[Josseline Jeria]

Rachel, I was watching the live stream and when your painting came up I smiled! So happy you got this critique. Your work is great. Keep growing and pushing yourself further! 🙂

[Josseline Jeria]

I’ve also had a pending moderation issue with a thread I just posted on the Artists You Should Know section. Apologies for the bother. Thank you in advance for amending the threads.

[Josseline Jeria]

Thank you already for what you’ve all done so far! It’s great to see things are more active here.

Doing some live streams, which would involve seeing the instructors doing some sketching, drawing, etc, not critiques or anything, something like that (so that there is less direct work for you guys) and having a live chat to go along with it would be great.

I find it would be nice to just chat in general with others here on the community. A majority of the discussion here is critiquing each other’s work, which is fantastic, but I find I would like a general sense of community through sort of less formal interactions about art as well.

If anything else pops up, I’ll add it here 🙂

Thanks Joshua

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Birgith and welcome 🙂

Thanks for sharing a bit about yourself. I’m happy to hear that you’re pursuing your artistic goals. It is never too late! I only started drawing and painting the past 1-2 years. I didn’t do any when I was young. Not sure why. I remember that I always loved colour, paper, books, pencils, pens, the like but I can’t remember ever drawing. I might have been too fearful to approach it. I have an anxious tendency so not surprised if that might have gotten in the way. So I feel very late given my very limited experience, but I’ve pushed myself real hard to not let that get in the way of becoming a skilled painter as well.

I signed up here last year late October. My progress has sky rocketed since starting. I am so happy that I decided to sign up here, I truly feel you can get a very high level of technical training here, much more so in the craft than in most bachelor programs, as they focus heavily on the conceptual and very little in technical skills.

Your goal isn’t too ambitious at all!

How do you set up your daily drawing and painting practice? I find it difficult to strike a balance between the two. When I paint, I focus almost exclusively on it for the day, week and even several weeks . same goes for drawing. My temperament is to hyperfocus on one area, but I know that both compliment each other. For me my drawing skills are limited, so I know I need to work on my draftsmanship, in order to improve my painting.

I’ve watched through some of Fenske lessons. I enjoy his approach to landscape painting. I had planned to start plein air painting during autumn or spring where I live, but it’ll probably have to be postponed for the time being given the current global situation.

I highly recommend Bill Perkin’s Colour Bootcamp course. I think even if you’ve done colour theory, this course is still good to do. He goes in depth with all the aspects of colour – value, hue, saturation, colour temperature, complimentary colours. He teaches you how to use each aspect to serve the message you want to deliver with your image. To be deliberate and selective with your choices. How to plan out your colour compositions. He gets you to do 20 30min portrait colour sketches at the end of the course to practice your understandings of each of the elements in the course. These REALLY push and test you, but they are very valuable exercises. He demos how he would approach each one so that helps to see where you can improve etc.

John Asaro’s course is very good. He teaches you how to ensure your gestures of your figures, with a focus on the limbs, have a good flow to them, so that your figures don’t look stiff. His painting approach taught me how to push hue, saturation and colour temperature further than what a reference provides.

Hollis Dunlap’s course is wonderful for seeing how to paint the portrait and figure from life. How to develop your painting in layers, broad to specific. How corrections and adustments in proportions and drawing occurs throughtout the entire painting. That you will struggle in parts, and that is ohk. To persist through it, to push yourself to push a painting further. You see him directly going through all this, which I found both valuable and reassuring.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work 🙂

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Ramona 🙂 you’ve shared quite a few paintings here, I’m sure you have plenty more, which means you’re prolific painter. That is essential in becoming a great painter, so keep it up! Is your artistic pursuit focused on the figure, or are you exploring it now and seeing where it goes? I’ve recently started my first more fuller lengthed figure painting – gosh it is testing me! I found the idea very intimidating but I just went for it and I’m happy that I’m taking on this challenge for myself 🙂 I set myself to paint a more simple pose to help with this 😂

I can see you’re a colourist. I am too. Since that is what seems to be your focus of your paintings, I would say it could be good to play around and push further with the variations of the chroma/saturation levels across your image. I like what I was taught by Bill Perkins in this Colour Bootcamp course. Have different saturation levels in distinct areas – background, clothing, figure or face, hair. Make them clear and distinct. I found this helped to tell more of a story with your image and add more interest, way to direct the viewers eye to different broad areas. If you want to highlight the colour temperature changes in the figure, do less so in comparision in the other areas to help highlight this. If you haven’t done Perkin’s Colour course, I HIGHLY recommend it!

I think you’d benefit from working on your composition too.

