The "Life Changing" Block-In

                 I'll never forget the first time that I learned of the "block-in" and the "straight line" drawing method. It was my first day in a still life painting class run by Robert Armetta www.robertarmetta.com . I was working in charcoal on a small canvas depicting a few oranges and a vase. I was freely rendering the oranges when it was pointed out to me that they all looked like ping pong balls, perfectly round, with no way of distinguishing one from the other. Robert pointed to a poster of an enlarged Bargue (Charles Bargue artist) drawing on the wall, and explained to me that if I used straight lines at first, like the Bargue drawing, I'd be better able to capture the unique quality of each specific orange. I didn't get it right away, and in fact I'm still working it out 15 years later, but it has probably been one of the largest factors in shaping the look and direction of my work.
    I've recently started a small still life of a mermaid figurine placed inside of a shell; no symbolism implied, I just like the way the forms fit together. Last week I went to see the Sargent show at the Met. The show was great. It was very crowded, even though the museum had just opened. Leaving the exhibit I remember feeling very anxious, I wanted to start a whole new body of work with thicker paint and more brushstrokes, and less underpainting and preliminary drawing. Than I happened to notice that there was a George Caleb Bingham exhibit. The galleries were empty. As I walked through the exhibit I was captivated by the calm workman like way that Bingham had struggled to capture a particular slice of American life. There were lots of drawings and you could see what a large part the drawings played in the look of the finished paintings. It calmed me down considerably. I realized that everyone isn't cut out to be or needs to be a John Singer Sargent. Not to take anything away from Sargent, he is still one of my favorite painters, but I don't feel bad anymore that I don't have his bravura technique. The work that I find myself drawn to these days is a meal, to use an analogy, that's prepared on a slow cooker. Anyway, getting back to my drawing, I suppose I could draw directly with brush on the canvas, but there's something about the contemplative nature of the block-in that I believe ultimately gives strength and character to the eventual painting. Maybe the difference is subtle, and I'm the only one who sees it, but in this era of figurative painting where artists seem determined to figure out who can come up with the most expressive applications of paint, it seems important to remember the Classical ideals that gave me my start.

Here you can see my initial straight line block-in, including the envelope used to measure out the forms. The second drawing shows me adding further refinement while not losing the underlying structure indicated by the block-in.  I will give it one more pass of refinement before I transfer it to a canvas.

Portrait Studies

These are a couple of small (8"x10") portraits done in a single session, on a white, untoned, canvas board. My procedure is to draw directly on the canvas using raw umber thinned with oms. I'm drawing with a small synthetic bright made by Robert Simmons for acrylic paint. It makes very gestural, softish marks where I can do a light block-in. Once that's resolved I take a small synthetic round and re-draw my lines and terminator lines. I try to keep detail to a minimum at this point and concentrate on getting accurate shadow shapes. Than I wash in the shadow shapes with umber, add some secondary tones, and background. My next step is to identify the overall local flesh color of the model and thinly brush in the shadow tone and middle tone. Once I'm happy with that I begin to refine the larger planes working my way towards smaller forms without losing the big masses. I've been doing a lot of quick painting lately, demos and such, and it's really impacting my approach to painting.

Pancho

"Pancho" 11"x14", oil on linen. This one seemed almost to paint itself. Sometimes it goes like that. I windowshaded my way across the underpainting and had very little retouching to do at the end. I had the words of my former instructor, Robert Armetta, ringing in my ear, when he used to tell me, as I painted a detailed area to "paint it's portrait", so that's what I did with the wooden crate. If you're wondering why this photo looks so much better than the rest it's because I've finally found an affordable professional photographer to hire. His name is Devin Cecil-Wishing, he's a third year student at Grand Central Academy, he does all of their artwork photography, and best of all if you're in the New york metro area, he will travel to your studio. Drop me a line if you're interested, and i'll give you his contact info.

Progress Shots

"Study for Victoria" 5"x7", "Victoria" 16"x20", "The Still Room" 16"x20"

I painted the poster study of Victoria at my portrait group session. Then when I got home I transferred my drawing to a canvas and did a rub in. I feel like I've got a better handle on my flesh palette this time then my last portrait. The still life is coming along and some subtle changes are starting to happen in my work. I'm not sure what they mean but I'm digging them so I'm letting things progress naturally.

Form Crawlings

I got three more hours in each on the figure and the portrait. I'm using the same pre-mixed palette for each, under the same lighting, with different results. Go figure. I'm happy with the way the figure is going, I'm not sure about the portrait yet. I wish that I had done a smaller study first, but I thought I had only five sessions so I wanted to get right to it. Now it turns out I may be able to get in an extra five. I'm thinking that I may have overdone the light on the zygomatics and maybe also that the cheek that turns away could be brought down altogether a step or two. This is where having the poster as a guide comes in handy. I'll stick with this one until I get it right, but next time I'm definitely doing a poster. It's better to have one eye socket that's perfect than a whole face that's off.

