Self-Portraiture

It's about time for me to do my annual self-portrait painting. It was something I decided to do last year, when I painted my self-portrait digitally. Lots has changed over the course of this past year. But right now I'm trying to decide on which media I want to work in.

I'm also working on putting my portfolio together for college 'cos dammit, I want my BFA. So I want to do something that I could include in a portfolio -- I'm thinking of working traditionally.

It's been a very long while since I've painted my self-portrait. I still do self-portrait drawings, 30 minutes, no erasing. It's something I picked up from Evil Professor Rex, and I actually really enjoy it. It was something he had us do for homework in his life drawing class, and it's also something that he critiqued us very strictly on. He critiqued us on likeness as well as technique -- his background is very academic, artistically speaking, so he wanted us to draw as objectively as possible.

I'll admit, I was afraid of doing my self-portrait before I took his class. There's something about it that's fraught with issues, especially if you identify as an artist. Like many women, I have issues with the way I look, but after looking at myself in the mirror once or twice a week to translate what I see onto paper, I've discovered I'm okay with the way I look now. And when you identify yourself as an artist, there's also that whole set of baggage that comes along where not only do you have to draw yourself, you have to do it WELL because you're an artist, not a five year-old with a box of crayons. No pressure.

So here's a progression of my self-portraits, starting from my time in Rex's class to the ones I do now on my own. I'm only including the ones I think are better, because it's my blog and I get to curate things here, but these are the ones I'm happy with. Later I'll put up some of the self-portraits I did in his painting class, which was a whole new kettle of fish entirely.

Yes, you're going to see my construction lines. Like I said earlier, we weren't allowed to erase. I never understood some of the students who did surreptitiously erase -- missing the point entirely. It's good training to (1) put your initial marks down lightly, which is something I think I'll always need to work on, but also (2) it trains you to choose where you put your marks down, 'cos once it's down, it's down. It's worse when you work in pen, which Rex would have us do sometimes -- but I like working in pen because you can't erase. You have to put your marks down with confidence, or they suck.

For the most part, these were done in thirty minutes, no erasing, in pencil. The very first one, August '09, was the very first one done for Rex's class, and it's done across two pages of sketchbook, which was something I did a lot of at the time. The one next to it, September '09 was actually 45 minutes, and we were permitted to erase, which made me all kinds of happy! The very last one, dated September '11 was done in black Prismacolor Verithin, which I really enjoyed working with.

You're not seeing the ones where the proportions are uber-squirrelly, or the ones where the technique was really bad, or the ones that were really unflattering . . . well you get the idea.

So right now I'm doing the self-portrait drawings more often as a warm-up for the self-portrait painting. I haven't decided whether to post a WIP of it; but when it's done I'll definitely post it online.

Convalidation and Sketching

I've gotten out of the habit of carrying my sketchbook around everywhere and using it, so when I had to go to a Convalidation class yesterday with the husband, well -- it was a very long class!

As a side note, if they took all the religious stuff out of it, it would be a very good class for incipient bridal couples (talking about the importance of communication and understanding; realizing how much one's family influences a person and how they act in a marriage; how to fight fairly and repair any hurts that occur over the course of a relationship -- no, not physical fights or hurts! Anyway, everyone knows I don't fight fairly!) because not only does it teach valuable life skills on living the married life, it also is a test of devotion. If you're willing to attend something like this with your spouse-to-be for eight hours, then you'll have a better understanding of what marriage is all about as well as proof of your devotion to your beloved. Since this particular class was for married people (my husband returned to the Catholic Church), he so totally owes me ice cream for doing this.

Anyway, here's a few sketches from that class. And yes, I was paying attention while I was doing this.

Life Drawing II

Quick post to show off a little of what I've been up to. Warning -- nudity abounds!




Pencil and white chalk on brown paper, from life.

I later scanned this in and futzed with it to make a line drawing that I could transfer onto my silverpoint surface.

Oh, and the writing on the back -- "This space intentionally left blank" -- was for the prof's benefit, as he was reminding us to consider the backgrounds of our compositions.

It's a wonder I haven't been slapped with an F for life!

The actual silverpoint piece isn't finished, but I'll try to get a progress shot posted soon.  Pinkyswear.

A Few More Hour's Work

And more progress on the digital portrait.