Overall I really enjoy the pieces you shared here. There are some powerful pieces. You can see your tendency towards a liberated voice. I need to push myself to be braver and let go more. But I’m still in my early stages, so for me at the moment it’s about learning the craft, and letting my artistic voice emerge going through the process.

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Rachel 🙂 I LOVE this painting! The composition, lighting, gestures of the figures, treatment of the fabrics, I’m working on being able to paint this well! You’ve done so much in such a short time frame. I am a very slow painter.

As for density of paint application, I think it’s a personal preference. You don’t have to paint more thickly. I wouldn’t even say this is painted thinly at all. However, if you are going for a more thicker application, you’d benefit from using hardly any medium throughout the whole painting. The type of paint you use is very important for this. Some paints are quite soft, thinner, thicker, stiffer. It is worth experimenting with a couple different brands to find which suits your painting style. Bristle brushes hold more paint. If you prefer using synthetic, you just have to load them more, again by using essentially no mediums. I have painted on ACP with synthetic and found the paint applied more thickly as that surface doesnt’ absorb much. Smooth Panels would be good for trying this. Being even more deliberate in how you apply your brushstrokes onto the canvas helps too. Resist the urge to blend and spread out your paints too much. Less pressure. Don’t drag too hard on the canvas. Only blend when absolutely neccesary. This will also help to make your paint look thicker. How your prep your canvas also in important. Most pre-primed canvases have gesso/acrylic primers that abosrb the oil of paints so the paint “sinks in” and makes the painting look more dull. I’m starting to add an extra layer or two on top of pre-primed ones to help with this.  The quality of the primer also matters. I’m trying a new primer that has high resin content to see if it helps with this.

I hope any of this helps. Keep up the painting! You are doing a REAL good job of it.

[Josseline Jeria]

Hey guys! Fellow introvert here 😂 and also self-taught and a beginner. Though being self-taught is challenging, it has it’s benefits! You can direct your learning in a manner that suits your temperament as an artist and not be tied to only one specific approach. But that’s a double edge sword. You need to create your own sense of accountability, and not pull yourself in too many directions. Finding the balance that works best for you is the key. I think that it may also help you to maintain more of your own artistic voice.

I’m finding that trying my best to provide constructive feedback is helping me with my own drawing – a lot! Because I am forcing myself to see what works and doesn’t, it’s helping me to find those elements in my own work. See what I’m struggling with and what I can improve on. Often what I give feedback on is exactly the things I need to work on!

I love the emotional quality of your Tilda portrait 🙂 it’s a really engaging image. I can see your working on your construction and forms which is great. The rotational tilt in the head is good. I would say work on clarifying your tones and values. There’s a lot of variation in the front plane but it’s not supporting your form as much as it could – it’s not descriptive enough. Your variations should be used to describe the different planes, their changes and structures of the head and face.

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Jade 🙂 Nice work. I like the pose and the overall composition. I can’t quite tell, but you may be working on a bit of a more grainy/textured paper? Your tone and shading overall reads a bit patchy, so it doesn’t help to support making a clear value statement in each area. If so, would be worthwhile doing your future drawings on much smoother paper, or even if you really like this particular image, re doing it. Could treat this as a study and use smoother paper to develop a more finished work. But I guess if you’re going for a more overall textured look this feedback may not be valid. Either way, great job.

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Ed 🙂 Great piece! I’m working on being able to draw this well.I really like the tight value range your working with. I personally find it creates a more reflective mood than a stronger contrast chiascuro which reads more dramatic to me. I think being more selective with your use of edge line will help bring dimensionality back into the image. Because it is consistent through the whole figure’s edge, it makes the overall image read more like a 2D shape, which competes with the form you’ve created in the figure. Maybe have areas where it is clear and others not so much. Other areas little to none to allow areas to fall back. Thinner, thicker. Depends on what your reason for it’s use is. But gosh, great drawing!

[Josseline Jeria]

Also- LOVE your profile pic! Delacroix’s Chopin. I saw this at the Lourve last year – WOW. Such emotional depth. I stood there, has his nocturnes playing in my mind, was pretty deep.

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi 🙂

I haven’t done any sight size so I don’t want to give any incorrect feedback, but I’d like to try. It seems like yours is overall a bit bigger so there is the most slight difference in proportional distances from the image. There is some slight differences in the line angles in the left upper quadrant, specifically in the upper eyelid. These are both only small mms and degress differences, but I guess the value of the exercise is to replicate it to close to an exact copy, is that right? Overall I think it’s pretty dang close, so good job! Is this part  of the Sight size course?

[Josseline Jeria]

This was great! I love his critiques of paintings in particular, mostly because that’s my main jam. I particularly took from the last painting the importance of having an overall focus of the image to help clarify the message i.e. on value, or chroma, etc.

