Another Figure Drawing Session

It's been a looooong time since I posted something. After working on oil painting and figure sessions I realized that I haven't worked on a still life in months. I finally got started on one this last week. In the meantime here's something from one of the sessions I've been to. Over a span of about three months I've done a lot of these drawings, including a lot of bad ones. This is one of the better ones. Feel free to comment of criticize.

Another Figure Drawing Session

I'm trying to refine my process a little bit, meaning that I'm focusing more on the drawing than the values, shading, etc. Feel free to tell me what you think.

Onions and Peppers

I thought I'd go away from the vertical compositions I usually work with and work with a horizontal arrangement. The view is from a lower perspective and everything is arranged side by side.

I like drawing red onions. They have a small, rounded shape and they're easy to draw. It's a lot more challenging to render and paint them because of the subtle value and color changes along the shape. And it's tempting to draw the lines in the onion skin too dark.

I'll be doing more oil painting from now on, mostly to get more familiar with it. I've been checking out a few daily painting sites and I'm really inspired to give a try. I just hope I have the discipline to stick with it.

Feel free to comment.

Still Life with Chinese Tile

I had a really hard time setting this one up. I wanted to direct light from the top left of the composition to the bottom right and really emphasize the vertical orientation. Since a lot of the composition is in the dark, I wanted to soften the edges in the dark parts and sharpen them in the lighted areas. Finally I wanted to emphasize the highlights on the fruit to show the path of the light.

Despite the fact that it took so long to set up and paint, it was fun painting this one. The Chinese text was really challenging to draw and render because the light caused a subtle change in value, so it wasn't entirely black in some areas.

Please feel free to comment.

Figure Drawing Session

I've taken a little break from life drawing sessions, mostly because of other things. Here's one that was finished almost a month ago. It comes from a long pose (3 hours).

Feel free to comment...

Still Life with Puppet

I had a lot of problems with this still life, mostly with the composition. I intended to use dark colors in the background, using light/dark contrast to bring more attention to the focal point. I kept repositioning everything except the rabbit but nothing seemed right. After about a week, I finally settled on this arrangement. From start to finish I added a few things and took some things out. All in all, it was frustrating to work with textures and the perspective but I had fun with this painting. It was definitely a learning experience, and hopefully I'll do much better next time.

Since the last time I posted my still life "Plums" was selected as a finalist in The Artist's Magazine 27th annual competition.

As always, feel free to comment or criticize.

A Change of Pace

For a change of pace, I'm posting a portrait (more like a profile). This one took about two hours with breaks. Feel free to comment or criticize.