"Figure Drawings"

Some recent figure work. The male figure is a drawing that I've worked on for about four, three hour sessions. Originally I was going for a 16" x 20 " canvas, but I realize with only three sessions left, I wouldn't get very far. So I photoshopped it and printed out a smaller version which I'll trace onto a small canvas. The skeleton is a drawing on tracing paper that I've started to do over the figure using Richers anatomy book. Eventually I'd like to keep adding layers until I complete an entire ecorche' drawing. The female figure is from my drawing group, a three hour pose. The block in seemed to come together on this one and it's one of those drawings where I wish I had another twenty hours.

"Lemons and Poster"

Heres the poster and a little bit done on the middle ground. The poster's going to help me a lot when I'm painting the foreground figure because of the compressed value range. I want to keep it kind of mysterious with most of the light on the still life and the background figure. A note to fellow artists ; if you want to torture yourself, paint lemons on a white plate. Most of the darks will be washed out by the reflected light making for some very tricky painting.

"More July and Roses"

Well, I thought I was done with the "Three Roses" 11"x14" but after looking at it in my studio for a while I just wasn't feling it and decided to jump back in. Mostly I worked on the background but also on the dipper and the table. Who knows if its better or just different, but I feel better. I can see why some artists turn their paintings to the wall after completing them, they just nag at you. I'm happy with the "Fifth of July" 8"x10", at least for now. It looks way better than it's photographing. One thing about working on linen is that the texture throws off my overhead lighting system. I'm going to have to come up with a solution. Maybe I can do something with photoshop. I'll just have to spend a day figuring it out.

"Limone" Underpainting

Kind of a different take on my usual still life paintings. A bit of an homage to Pietro Annigoni, on a slightly larger 16"x20" canvas. This one's going to take a while, but I won't be working exclusively on it and my models aren't going anywhere. I'll make a small poster study manana.

The method that I pretty much use now is to make a block-in, develop the drawing and shading masses, trace the drawing, transfer it with charcoal, and go over the lines with india ink. Then I cover the whole canvas with raw umber and a little black, using mineral spirits. I give it a quick wipe with a paper towel to get rid of the strokes and even out the tone. Next I use the paper towel to pull out the lights, and I work like a madman because the raw umber starts setting up within an hour.

"Three Roses" Final

Darkened a few areas, lightened a few, you know the drill. Anyways, that's all she wrote on this one.

"July 5" Poster and Ebauche

The poster study is on a 5"x7" canvas board and the ebauche is on an 8"x10" stretched linen. I decided to combine the wipeout with the ebauche on this one. Mostly because theres so much color involved but also because I'm not completely satisfied with painting over the wipeout (no colors to compare) and I'm not big on doing an ebauche on a pale ground because I feel that the colors end up looking too chalky and putrid and it puts me off. I'm digging the combination of the two a lot better and if this works out I may stick with it.

"Moth" Complete

The figure is from life and the background is completely imagined. It was tough to get then to relate, what helped a little was using a limited palette. It was fun and I'll probably try again when I'm feeling inspired to do so.