Here's after about a couple more hours' work -- I thought I'd show it with and without the sketch side by side for easier comparison. Having the sketch on top really showed me that I needed more darks. I've been trying not to be so hesitant with this portrait -- hence all the crazy colors, I guess.




And after a couple more hours of work, I've pretty much dispensed with the sketch -- it was covering more than helping. I'm still bringing it up, but less and less as work continues. I've also blocked in something remotely resembling the final background:





I'm hoping to be finished with it in a couple more days. If it doesn't finish me first.

Nah, I'm having fun.

Digital Painting! Mothers, lock up your computers!

Just to show I'm not being a complete bum: I've been playing around with the GIMP for digital painting, and have a couple progress shots of what I'm doing so far.

Without sketch:





With sketch (as a multiply layer overtop):





Trust me, they're less rubbishy than the oil paintings I've been doing lately. This is after about two and a half, or maybe three hours? I'm not sure, I haven't exactly kept track.

Just to prove I haven't just been sitting around baking cookies.

Ooh, cookies.

Um, gotta go.

More Drapery

From drapery week. Graphite on sketch paper. I spent an hour and a half on it before I started to lose the light.

Drapery, sans Figure

I miss school already -- having just moved into our new house, and considering its distance to the campus -- well, there's no way. Short of teleportation.

Anyway, one of the things I've done this summer was to spend about a week studying drapery. I'd much prefer if the drapery were, well, draped around a figure, but one must adapt. Usually, in the figure-drawing class, we only get about twenty minutes per pose (thirty if we're extra-special good!), so I usually end up blocking in the figure and spending the majority of the time trying to capture the folds of the fabric. Twenty minutes just ain't enough to do it, sadly -- this little study took nearly two hours, and is a great deal smaller than what I normally work when I draw the figure.




Derwent Drawing Pencil (Chocolate) on manila paper, 7.75" x 10.5"


Although I must say, it was kinda nice to work with something that didn't need a break.

Update

Well, no new art to post as of yet -- most of the summer was spent *waiting* for our house to be ready to move into, and did I mention the waiting and waiting and waiting? And of course, the waiting was done while most of my art supplies were packed.

But hey! It's all over and done with, and we're all moved. Most of my supplies are unpacked now; I just have to organize things. However it's a little difficult as we have to worry about giant hordes of tiny attack frogs.

Yes. Tiny frogs. A few nights ago, as the husband went outside to smoke, a couple of the itty-bitty little frogs charged him and managed to make their way inside. We were able to capture one of them rather quickly, but the second one eluded us for quite some while. When he reappeared we evicted him as well, but he had been out of sight for long enough to emplace hidden cameras, or *shudder* do things to our computer (just what he did to our computer I dare not imagine!).

Seriously -- they're tiny. About an inch long. And bright green.

And they're so freaking cute!

The first time we saw one, it hopped onto the husband as he walked out the back door, startling him. Here's the culprit, hanging around on our back door:



And here's one I saw this morning, on our kitchen window, backlit by the sun:





And of course, the little blighter pooped on the window while he was there:



And yesterday I saw a frickin' huge moth on our patio door:



He hung out there for quite awhile, even letting me put my hand close enough to him so I could show his scale:



And, since this is really supposed to be an art blog, here's one of my daily sketches I did back in June:



graphite, watercolor, Derwent InkTense pencils, and acrylic.

EDIT: You know those little green frogs? One just attacked my nose. I'd be traumatized if I weren't laughing so damn hard.

Forest Sprite Sketch

One of my daily sketches:




Watercolor, InkTense pencils, graphite and gel pen.

The reference photo is courtesy of magikstock

It's actually the second attempt at this pose. Sometimes my sketches are pretty good. Sometimes they really, really suck. I'll try not to post the sucky ones online *grin* but I had a lot of fun with this sketch, and I can foresee myself working on a more finished version of this sketch in the near future.

Bellydancer Sketch

I've been busy recently with non-art related stuff, but I've been trying to get in one sketch per day. Usually I spend no more than twenty minutes on a sketch -- sometimes less than ten if it's a simple pencil sketch.




This particular sketch was a bit of a challenge -- partly because I started with a dark, random blotch of watercolor to sort of prime the paper. The reference photo, courtesy of elflands-workshop, was particularly lovely and I wanted to do it justice. As a result, I ended up with one of the most mixed media pieces I've ever done (ink, watercolor pencils, watercolor, graphite, gel pen, colored pencils, and acrylic), and I spent a bit more time than I normally would have on a simple sketch.

