WOW! A lot of time and stuff has happened since last I blogged. I should be ashamed of myself since one of my New Year's resolutions was supposed to be about making entries and putting my work out there more often, but I forget! I really do have tremendous memory problems. Maybe not as bad as a goldfish's, though...
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| Haha... uh, where am I? |
A few weeks ago, I read an article about our brains and how our unhealthy habits affect the poor guy... Getting enough sleep and drinking plenty of water are so important to our health. Geez, I'm still working on the water thing! I gotta get my 8 glasses in! Aren't our bodies about 65% water?
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| This cat's got the right idea! |
All funny stuff aside, I have work for sharing! These are school assignments, but they're sexy paintings of naked ladies! Classy stuff, obviously. This past quarter, a group of my illustration buds and I were lucky enough to take a figure painting class from Ed Murietta! He's an amazing artist who's worked as an animator for Disney and also was Senior Creative Director at Cartoon Network, among other things. He'd taught a figure drawing class last year that was equal parts awesomeness and frustration, so I was a little worried about how this class would go. I certainly can't say it was easy, but I made it through and have built some character because of it.
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| At first we did charcoal drawings... |
These are a few of the figures from the drawing class. We did SO MANY! He told us to buy a newsprint pad and had us doing pose after pose. He made us work! It's a bit painful remembering how difficult it was for me at first, but I'm so much better now. The first 2/3's of the class was just drawing with charcoal. It got real, though, when he had us start to render these ladies. First we worked with just a little white charcoal. Then he upped the ante and had us work in chalk pastels!
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| My favorite of my figures! |
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| Everyone else's favorite. Meh for me... |
I got messed up and bought oil pastels instead. The top one is from that first class. It's always annoyed me that she's slightly crooked, but it doesn't take away from how awesome she turned out, in my opinion. The bottom figure is nice because of the pose's movement. Everyone I showed it to was a fan, but I wasn't into it as much. Maybe it was the smoothness of the chalk that I wasn't drawn to? HA! That pun was definitely intended.
If I remember correctly, Ed had us using 3 fleshy colors (a light, medium, and dark) for toning our figures and then a turquoise color that he referred to as our half tone (fancy-shmancy). We used it for reflective light and also for the transitional areas where light and dark begin to blend. I didn't really get it back then. The painting class was where I got to understanding the half tone.
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| Not brave enough to finish at the time... |
Our process was exactly the same as with the chalk pastels except we were using water soluble oils! Holbein's the brand, I think. The paints are really nifty because you don't need to mess around with stinky turpentine or other weird chemicals. First we painted our figure's outline (see above). Then we'd block in the shadows. We used only our brown colors at first (burnt umber and terra rosa) but near the middle he got us to experiment with a cobalt in our shadows, and it produced some interesting results! Next we'd mix the overall skin color with yellow ochre, white, and coral red.
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| My bestest painting! |
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| Quickie |
Then what I would do is start adding a lavender color (halftone) where I saw reflective light happening. It also goes where the shadow meets with the lit side of the body. When its worked in a bit, it makes a nice transition to the core shadow. After that, I mix up the highlight color and blend that in as well. It's not that easy, though. There's a lot of back and forth, working colors in so they look just right, but then you've gotta find a balance so the painting doesn't get muddy. I tend to overwork my paintings, so I have to think about my steps and not get too carried away. It's easier to add on more than it is to take it back.
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| My comp |
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| Doesn't she look like She Hulk's cousin or something? |
For our last class,
we worked on two poses, making them super nice and even adding some different colors to the mix! First we did a quick study, deciding on our composition, colors, and whatnot. Then we executed. It was awesome to see how far each of us had come. He was just sitting in the back (was he painting, too? I forget...), letting us do our thang. Yeah, I'm okay with this green chick, but I know I could have done better. Hmm... I just noticed I forgot the little sash she was wearing in the comp... Haha, oh well! And that's it. I'm already 2 weeks into this new quarter, so I'd better actually do some homework!
Until next time! ~~~ <(*-*<)
