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Actually, in my opinion the orange on the neck gives this figure warmth and vibrancy. I’m impressed with your willingness to experiment. It’s really paying off. I’m appreciating people’s honesty that all of us have off days, but we keep showing up. That’s what’s important. Keep up the good work!
Deborah
Day 12. Feeling a bit like Dr. Frankenstein today. Worked a few hours on this one, and the result is not visually appealing at all. Took some advice from an oil painting video about getting dark shadows by mixing dark red and green. Seems much harder with oil pastels to get a consistent color because I have to mix on the paper. I also had a hard time getting a good skin tone in the light areas. Kept adjusting colors and losing the form of my drawing under too many layers. Gave up before I got to the face. Oh well, tomorrow is another day to figure it out. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.I wish I had oil pastels advice to give! There’s a section in the forums where you can ask for advice/critique from a NMA instructor – would that be helpful? However, for my 2c worth, there are some nice moments in it – I actually think the shadow colour you have is quite effective down the left side and there’s a nice sense of gesture through the torso and hips. Don’t let it get to you. Keep on experimenting – nothing’s wasted 😊.
Deborah
Day 13. I found out that the digital iPad app called Art Set 4 has a setting for oil pastels. It was nice to get to experiment with skin tones without wasting a lot of paper and oil pastels. The app has a bit of a learning curve, but using the iPad pencil feels pretty similar to the real thing, minus all the mess. This might become part of my creative process going forward. Still having trouble getting a realistic skin tone, but at least this one is aesthetically pleasing. Hopefully this will help me improve.
What a good idea! It looks great! I‘ve liked this tiling technique in your past work (particularly Day 9) and I like it here. Perhaps that’s another way forwards rather than blending gradients all the time?? This seems like a really useful tool for your journey. Great job!
Deborah
Thank you Deborah. Yes, I got the idea from looking at Cezanne paintings. I agree that the technique seems best suited for the medium. I’ll try to resist the urge to blend it all together in my physical paintings🙂
Day 14. More experiments with color today using digital pastels. Thinking about warm light side and cool shadow side. This work is unfinished and very sketchy, but this took a few hours working out the colors on the face and torso. Still not happy with it, but I feel like this shows a bit of progress. I’ve been thinking a bunch about process today. I’m thinking I’ll map out the composition using the digital app, then move on to oil pastels to complete rough drafts, and then complete the paintings with oil on Canvas.
I would try to lightly work out the drawing more fully as an under layer (graphite or something light). Once you know your construction and clearly what your light and shadow shapes are then get into the pastels. If we struggle with drawing problems at the same time as color and handling the media it just gets too overwhelming. Either that or try doing a simple preparatory sketch. 👍🏼
I’m sure you’ve heard the advice that most painting problems (and pastels are considered a painting medium to the professionals who specialize in it) are really drawing problems, so my advice is work more of that out before using jumping into the pastel layers. It will still be difficult but at least you can focus on fewer problems at a time which will help!
Most importantly, keep practicing even if you have a frustrating day (I certainly have on my challenge).
- Thank you Joshua. Excellent advice. I realized early on that this was a very tough challenge for my level of experience, but I’m trying to figure it out as I go.
Day 15. I started too close to the edge of the paper again. I need to think more about positioning before I start. I decided to keep going rather than start over. This pose was tough. I tried to think about the shapes and get through it. Having trouble drawing the head in this view, and I’m having trouble making the face look appealing. I worked on blocking in the shadow shapes with dark umber and burnt sienna. I want to think more about skin tone colors before I start the light areas. I’ll try to finish this one tomorrow.
Hi Bryan,
In case it’s helpful, I find it useful to put a vertical and horizontal/ground plane line, and mark in approximate boundaries before I start drawing. It gives me some reference points to work with. I think with the face, the eyes and mouth line up and the nose and chin line up, but they don’t all follow one centreline of the face. They’re only slightly off and each element looks nice 👍🏻. Looking forward to seeing what you do tomorrow 🙂
Thanks Deborah. Yes, I will try to start using construction lines 🙂. Which video do you find most helpful for head/face construction? I really need to figure it out.
Day 16. Tried out an impressionist style/color scheme on this one. Went a little too bright with the yellow I think. I will probably draw this pose again and try to improve on in it with more accuracy and realism, and fit the whole pose on the page with a background of some sort.
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