But I'm happy, and that's what counts, right?

Male Figural Sketch

Another one of my daily sketches, and this one's not nude!

Erm, not that there's a lot of detail anyway. It's just one of those quick little twenty minute sketches. Graphite, InkTense pencils, India ink, and Prismacolors. The original photoref can be found on this site.

Some of my daily sketches

Uploaded three new sketches to my scraps at deviantArt. They're nudes, otherwise I'd post 'em here.
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05122008-sketch-86275178
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05132008-sketch-86275374
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05202008-sketch-86275625

Cartoon

I've been busy recently trying to get work done for an upcoming show. The good news: I have an upcoming show. The bad news: they won't let me hang nudes.

Now doesn't that sound all kinds of perverted.

So, between schoolwork and house-hunting, I've been frantically stretching canvases, priming canvases, measuring frames, and so on. I much prefer drawing, because I'm a great deal more competent at it. But drawing requires matting and framing in order to be presentable. A painting on canvas needs only to have its sides neatly painted, either in a continuation of its painting, or in a solid color (such as black, or the background color of the painting in question). Right now I can't afford to mat and frame five or six pieces. But with a little effort, I can make my paintings ready to hang.

I do have something to show for my absence -- a full sized cartoon of the painting:




Charcoal and carbon pencil on brown paper, 40" x 16".

I've never really done a full-size cartoon before -- usually I'll have a sketch in my sketchbook, and I'll take it over to the artograph at the school and use that to enlarge the image so I can transfer it to the canvas. This time, though, I wanted to work out the composition at size instead of fiddling around on a smaller area. It's actually pretty liberating: I don't have to fudge on some areas that would be too small on a 5x7 sketchbook. I also know where everything is going. Sometimes, working in the sketchbook, I won't get the proportions of the composition right, so when the image gets enlarged, the composition gets thrown out of whack. What I mean is that I'll scribble a haphazard box to work out my composition in, but the box (picture plane) doesn't have the same proportion as the canvas I end up working on. So, the arrangement of elements I worked out in that box doesn't work well on the canvas.

Closeup of the figure's face.

I'm still working out exactly what I want and where I want it in the composition. I'm anxious to get started on it, but I know if I don't finish the drawing and know where everything is going to be and what direction I'm going in, I'm going to flounder somewhere between 60 and 75 percent of the way through the painting. Happens every time. You folk who work so spontaneously and on the fly -- you're lucky dogs. Nyah.

This is a little scary for me -- I'm still afraid that I'm going to irrevocably screw up and have nothing to show for it. I'd cross my fingers, but it's rather hard to hold a brush that way!

Next time I'll post some of the progress on the painting itself.

Naked

I'm currently working on a number of works for an upcoming show in March. The show is for those students who did well in the Fall Portfolio Review at my college, and it's off-campus at a local community arts center. I am so totally cool with that. I love to show off my art.

However.

And it is something of a however.

Not a but. Because, as it turns out, but(t)s are a bit problematic.

The people who run the venue are a bit on the conservative side. Prof B. -- who was the one who informed me that I was included in the show (yay!) -- also informed me that they specified no nudes.

Ulp.

I am, primarily, a figural artist. I love the figure. If I could take figure drawing classes every day for the rest of my life, I'd probably be quite happy. It's hard enough that people are reluctant to purchase nudes even though they understand it's artistic, and even admire the image. But to have a venue that won't show nudes, and not because of local ordinances -- that's demoralizing to me.

And they're not the only ones shying away from the nude. I've heard that one of the local colleges won't accept nude figural work for an inter-college show. What the heck is up with that? One of the things that is usually required for a college submission portfolio is figural work. The nude figure has a long and exalted history in art education. And for a college to refrain from hanging figural work . . .

I'm glad -- and lucky! -- that the school I go to is willing to hang nude figural work.

Anyway, if you're still with me, and you remember what I wrote at the very top, I mentioned I'm working on a number of pieces for the upcoming exhibition. I have a body of work, but that body is naked.

Oh, excuse me. Nude. *wink*

Here's something from my sketchbook that I'm going to expand on for the show:

Look Ma -- no breasts. I'm sure she'd be so proud.

On second thought, she'd probably try to have me committed. She's more into staid portraits and still lifes.