Jac’s 100 days of practising from life

[Jack]

Day 82 03/06/2022 (must have gotten my days mixed up somewhere)

• I started a sketch outside my house, but only got 30 minutes on it before the neighbour wanted a bit of a chinwag. So I’ll pick it back up when the lighting is right.
• I worked for a few hours to finish off the previous day’s landscape.

 

Practice Time: 3h

[Jack]

Day 83 04/06/2022

• I shifted a bit of paint around on the David’s eye cast I had started the other day – I can’t say it was improved much for the 30 minutes I spent on it. The result wasn’t as good as my previous efforts on the mouth/nose. Good exercise though, just need to practice it more.

• I also got outside for a happy few hours painting some bales of haylage in a neighbour’s field. No time to finish it off inside, so it’ll likely stay unfinished.

 

Practice Time: 4h

[KC]

Love your work and seeing how much you’ve improved in such a short time (but you started out awesome, love the fabric drawings!)

[Jack]

Thanks KC – very kind words. I try to focus on just working every day, but it is motivating when you feel you’re improving 🙂

[Jack]

Day 84 06/06/2022

I got home after a night away, but managed to sneak in a good session outdoors. I wanted to try and capture a local tree catching evening light – nowhere near that at the moment. Scraped it back and tried a few times, will continue to experiment tomorrow, see how it goes…

Practice Time: 3.5h

[Jack]

Day 85 07/06/2022

• I watched a good hour or so of the skull anatomy lecture from Russian Drawing and spent most of the day just taking notes.

Practice Time: 2h

[Jack]

Day 86 08/06/2022

• I watched a bit more of the skull anatomy lectures for the Russian Drawing course – the plan is to tackle the assignment shortly.
• I got outside for 2 hours to start a landscape, and I’ve worked another 2 inside. Here’s how it looked outside.

 

Practice Time: 4h

[Jack]

Day 87 09/06/2022

Most of the time today was spent on the previous day’s outdoor painting. When I brought it inside I was surprised how bright it was, but I wanted a more dramitically lit picture, so it was a matter of darkening shadow shapes.

The plan is to let it dry and then see what a bit more time can accomplish. I definitely want to revisit a few bits, like the foreground field, the trees on the far right (which are just smudges atm), and middle-ground bush area. I have little experience of trying to refine and resolve paintings, so it’s a little experiment.

 

Practice: 2.5h

[Jack]

Day 88 10/06/2022

Spent an hour or so on the outdoor sketch of an oak tree I started a few days ago. Not a particularly successful end result, but definitely good practice depicting backlit trees – not sure I’ve quite got it though. Need to dig out master studies to see what I’m missing.

 

 

Practice Time: 1h

[Jack]

Day 89 11/06/2022

Had a productive day, mostly spent outside working on this sketch on a fairly small panel. Very challenging to get the values right as the weather was changeable, with fast moving clouds. Skies were always my weakness, but now I feel they’ve overtaken my foregrounds – which need a lot of work. The magnificent trees of the valley catching momentary bursts of sunlight is definitely a subject I intend to return to.

 

Practice Time: 5h

[Jack]

Day 90 12/06/2022

• I sketch the ash tree in front of the house. I wasn’t too happy with how it came out, but comparing it to a similar effort from 6 months ago does show some improvement.

Same tree, six months of learning apart.

 

• I’m also hoping to do 30 mins of Russian Academic Drawing before going to bed, just some anatomical diagrams.

 

Practice Time: 2.5h

[Jack]

Day 91 13/06/2022

Reasonably short session from me today – I rewatched the lessons on cephalometric points and ‘tumbling’ skulls from the Russian Drawing Course and took notes/did the exercises.

I’ve also started reading through Kearn’s blog again, some reminders for landscapes:

• Always face canvas so it’s in the shade
• Hunt for a good foreground, walk around and check out angles, look for leading lines
• Laying down red in the sky before applying blue tones on top – don’t mix.

Practice Time: 1.5h

[Jack]

Day 92 13/06/2022

Good day today.

• I finished off another set of skulls for the Russian Drawing Course.
• Then I worked for a fair while on the previous painting. I tried to ‘resolve’ it and give it a greater sense of finish, but I think I just made it more sentimental and cute – which was not my intention.

 

Practice Time: 5h (woohoo)

 

[Jack]

Day 93 14/06/2022

• I did an initial sketch of a Constable master study, which I intended to work on for the rest of the day, but then…
• I got distracted trying to alter the previous day’s painting. It just irked me sitting on the shelf, looking all twee. I don’t know that it looks much better, but I’m happier seeing less grass-coloured green. I’ve chosen a Constable painting with a tree catching light that I hope will inform future pieces like these.

 

Practice Time: 3h

[Jack]

Day 94 16/06/2022

I keep putting the wrong date in… last entry was the 15th. This entry is the 16th.

I got outside for a lovely 2.5 hours by a sunlit field and a nearby river. The result was an outdoor sketch that just wouldn’t work. I had my doubts about the composition from the start, and I don’t think it even warrants any studio time. I might give it one hour, see if anything decent comes out of it, before scraping it back to re-use the panel.

It’s important to diagnose what went wrong, so here’s my best guesses in my particular order:

•  I was situated too near the subject, it leant itself to an almost ‘fisheye’ effect when measuring things.
• Struggled to get the values right, the shadow isn’t unified and the bits of light sneaking there way in are too prominent – it’s just as light as the field in places.
• The end of the river is almost exactly midway through the
• Highest contrast (stile and field) is off to the side, whereas the major lines are taking you off in the other direction.

Practice Time: 2.5h

[Author]

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