Two Casts

I'm just about done with the Lion cast painting (11"x14", oil on linen). Nick at Grand Central Academy of Art has done a good job of keeping me focused on the direction of the light. The base of the cast is unpainted and somewhat darker in tonality and of a warmer color than the plaster body. It almost looks like cement, so I added burnt umber to my pre-mixed grays to capture the effect. I think it'll make a nice segue into the reddish brown of the table top. This is to be my last cast painting at GCA, i'm moving on to portrait or figure, I haven't decided which yet.

For "Yellow Rose and Cast" (8"x10", oil on linen), I'm not using my tubed grays. As this is not really a cast painting exercise but more of a still life I'm looking for more variations in temperature and chroma.

Lion Cast

This is the poster study and the ebauche for a new cast painting that I've started at GCA. I decided to use a rubbing in technique on this one rather than a wipe out or a thinned down full color stain. I'm only part way through the ebauche because I only had three hours and it took me a while to complete the poster (5"x7") .The actual painting is 11"x14" my largest one to date. The cool thing is that since I've done quite a few of these now I'm being given a little latitude so I'm approaching it more like a still life . Most cast paintings don't bother too much with the background. The poster actually has areas of pure white in it which shows the limitations of pigment and digital photography. I'm going through a lot of experimentation with the lighting setup in my studio and I'm getting good results which I'll post here in the near future. I wish I knew where this lion came from I haven't had any luck matching the image.

Ariadne

I finally finished this cast painting that I've been working on one day a week, for three hours, since september at the Grand Central Academy of Art. My instructor and I decided it would be interesting to throw in a little color since I've already completed several grisaille paintings. I worked from the top down, deciding to go right for the hardest area first. I had in mind a friend of mine once telling me when we were kayaking down the Delaware that I should go for the fastest part of the rapid as a surefire way to get through. Of course I ended up sinking my boat. I think I had a little more luck with the cast though. I've got to get a digital SLR one of these days, the old point and click just isn't up to snuff.

More "Eggs" and "Satyr"

Finishing up on "Spicy Eggs", will probably need a few last touches. I'll probably want to subdue the right side of the table a little more. I'm pushing the detail a little more than I usually do on small 8"x10"s, no reason, just felt like it. The cast painting is my fourth one at Grand Central Academy of Art. I'm on a summer break until September, so I won't be able to finish it until then. I'm having a lot of fun with this one and I'm looking forward to completing it, the only problem is that they're redoing the lighting system so I may have trouble getting the exact same lighting. I figure that I've got enough done on it that I'll be able to wing it. Most of the top of the head that's left will be compressed light values.Next term I'll be doing cast painting in the morning and figure drawing/painting in the afternoon. That's going to be a long day, but well worth it.

Nancy Better?

I think this is a better photo, closer to the original, although the color is slightly off. I also included an update on the radicchio painting. I was a little hesitant to use cadmiums on that table but I wanted the intense color to make a nice foil against the fairly neutral vases. I did have to keep knocking it down a bit until I was satisfied.

Nancy's Cheek

I completely repainted the chin and mouth area and a bit more today. This time I matched my color string to the poster study by keeping right next to my larger canvas and trying out the mixtures directly on the poster. It's a little hard to tell because todays pic photoshopped a little dark but the values are keyed to match. I had a little bit of a revelation in cast painting class yesterday. Up until recently I've always painted with fairly large bristle filberts, but I decided to start using smaller rounds to kind of get myself ready for cast painting the GCA way. I had the idea all wrong in my head. I was painting with the tip of the brush trying to pile micro-form on top of micro-form to eventually add up to the larger forms. My instructor saw what I was doing on my cast so he came over and demonstrated on a little section of my painting. He used the heel of the brush to lay on paint stroke next to stroke, without too much fussing around, using the tip only when needed to lay in a subtle tone between tones. That's pretty much the way I painted with bristles so once I got the idea my cast painting just kind of took off. So I decided to re-work the portrait along the same lines and it's making a lot more sense to me now. With the direct method, form has to come first, than detail if needed. I knew this, but in my zeal to learn a new method I completely "duhhed" out on it. Well, that's why I'm there, to learn.

Cast Drawings

These are some of the cast drawings that I've completed at the Grand Central Academy of Art's saturday cast drawing class under the instruction of Nick Hiltner. I did a mouth cast about two years ago during the summer intensive but I could tell I wasn't really getting it. Last January I started up again and now after a year part time I'm ready to move onto cast painting. I can't wait. The order of completion was the eye, ear, hand and satyr statue. I didn't get to finish the hand because when I came back from the summer break someone else was using it so I just moved on. I kind of like having one that's half finished as it shows the process.