Forum Replies Created
-
Day xx 05/12/2022
-
<li style=”list-style-type: none;”>
-
<li style=”list-style-type: none;”>
-
<li style=”list-style-type: none;”>
- I completed the 2 point and 3 point assignments for Fundamentals of Perspective. Reflecting on the contour and perspective exercises of the last few weeks, I recognise I have an inherent resistance to precision and detail. This vibes with my natural tendency to be satisfied with ‘good enough’, so long as the 80% is right I don’t get hung up on details or being finicky with getting the last 20% perfect. But with these sorts of exercises, this is too loose an attit
- I did a little figure drawing.
-
<li style=”list-style-type: none;”>
-
<li style=”list-style-type: none;”>
- I also got started on a master study, but will finish up tomorrow.
Practice Time: 2h 30
Day xx 04/12/2022
- I painted outdoors for an hour – but with nothing to show for it. It was just too cold, the hands became real numb and I couldn’t control the paintbrush. I don’t think I can count this towards the challenge as I wiped away what I had done.
- I worked on another contour drawing for Fundamentals of Drawing and Perspective. This was a bit more successful than my previous, I think. Regardless, I’ve done week 3 assignments, but may add another negative shape assignment for my sins.
- I watched Week 4 of Fundamentals of Drawing and Perspective and got started on the 1 point perspective assignment.
Practice Time: 4h
Day xx 03/12/2022
- I completed part of the assignment for Week 3 of foundations of drawing….
- And the other part… I hated this exercise. So tedious. Which probably means it’s a weakness and I should do more of it. I’m just noticing how wonky the top half of the spirit level is (ironic). 🙁
- I did a little figure drawing, 10 minutes.
Master Monday key bits to remember
- Lack of gesture and flow through the figure
- Most students struggled with accuracy; proportion and measurement – slow down, use enveloping, needles, whatever you need to get it right.
- Overworking the half-tones, not utilising the paper
- Advanced stuff, but going thick to thin with lines to avoid ‘hairy’ rendering. Using this to show form – not easy! Requires practising the lines.
- Analysing the shadows – demonstrating core, reflected and cast shadows.
Practice Time: 3h 30m
02/12/2022
- A master study of Pontormo from Drawing Lessons From the Great Masters.
- I went along to Villpu’s Friday draw-a-long. Good fun, if not very tough. He got into tone quickly, which lost me fairly immediately.
Practice Time: 3h
Day 95 1 /12/2022
- I got outside for a bit of tree sketching. A young ash tree.
- I re-drew the geometric still life from the other day that I got quite badly wrong…. only for this to be worse I reckon!
Practice Time: 3h
Day X 30 /11/2022
- I watched the first master monday lecture and finished drawing #1. I may retry it, after watching the critiques of other students’ efforts – we’ll see.
- I did a half hour or so of figure drawing.
- I finished watching week 3 of foundations of drawing.
- I completed another geometric still life. I don’t think I’m going to do any more for now.
- I completed cross-contour drawing of a pepper. It isn’t one of the assignments for week 3, but I thought it better to start with something simple.
Practice Time: 2.5h – not practising as much this week as I ought to!
Day x 28/11/2022
- I did a a another geometric form still life drawing for Foundation of Drawing.
- I got started on a Yoni portrait.
I was shattered today after a bad night’s sleep, so I didn’t get much practice done.
Practice Time: 2h
Day X 29/11/2022
- I was feeling a bit aimless, so I completed a portrait of Yoni.
- I started one of the master Monday drawings. There’s a 2hr limit, so I’ll post when I finish tomorrow.
Practice Time: 3h
Day x 27/11/2022
- I wrote my first substack entry, which probably took an hour of re-reading and summarising my notes – a good habit, if I can keep it up, to learn more art history. https://jackpaulssen.substack.com/p/painting-methods-of-corot
- I spent a bit of time on the first assignment for week 2 of Foundations of Drawing. These assignments require a lot of patience and eye for detail… two weaknesses of mine. I found them quite irritating to do, which tells me it’s probably good for me and that I should do more than the prescribed number of assignments.