Joshua- I just tried to upload a new thread in the finished work section, but the thread was put into pending moderation. Would it be possible to amend that?

Cheers.

[Josseline Jeria]

Yes I feel the same way! I find it difficult to critique my own work, but seeing people engaging and providing it here, along with the video critiques by the instructors, is helping me to get better at doing so.

Same here 🙂 I’m fortunate that I am in a situation right now that permits me to devote a huge chunk of my day to learning and practicing my art. It is currently a matter of building up the capacity and endurance to use all that time.

So I’ve taken :

* Head drawing for beginners course – it is excellent! I came in not being able to draw a head at all, to being able to draw one with a solid foundational understanding and ohk- good competence in my drawing abilities 🙂  There’s a heavy focus on construction which is the fundamental important part of drawing a head. They have a number of different instructors which I found great to learn different yet interrelated approaches. I really enjoyed the Reilly section, particularly learning to understand the head in three different layers – bone, muscle, skin. It helped me to better see what all the bits and pieces of what you see in a face actually signify and are. Really helped support all that I learned throughout the course on construction. Having said that, I enjoyed all the sections.

*Colour Bootcamp course – one of my favourites so far! Colour is one of my main loves, so I knew I had to take this course early on, especially given I do a fair bit of painting, so I wanted to learn about colour theory to be able to improve my use of it. It is so so good, and the section towards the end is challenging but an incredibly valuable learning tool: you have to do 20 30min colour sketches working on elements you learn in the course – Hue, saturation, colour temperature and complimentary colours. That section REALLY pushed me, but I have a much better working ability with all of them when I paint.

*John Asaro approach to painting – I learned how to create better gesture in the figure, including the arms and the legs, and how to not make them look stiff. I learned how to push hue, saturation, and colour temperature further than what is given in a reference, which I liked a lot, given my love for colour. I followed along with the painting he did and came out with something I quite like 🙂

* The Spirit of the Pose- it’s a course I’m currently taking as I want to learn how to draw the figure. Love his approach to learning gesture. He teaches you to develop a self-correcting system for figure drawing so that you can be able to better see what aspect of your drawing you need to work on. I’m enjoying this a lot.

*Contemporary Realism in Oils – this course I’ve only watched, not painted along with, but gosh it was such a joy to watch. I adore Hollis Dunlap’s work, so I was thrilled to see he did a course for NMA! I learned a lot about how to build a painting up in layers, which I struggle with a lot. I just do things in one pass, but find my paintings look flat. Part of it is needing to improve my values, but another was what he teaches you – going from broader to more specific. And such a valuable lesson – that you correct a lot as you go along and not to fear that. You get to see how much he corrects his paintings, changes things, a lot. You see him struggle in parts, which is so reassuring. I want to sometime paint, using his approach, using the photo reference of the live models he worked with.

*Russian Academic Approach to Drawing – I started this one at the beginning of the year, but left it aside because I wanted to focus on painting again, as it gives me a creative boost and inspiration, as I was feeling burned out pushing myself quite hard last year. I am going to get back into it this week, as I really need to improve my drawing. I like the constructive approach with Russian drawing, as I find that only working through sight and observation didn’t serve me enough to see objects more conceptually.

I am a painter at heart, so all my artistic education has the underlying goal of making me a better painter. For subject matter I’m not sure yet what I want to focus on for my painting career. I have a number of conceptual ideas. I’m always writing things down that come into my mind for possible future development. I am working to develop my artistic voice and style, but allowing it to emerge organically rather than pushing it. My interests are VERY varied so I find it hard to focus in on any one. Doing some old master studies has made me see that I would love to focus heavily on composition in my paintings. I’ve painted master studies, still lifes, portraits, lanscapes, figures. Still in extremely early stages but the more I paint the more I realise that painting is a part of who I am. So glad to have discovered it, even if a bit later in my life compared to others.

Oh btw, I too like Sci-Fi! I’ve read a number of sci-fi novels, including Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series – which is great! Have you read The Three Bodied Problem? It leans a bit more on the harder science side, but the story is SO captivating. Do recommend. I played a few sci-fi games when I was younger – Mass effect series (though I cannot get myself through Andromeda), Halo, Doom. Movies – too many to name. Surely Terminator: Judgement day is on everyone’s favourite movies of all time list.

I hope so too and nice to meet you as well 🙂

[Josseline Jeria]

You’re welcome 🙂

Yes that’s right! There can be directional variation over the broad areas of the to help emphasize the plane direction, but within a specific area, it makes for a cleaner image to minimise it.

Yeah I like his approach to head drawing 🙂 I actually began rewatching some of his videos yesterday.

Keep drawing! 🙂

[Josseline Jeria]

you’re welcome 🙂

[Author]

Posts