[Bryan Mccabe]

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.

[Bryan Mccabe]

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. 

[Bryan Mccabe]

1. 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.

[Bryan Mccabe]

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.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Bryan Mccabe.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thank you Gerard. Excellent advice. I think most of it will apply to oil pastels if I treat each pastel stick as a separate “brush”and don’t let the light colors mix with the dark. I know I can also wipe off the tips of each of the pastels with a paper towel.

[Bryan Mccabe]

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🙂

[Bryan Mccabe]

Nice work. I like the the symmetry of these three particular poses together. The line quality looks very good on these. Keep it up.
Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Hello Nicki,

”Painting techniques of the Old Masters” by Hereward Lester Cooke is an awesome book. I learned a lot from it. Wish I still had it, but I only checked it out from the library.

[Bryan Mccabe]

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. 

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Bryan Mccabe.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thank you Deborah. Yes, I’ll ask them a question. Good idea.

[Bryan Mccabe]

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.

[Bryan Mccabe]

The drawings are good, especially the one sitting down. That one has a very solid form. I can definitely see some of the tension in your line work. I can’t give you a bunch of advice on that because I’m new to this as well and still struggle with it myself. However, I have found a few things that work for me a bit that may or may not be useful to you. One is I try to go very light through most of my drawing until the very end. I know that is often easier said that done.    One thing that helped me with that was to practice drawing with a ballpoint pen. I think Steve Huston gave me that advice. Knowing that I would have to start over if I messed up forced me to get used to pressing very light. The 2nd thing that I do frequently is to use a paper towel and soften the lines through each phase of my drawing. This also really helps with keeping lines from getting dark. The third thing that really helps me is it use crayons instead of pencils. That might be specific just to my individual preferences, but I feel much more relaxed when I draw with crayons. When I draw with pencil, I have to tendency to want to draw like I write, and it’s hard for me to break that habit. Anyway, I can tell that you are on the right track with your drawings. All the details will fall into place with time and practice.
Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thank you Deborah 🙂

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 11. Having a tough day drawing. Started a few, and none of them were working. I decided to give up for today and just work on trying to get a chiaroscuro effect like Caravaggio using black paper. Here is my attempt. Needs a lot of work, but it was fun to experiment. The orange on the neck is unintentional because the pastels do not erase well on this paper. My camera puts to much of a flash on the black paper. Colors are yellow ochre, vermillion, burnt umber, and white.

[Bryan Mccabe]

This is really beautiful. I love the atmospheric quality in the background. Keep up the good work.

Bryan.

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