- I studied a few more of the illustrations from Drawing Lessons From The Masters, focusing on on figures can be reduced to simple(ish) forms.
- I tried to do a few small box diagrams, as a I had a half hour before bed, but I was so tired that they weren’t really worth doing.
Practice Time: 5h
Day 94 26/11/2022
- I worked for 30 mins on the sketch club tree painting… but it is not working out. I’m getting a bit frustrated at all things painting at the moment. I think I might stick more to drawing and underpainting for a little while to re-assess and work on some basic skills.
- I’ve started reading Drawing Lessons From The Great Masters, spending 30 mins copying one of the first illustrations by Annibale Carracci. Chapter 1 is about learning and breaking down the figure into simple forms. Hale talks about this picture being all about eggs, so rather than trying to copy the picture line for line, I tried to focus on the simple forms used.
- I attended a life drawing session. It included two longer poses (30m and 50m). Admittedly, after about 20 minutes I’m not sure what to do with my time – I don’t know enough about figure drawing to make use of the time.
Practice Time: 3h
Day xx 25/11/2022
- For my theory hour this morning, I read a chapter of Artistic Anatomy of Trees on bud growth. Very interesting.
- I started the day with some figure drawing… it’s strange to me how varied the figure drawing process can be. Sometimes it feels natural, and within 5 minutes you have something you’re happy with. Other times, I might spent 10 minutes labouring away and never get it. Maybe it’s a nature of the beast, or maybe it’s being a beginner. Anyway, these were a struggle – despite giving myself longer.
- I finished off the Foundations of Drawing exercise… the assignment called for 2 drawings, and I’ve done 4. I’m going to stick them all here for ease of summary. Admittedly, I find these exercises a bit boring. So I’m going to keep the course moving by calling lesson 1 done.
Practice Time: 2h
Day 93 24/11/2022
- I started watching week 2 of Foundations of Drawing, will finish over the weekend.
- I started the day with an hour of figure drawing. I really struggled with these, I think because the poses were more dynamic and complicated that previous ones – usually more stretching, bending, or moving back into space. Complicated stuff. I feel like I need more instruction.
- I started another drawing assignment for Foundations of Drawing and Perspective, will finish tomorrow.
- I spent an hour on a burnt umber underdrawing to follow along with the process of Erik Koeppel’s IG demo. I need to get better at drawing, much better. This has definitely emerged as a focus of mine – to do more with simpler tools, just burnt umber, gamsol and a rag. I can begin to see how charcoal carries over naturally into this type of painting, which is really just drawing (unlike when you have a fuller palette and colour distracts you). But for these studies, I’m not going to labour the drawing too intensely, but focus more on the steps in the layering process.
- Finished off the day with 30 mins of figure drawing.
Practice Time: 4h 30m
Sadly I did (almost) nothing on 22/11/2022. I had a busy day at work and had to run a couple paints to a studio ahead of being shown on the weekend for a student exhibition – so I ended up doing just 30 minute sketch for Drawing Foundations.
Day 92 23/11/2022
- I spent my morning “theory hour” reading an aricle on Corot’s methods that I found on JSTOR. I’m going to start bringing together any technique/research notes on pre-impressionistic painting methods on a substack I’ve created -> https://jackpaulssen.substack.com/
- 1 hour Alder tree study drawn outside. A bit of an experimentation with a watercolour ground on the paper; chalk and charcoal.
- I also watched the first lesson from Drawing Foundations and Perspective. I’ve started on the assignment too… I’ll do a few more contour drawings before moving on.
- I spent an hour or so on some quick 5-7 minute poses.
