self 3, 4, 5

self portraits 3, 4, 5 of 14. I'm up to #9 and just got so utterly sick of looking in the mirror yesterday that I couldn't do anything. That said, I'll probably continue doing this for a long time. They're turning into sort of an interesting series.

I'm hitting what I suppose would be the midterm portion of school - getting slammed with these 14 portraits due next week along with a big painting and 3 cast drawings. Plus a makeup anatomy class on Sunday, oh boy. In my big painting, I'm finally starting to back away from the strict representational academic moda and putting together a totally different style that might bridge some of my old school work with the representational skills. Hopefully I'll have something exciting to show on it a week from now.

weiners, models, bento.

I'm in the midst of a posting frenzy! Anything to avoid finishing my readings on the size of the phallus throughout Art History. (actually it's quite interesting)

And a few words of advice. Firstly, don't lose your keys. However, if you do lose your keys (it happens) and your roommates have a bunny (name, Bento) make sure the bunny is locked up. If you do lose your keys AND your bunny isn't locked up AND you need to run around the house in a frenzied keyhunt because you're late for school, don't leave your breakfast on the table because bunnies are hungry in the morning too.



Going on, if you're late to drawing class you get the crap spot. In this case, looking down at the models head from slightly behind profile on the shadow side. Ted Schmidt says "uhhh...well...Degas did a striking portrait from this angle once." but unfortunately I'm just Jason. After a couple hours of fudging headstuffs around I ended up with something presentable. The other drawing I prefer, but it photographs horribly for whatever reason.





Enjoy your cage, Bento.

more painting class

This was an absolutely ridiculous still life arrangement followed by an even more ridiculous lighting setup. I only captured about 25% of our spread, including the skull, Gumby, Planet of the Apes Ape, soldering buddy, and old timey camera. On top of that it was lit with a red gel for the main light source and a blue gel for the reflected light. I actually learned quite a bit about shadow in this exercise - not to think of it as a lack of light, but as a different (temp and value) light source - and also to really think about that line where the 2 light sources combine (terminator or whatever).



and the finished dead palette self portrait ... not too unhappy with this one.

1 of 14

I've become accustomed to staring at myself in the mirror for about 3 hours per day doing these self portraits. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself when this series is done with.

The current assignment is 14 in 14 days at a maximum size of 4"x4".



Things learned: don't fuck it up on the last stroke ... 30 min can easily turn into 3 hours.

Profiles, Big Hands, and Hips

paintings

In progress. I think the lower half of my mug is a bit long, but I sort of like that. Again, amazed you can get pretty close to accurate colors using this dead palette, maybe its because I'm a painting zombie. Dead palette by the way is earth primary colors (yellow ochre, blue-black, trans red + white).



same painting, colors a little more accurate than the last update.





The whole thing - pigeon is pretty much done but all the background is in limbo. This was an perspective assignment.

My paintbrush is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life.

Last week was ROUGH.

I can't help but think of the Rifleman's Creed scene in Full Metal Jacket this week. My paintbrush, without me, is useless. Without my brush, I am useless.

Anatomy studies of hip and ribcage due Monday.
Cast drawing due Tuesday.
2 readings for Thursday.
3 paintings (2 self portraits in different palettes and a still life) Thursday
1 big painting Friday.

All that being sick and having a messed up back, that has to be about as hectic as it can get. I've been keeping a pretty regular schedule of 9am-11pm in the studio M-F and I was also in from noon-9pm Saturday. Pizza and coffee, coffee and Pizza. Sunday was a well deserved football day.

I've already had to paint 4 self portraits for painting class homeworks and 1 drawn for drawing class. Our esteemed painting prof has warned us that in a couple weeks we're going to have to do one small self portrait per day for 14 days. He's trying to kill us off, I'm sure of it, but we're becoming decent fast.


This is the way I left the studio today. The drawing is a little wonky but I think the light is looking pretty good. Pardon the poor iphone shot. It's a red-oxide, blue-black, yellow ochre (dead) palette.




Warm-cool still life in about 9 hours. Red-oxide and blue-black. It's amazing what you can do with 2 colors and white.




This model held this pose for 6 hours! You could tell he was hurting at the end of the day. This is with the iphone, but I'll post a better photo later on. Gotta love the male nude holding a pole.




A close-up of my first painting for History of Composition and Design. I'll get a better photo of the whole thing and post it. The only requirement was that it use Renaissance perspective (single point window). I was having some trouble getting the lamp-lit dark room to come together, but I just put down a glaze of transparent red-brown mix and it worked! The light just all fused and makes sense.




This was the product of probably my fastest painting session ever. I threw this warm-cool self portrait together in about 90 minutes and just decided to keep it loose because I knew I'd just mess it up with time.