quite difficult to explain in words. If you look at some Russian impressionist landscapes for warm-in-cool and cool-in-warm you'll see what I'm talking about- especially in Soviet era paintings. It's particularly noticeable when you look at how they handle whites, grays, and browns (look for the blue and yellow in the snow or on a white shirt). Once you see it there, you'll see it in all the other colors as well. It's more subtle in some paintings than others, and some artists clearly didn't employ this idea, but it's there quite a bit if you start looking for it, and makes for a lot of the wonderful color play that happens in the Russian impressionist style.

Hope this helps!

Tim

[Ramon Hurtado]

Allejo: Thanks man, I'll try to copy a michelangelo or a rubens one of these days, we'll see how that goes!
Dose: Thanks Tim! I'd seen your thread before, your posts on Maxine's painting thread also caused me to reconsider how I painted r....emember
to touch, to touch, not like housepainter?"...I've been trying to make areas of flat color more interesting thanks to your posts, I understand the concept you're talking about....it's just that when I'm outdoors I forget to apply a lot of concepts that I can normally rationalize. I was actually hoping you'd notice this thread because I remember seeing your work on the Bridgeview website Anyway, thanks for the advice and your posts on the thread, I'll try to be more mindful of the concept when working!

Some life drawings for today....worked up to 10 min poses today! I learned that the external oblique is what delineates the front and back planes of the torso, very exciting stuff! As always, the darker drawings in color are not mine, but are instructor corrections/critiques.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Velazquez study (and btw, this was not done academically, I used the constructive approach)

[Ramon Hurtado]

Studies after Da Vinci and Raphael, and some life drawings from tonight's meeting of the anatomical drawing society (30s -20 mins)

[Ramon Hurtado]

studies after Ribera and some 5 minute drawings of everyday objects (I'm assigned 20 a week)

[Eux]

I got to say this is an absolutely amazing thread, Your work ethic and preseverance is awe inspiring. it took quite a bit to go through it all though.

I just thought I would echo an earlier poster that happened to describe my thoughts too when watching this progression and it is that you are doing alot of short studies and paintings. But you don't really try to push something to a more polished final level.. Might it not be a good idea to do so from time to time to really check up your progress ?

[Ramon Hurtado]

Eux: Thanks. I think the point you raise is a very significant one, since nearly everything I've included in this thread can be classified as a study rather than a finished work. I've given some thought to this in the past, especially because I know it's possible to get "stuck" just making studies. In my case, I devoted a lot of my earlier years (from about ages 12-16) to creating finished works and was making very slow progress because my absorption in the subject matter prevented me from studying things like anatomy and other basic components of art.

I've also tried doing more finished works but they inevitably lead to frustration and disillusionment because I still haven't mastered the basic language of art...and to paraphrase Bouguereau, there's nothing worse than seeing one's ideas marred by poor execution.

Here's an example....a life size portrait I abandoned because it was beyond my ability
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1182454363

However, I am putting a portfolio together during the summer, so you can expect some more finished works from me within the next year.

Anyway, here are some more life studies

[0535am]

u r awesome

[Jasonwclark]

I've also tried doing more finished works but they inevitably lead to frustration and disillusionment because I still haven't mastered the basic language of art...and to paraphrase Bouguereau, there's nothing worse than seeing one's ideas marred by poor execution.

I wouldn't get discouraged Ramon. You're at the exact right age, with the right attitude and the right approach towards your education. Your studies are inspiring, and I rather like that unfinished painting you posted.

The desire to create a masterwork every time you touch the pencil to the page is probably the hardest thing to get over, but looking at your studies and comparing them to the stuff I just saw in Jonathan Hardesty's sketchbook, I'd say you are well on your way to producing one. I'm just about finished with my first run at Bridgman, and I was thinking about hitting up the library at State and taking on one of those Bargue drawings. They seem to be all about polish, so maybe we should each rock one and post the progress. Would be probably be cool for the portfolio.

[Ramon Hurtado]

I'm really sick right now, so sorry if my responses are brief

0535am: thanks!
Jason Thanks for the kind words Jason, I'm definitely not discouraged about my education in general, but I don't want to tackle anything overly ambitious just yet (although again, that won't stop me from trying in the summer). Definitely let me know if you start the Bargue plates, I have access to the book too and I would love to do them along with you.

Here are some figure drawings from last night....the last three are longer poses (20 mins)...The last one isn't completely mine, although I was the one who screwed up the legs , Will made some corrections on top (shoulders were too wide, and he mapped out the condyles of the humerus, plus the clavicle and some muscles on the forearm).

Critique away!

[Brendan Draney]

Hey what's up Ramon ? I've been checking out your thread for a while. Keep up the good work - you're going way deep into those figure constructions. Nice and solid ! So, what's the deal? Are you going to make it back to the guild to draw with Glenn? Oh, another thing. How the hell do you attach your drawings? I tried to attach some jpegs in the "manage attachments" window but it kept failing. Hope all is well. - Brendan

[Ramon Hurtado]

hey Brendan!! it's nice to hear from you, thanks for the comments man. I'll be in Glenn's class next tuesday, I missed the first class because I was out sick, Alice texted me this morning saying you met in Karl's class, man, if you keep taking those classes....friggin master draftsman in no time.

I've been having a bad drawing week...I got really sick too....here are some of my life drawings for the week....I've been working on a comic book for someone, that's why I haven't been painting and posting as much as I would like, later tonight I'll post some of my studies for the comic book.

[Ramon Hurtado]

studies for the comic book