Practice Time: 4h
Day 91 21/11/2022
I had a bit of a ‘basic’ day today, just trying to focus on Joshua’s advice on shorter figure poses along the lines of BGD. These were all 7ish minute poses. It’s tricky, I feel like I need jump into Force or dynamic gesture drawing to make these half decent, but I’m following the guide and doing drawing foundations and perspective next.
- I also spent time painting the holly tree I drew yesterday, but this is for sketch swap so I’m keeping it on the hush hush.
Practice Time: 4h
Day 90 20/11/2022
- I got outside for a sketch and walk whilst the weather was good. I did this quick-ish study of a holly tree. I’m going to start putting the time I put into each drawing on the drawing itself, for the coaching sessions.
- I also did a fair amount of BGD today – finishing the value assignments, the minor/major key assignments, and the landscape section. I feel like by doing the bare minimum of the assignments, that I’ve rushed it a bit. But i’ll show them to Catherine on Tuesday to see if I’m good to move on from BGD.
- Week 12 – assignment 1
- Week 13 – Assignment 1 and 2
- Week 14 – assignments 1 and 2
This could mean that BGD is all wrapped up – woohoo! Can’t wait to take it against in 3-4 months time when my fundamental skills slip away.
In the background I’m doing a little experimentation with the Sketch Swap paintings I’m making, using an indirect approach espoused by Erik Koeppel. I worked on these for a half hour too. Here are a few notes I took about the second layer, which uses just white and possibly black, over a burnt umber underdrawing.
- This layer is about applying white to organise big light shapes and establish where the light is coming from.
- The goal is to leave deep shadows of underpainting (burnt umber), whilst enhancing the light shapes with white to increase contrast
- It also introduces a cooler colour (white) to an otherwise warm underpainting – so begins the cool/warm design of a picture.
- Focus on organising the picture into warm/cool
- Create an atmosphere, sensation of depth and movement through the picture
- Paint white up to, and if needed, over leaf edges – but you don’t want visible gaps between leaf and sky
- In indirect painting, you’re repainting everything each time – so don’t be precious about painting over stuff.
- He uses white mainly for the sky, cool down background darks (e.g. mountains), water reflections, specific light spots like on trunks.
Practice Time: 3h 30m
Day 89 19/11/2022
- I spent 1.5h outdoors, working on the scot’s pine study. Good fun.
- I finished up a third bust for the BGD assignment on plaster cast drawing.
- I’ve watched week 12 of BGD on ‘understanding value’ and started the assignment. I’ll finish them off tomorrow. The last two weeks of BGD look relatively light, so I’m hoping to wrap up the course in the upcoming week.
- I attended a group coaching session with Joshua, here were my key lessons:
- Stop hiding behind a long-winded drawing process where I continually re-work pieces. I focus too much on rendering and making pictures presentable.
- Instead, focus on many starts, build confidence by committing to simple shapes and form design early. If it’s wrong, start again.
- My sense of construction isn’t strong enough.
- Start more drawings, finish fewer. It’s fine if they’re wonky, it takes time and reps to get it right.
- [On the busts] they need more gesture, the halftones are too dark, shapes need clarity.
- I’m relying too heavily on my strengths; values and tone, but this is at the expense of other fundamentals.
- Continue doing BGD figure drawings, but set yourself a timer and stick to it. Your bad drawings will reveal weaknesses. 5-10 mins.
- After BGD, take Renae’s course as it’ll help on perspective and accuracy.
Practice Time: 3h
- I completed the 2 point and 3 point assignments for Fundamentals of Perspective. Reflecting on the contour and perspective exercises of the last few weeks, I recognise I have an inherent resistance to precision and detail. This vibes with my natural tendency to be satisfied with ‘good enough’, so long as the 80% is right I don’t get hung up on details or being finicky with getting the last 20% perfect. But with these sorts of exercises, this is too loose an attit
CONNECT
New Masters Academy
16182 Gothard St
Huntington Beach, CA 92647
Contact US