[Jack]

Day 28 14/11/21

• I read a section of Light and Colour on “simplifying shapes for a good start”. There’s a challenge to start 100 block-ins using simple shapes – without developing them further!  He also mentions the S-senses of painting:
  • Starts – the basic foundations of starting a painting are the basis of growth.
  • Simple – keep it simple. (subject matter, painting process, palette, etc)
  • Shapes – Focus on shapes, not things. See your painting as a mosaic of shapes.
  • Soft – In general, try to keep edges soft. Hard edges draw the eye.
  • Sun – Establish a single direction for the sunlight and stick to it.
  • Shadow – place the shadow shapes before light shapes, look at the shadow colour carefully for reflective light.
  • Six Colors  – simplify your palette by using six or fewer colours.
• The only practice I managed today was a measly little cloud sketch. I should definitely do more cloud studies. I need to be more disciplined with my time too.

 

Practice Time: 1h

[Jack]

Hello Carlos, looks like a fantastic exercise to go through. Out of curiosity, which sketches do you feel were successful and which not-so-successful, and why? I ask because I don’t recall Perkin’s exercise and what, exactly, the intended lesson is. I assume it’s about depicting a subject in high/low major/minor keys?

You might be interested in supplementing what you’ve learned with Todorovitch’s chapter on portrait painting in b/w -> https://www.nma.art/videolessons/the-grisaille-greyscale-oil-portrait/?course=640269

Mirochnik also has a section on drawing the asaro head, which I think would be useful as it’s all about depicting the planes of the head in different values-> https://www.nma.art/videolessons/russian-drawing-course-part-7-planes-of-the-head-project/?course=108694

I’ve got three pieces of feedback, take what you will of them!

• My initial impression (not exactly knowing the intention of the exercise) is to more clearly delineate the planes of the head using value. It might be worth doing a few heads in an almost sculptural fashion, simplifying the head into its planes and respective values. In quite a few of your sketches, it’s hard to detect these plane shifts from front to side.
• A second, almost opposite, suggestion is to try is using middle-values to reduce the contrast between specific value changes as to produce an effect similar to a soft edge. I don’t mean blending, but a block of transitional value. Incorporate this into the design of your portraits to direct the viewer’s attention by heightening/lowering contrast.
• Thirdly, let your values “fall off” from the source of the light. For instance, the “light frontal” plane might darken from forehead, to nose, to chin, to neck. They’re all in the light family and front-facing, but you intentionally design the value changes in a sort of hierarchy.

You’re going to have to forgive me for such a butchering of one of your paintings, but I threw it into an MS Paint-like program to show you what I mean by these suggestions. You’ll have to look past the crudity of it, I haven’t touched digital art (obviously):)

If you wanted to do a similar exercise but have a “low key” painting, you simply compress the light values into a lower range – the hierarchy remains the same, but the range decreases. And vice verse for a high key painting.

 

Jac

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Jack.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Jack.

[Jack]

Day 27 13/11/21

I was away for almost the entire day and only managed to sneak in an hour’s practice before bed.

• I watched the first hour of Russian Drawing on the Asaro head.
• I completed another geometric still life drawing, similar to yesterday’s but in different lighting and coloured pencil… which didn’t erase, proving quite a challenge.

 

Practice Time: 1h

[Jack]

Day 26 12/11/21

• I read a chapter of Fill Your Paintings With Light and Color on light and and shadow families. Key takeaway, keep the value range totally seperate. Darkest light should still be lighter than the lighest shadow. I already knew this, but often forget it (like in the value study above).
• I completed a still life.

• I completed the geometric still life exercise for the Russian Drawing course (on the stretched paper, too!).

 

Practice Time: 4h

[Jack]

Day 25 11/11/21

• I stretched paper for the first time – following the instructions in the Russian Drawing course. It worked a treat.
• I finished Huston’s Creative Compositions. There was a great section about the importance of creating your own mythology, your own truth in your art; creating a world where you invite the viewer in, with rules that bend to the idea you’re promoting. I spend most of my practice time just trying to get better technically, it really got me thinking about what’s worth saying with art. All to come.
• I started to block-in a still life, but it got too dark – so I’ll save it for tomorrow.
• I completed a little painting of some nearby cliffs from reference, not much bigger than a postcode. A bit of an aimless effort to be honest – just trying to get some painting in.

• Finished the day off with a sketch of a gnarly tree trunk. There are a lot of twisted tree trunks where I live, I’d love to spend more time trying to capture them accurately like figure drawing.

 

Practice Time: 3h

[Jack]

Hey Julia – I like the texture of your value study, feels very organic – assuming it’s digital too? (I’m very unfamiliar with what’s possible with digital art!).

I make my images smaller simply by hovering over the corner of the image after they’ve uploaded and adjusting them to size. Funnily enough, I added the actual photo as an afterthought and as soon as I saw it real small I thought, “oh, hmm. There is actually something quite workable here”, but by then it was late 🙂 I might “borrow” your study, see if I can whip something together!

