[Bryan Mccabe]

Looks really good. Reminds me a bit of a Degas drawing. I can sense the movement of the pose. The only criticism I have is the top back part of the leg in back maybe disappears a little bit too much into the background. What size is this? Looks like you have a handle on putting in small details. I’m struggling with that at the moment. Keep up the good work.
Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 10. Today, I decided to experiment with completely different materials. I usually work on 18 x 24 white pastel paper. Today I used 9 x 12 black pastel paper. I usually draw with jumbo compressed charcoal sticks. Today, I used a white conte crayon. I’ve been using Sennelier oil pastels since day 5. Today, I tried out Van Goghs. It was definitely an interesting experience. I can’t say that this work is perfect, but I do kind of like it, especially when I look at it from a distance. It does also look better in person. My iPad camera put too much of a flash on it. It was hard to get the details right this small, especially the face. Overall, I learned a lot today that I can apply to future works.  I watched a great instructional video on pastel painting on YouTube by an artist named Jon Davies. Definitely worth checking out if you enjoy working with pastels. 

[Bryan Mccabe]

Great work! I’m enjoying seeing how many different mediums you have mastered. Really inspiring.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thank you Peihong. I really appreciate the feedback. I promised myself I’d take a lot of risks and really experiment with this challenge. I realize that a lot of times that will end in failure, but every so often I will get something right that I can use and develop as part of my style. 🙂

[Bryan Mccabe]

This is really good Deborah. I like that you left the construction lines so we can see what you were thinking with the placement. I like how there are only a few highlights and shadows here, and yet we already have a good sense of the three dimensional forms in the legs. The head looks like it is positioned accurately and correctly proportioned. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished work tomorrow. 👍

Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thank you Deborah. Yes, I think you are right about the leg. I still need to think more about where objects are on the ground and shadow placement. Your feedback is very helpful as usual. I will try to improve on that tomorrow 🙂

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 9. I feel like I made some improvement today. I watched a bunch of Hollis Dunlap’s painting and felt inspired to just experiment with colors and see what happens. This painting is still not as realistic as I would like, but I feel like there is some aesthetic qualities to this painting that are a step in the right direction. I also feel like I’m getting a little more control over the pastels, and they are less frustrating to work with. Still just trying to figure out the right color combinations are far as mixing goes. I feel like my underdrawings are continuing to get better(even though you can’t see them). 

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thanks for the pointers. Looks great.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Your pastel painting on day 10 is excellent. Which type of pastels are you using? I’m working with Sennelier oil pastels. Any tips or suggestions to getting that skin tone?  I’m struggling to get my skin tone to be both bright enough and varied in color, and also look visually appealing and realistic. Do you use one color as a base color and build from there? Keep up the good work.

Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

This looks good. No shame in using newsprint. It’s so cheap you can be more free and experimental and not worry about wasting your good paper. I’d do a 100 drawings on newsprint for every one on charcoal paper. I’d probably do a ton of pastel paintings on newsprint if the paper could handle it. I might experiment with using cheap pastels on  cardboard or paper grocery bags because pastel paper is expensive. I also love compressed charcoal sticks. I do all my underdrawings right now with General’s jumbo compressed charcoal sticks. I also have the conte crayons, but I find them harder to use because they are pretty small in my hands. I guess I just need to keep practicing with him. Keep up the good work.
Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Hello Jakob. Nice work so far. I also struggle with pressing down too hard too early on sometimes, especially if the drawing is difficult. One thing that really helped me was switching to using sticks or crayons to draw instead of pencils. When I get a pencil in my hand, I have a tendency to go dark like I would when writing a letter. I also can’t help myself and start rendering way too soon instead of focusing on shapes. When I have a conte crayon or compressed charcoal or graphite stick in my hand, I just draw shapes/forms, and don’t worry about details. As a bonus, I find it much easier to do shading with them because you simply turn them completely on their side. I also don’t damage the paper nearly as much with the crayons or sticks as I would by pressing down with a pencil. The downside is they take more practice to learn to control than pencils. Anyway, every artist has to figure out the materials that work best, and there is no one size fits all in art. Keep up the good work. Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thank you Deborah. A photo probably would help. It seemed to help to have another foot I could look at on day 6. I will try that. The other problem is when I put down a bunch of color, I lose the detail of the form I had in my drawing. I usually still know what the drawing looks like underneath, I just can’t get it back. Basically, I just can’t get the forms to show back up in the right ways. It starts to look like a blob of color with no definition. I think oil painters just keep adding layers of light and shadow until it starts to look to look right again.  It seems like this is a bit harder to do with oil pastels because I have less of a window for trial and error. Yeah, the shadows are still not right on this one. I lost some of them, and also had to go back over some of  them with dark umber at the end, which is not ideal and doesn’t look blended. Yes, the green is supposed to be in the shadow. I saw a lot of green in the skin tone of the reference photo near the wrist. The problem with that was the green pastel was far too bright, and I had to keep putting in layers of white to try to mute it down. I’m still learning which pastels to use in which situations. Hopefully I’ll have it figured out by day 100. Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it🙂

 

[Bryan Mccabe]

Yes, I think you are right about a constructive approach vs. sight size. I know that Vilpuu and Huston usually both just kind of go with it when they accidentally make something the wrong size. Huston talks a lot about making the right type of errors. He says “you are going to mess up, so try to mess up in the right ways.” By this he means make the form too long instead of too short, or too curved instead of not curved enough. His basic point is that people will forgive your errors as long as they look like it was an idealized style you were going for. Vilppu is usually trying to draw like Michaelangelo or another old master, and they exaggerated everything as part of their style. Vilpuu always says that he isn’t concerned with copying the reference. With his background in animation, he is used to changing things on the spot. I don’t know enough about Mirochnik yet to know which methods he is using, but I do remember him estimating a proportion in one of his lectures. One other point here is that I can hear Vilpuu shouting “there are no rules” whenever I start getting too rigid in my approach and methods. I think sight-size has its benefits in certain situations, and so does the constructive approach. I wouldn’t be afraid to get out the ruler or plumb line in certain situations. I haven’t formally measured anything yet as I draw, but if I get into difficult perspective drawing I probably will. Hope this helps.
Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

The Russian drawing course looks cool. I watched a few lessons, but haven’t studied it seriously yet. I also think there is an incredible amount of information and practical knowledge between Vilpuu and Steve Huston. I think the most important thing is just to keep going and learn along the way. Don’t get discouraged even when things aren’t working out. Just be prepared to start again tomorrow and try things slightly differently. My approach is to think of my art works as experiments. One experiment fails, I just feel sad for a few minutes, and then decide how I will try to make the next one better tomorrow. All of the famous artists went through growing pains. The key is to figure out what works for you slowly over time using trial and error. Steve Huston says something like that in some of his lectures when he talks about how he likes to do things slightly different from everyone else, and that’s how you develop your own style. Hope this helps and please keep going.
Bryan.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 8. I set a mini- challenge for myself inside of my challenge, which was to get some brilliant highlights on the skin of my figure. I watched a bunch of Charles Hu oil painting today. I tried to apply that knowledge to oil pastels. I tried to blend and use a bunch of colors like he did. The problem with that for oil pastels is that they very quickly turn muddy. I do feel like the palm of the hand did achieve some of the light I was after, even though parts of this painting are far too muddy. I will try to apply what worked here in future paintings, and plan out my colors better. Also, still having a bit of trouble with losing my drawing, but I had a little more control today compared to yesterday.

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