Thanks again

[Jack]

Day 24 10/11/21

• I read the first chapter on colour mixing in Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color, a second book by Kevin Macpherson. Looks promising.
• I watched week 5 of Huston’s Creative Compositions.
• I had a fair bit of white/black paint left on the palette from the portrait the other day, so I used it for a couple tree sketches – a bit slapdash.

• Then I thought I’d do a value study of a reference photo ahead of painting a pochade of it. Except, as soon as I got started I realised there were few simple shapes – what attracted me to the picture was the variation of oranges colours that blanketed the whole scene. I kept retrying different value combinations before giving up. Perhaps I’ll return to it when I’m a bit more competent, or perhaps, it’s just not as good a reference as I thought it was.

Finally, my palette knife snapped! 🙁

Practice Time: 2hrs

[Jack]

Day 23 09/11/21

• Bit of a busy day in work today, so just an hour or so drawing some trees.

Practice Time: 1.5h

[Jack]

Hello Jeanette,

The picture of your sculpture immediately caught my eye – it’s beautiful. I’m sure it brings much joy to those who see it in your garden. I am sorry to read that you have had a difficult time. I can only hope art continues to provide some measure of therapy and that you continue to share your work, I’d certainly like to see it.

Wishing you all the best

[Jack]

Thanks Don and Julia!

Day 22 08/11/21

• I tried to remember what I could from Todorovitch’s course on portrait painting and completed a 2 hour portrait sketch.  I must pick the course back up and move onto colour once I’m done with the Russian drawing course – there are too many courses!

I could have spent longer refining the shapes and values – but the practice served its purpose as a bit of a refresher.

Practice Time: 2hrs

[Jack]

Day 21 0 7/11/21

Three weeks – not bad going!

• I watched a lesson on creating meaning in your composition from Creative Compositions with Mr. Huston. It’s brilliant stuff, too much to take in during one passive viewing.
• I got outside and painted my third landscape en plein air. Thoroughly enjoyed it. It’d be good to apply some of the self-assessment criteria I listed yesterday, but I’m much too tired now to think straight.

• I also snuck in a portrait study ahead of doing a monochrome painting tomorrow. It’s been a while since I’ve done any portraits, so it was a good reminder of some basics.

 

Practice Time: 4h

[Jack]

Day 20 06/11/21

• Finished the last chapter of Landscape Inside and Out. Great book, highly recommended. There was a final section on ‘assessing your work’ which I think could usefully be an entire chapter (and NMA lesson!). It listed a selection of objective and subjective criteria to self-assess. I thought them so useful, I’ve written them next to my colour wheel for quick reference.
  • Path – how does your eye move through the painting?
  • Centre of Focus – D0 you find yourself settling on the area you intended as the focus? Do other areas content for your attention?
  • Composition – Does the painting hold together as a balance arrangement of values, colours, shapes, and movement. Turn the painting upside or view in a mirror to check.
  • Edges – Does the edges describ the physical qualities of the objects represented?
  • Unity – Is there a dominant idea, shape, colour, value, or direction of visual movement that expresses your idea?
  • Variety – is there ample contrast that adds vitality to the composition?
  • Idea – does the painting communicate your vision, the idea that make you want to paint the subject?
  • The Hunan Element  – Does the arrangement evoke the senses, move the spirit, reveal the soul?
  • Emotion.- how did you feel about the subject? Does the painting reveal this?
• I challenged myself to complete a dozen composition thumbnails before starting a landscape from a reference photo because I’m a bugger for just diving into the first composition I think of. I used the templates in Edge Payne’s Composition of Outdoor Painting for ideas.

• I sketched a landscape from a reference photo I took of a nearby farm.

Practice Time: 3h

[Jack]

Day 19 05/11/21

• Finished the chapter of Russian Drawing on light & shadow
• Worked on a few pages of spheres.

 

Practice Time: 1.5h

 

[Jack]

Hello Vera, thank you for stopping by and your kind words of encouragement!

I always enjoy the process, regardless of whether the results turns out as planned. The only time I really feel unproductive is when I simply don’t make the time to practice, which has been the case the last few days 🙂

I see you started Todorovitch’s portrait painting class. I only did the first unit on monochrome painting, I’d love to move onto colour at some point.

Best wishes, thanks again!

Jac

[Jack]

Day 18 04/11/21

Have I officially broken my 100 days of landscapes goal with all this drawing simple forms?! I’ve done as much as I can today as I have language lessons on a Thursday. Truth be told, my energy levels have been really low the last few days. I’ll hopefully get back to painting / landscapes on the weekend.

• I drew a few pages worth of cylinders from the Russian Drawing assignment.

Practice Time: 1.5h

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Jack.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Jack.

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